Quotes About Definitions

#1. Some artists are told what to like and told definitions of what the music business is. That's a problem. Music is artistry, and you want your music heard, your act known. But artists don't know. They are ignorant the minute they sign a contract.

Chuck D

#2. The light of humane minds is perspicuous words, but by exact definitions first snuffed, and purged from ambiguity, reason is the pace ... And, on the contrary, metaphors, and senseless ambiguous words are like ignes fatui; and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities.

Thomas Hobbes

#3. A theorem is a proposition which is a strict logical consequence of certain definitions and other propositions

Anatol Rapoport

#4. Jun Do was thinking about all the popular definitions of love, that it was a pair of bare hands clasping an ember to keep it alive, that it was a pearl that shines forever, even in the belly of the eel that eats the oyster, that love was a bear that feeds you honey from its claws.

Adam Johnson

#5. So different groups have different definitions, and then they clash on those. So it takes adept leadership to say we're going to work through these.

Michael Emerson

#6. Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Penitent: Someone who has been made incapable of enjoying himself.

Idries Shah

#7. Definitions, her grandmother once said, had to be like a fat man's belt - big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.
The Sunborn

Gregory Benford

#8. Those who are long on logic, definitions, abstractions, and formulas are frequently short on a sense of the concrete.

Flannery O'Connor

#9. I think that people feel they know what love means, it's probably one of the most used words in the world but has the most completely different definitions from one person to another.

Tom DeLonge

#10. Definitions are temporary verbalizations of concepts, and concepts- particularly difficult concepts- are usually revised repeatedly as our knowledge and understanding grows.

Ernst Mayr

#11. A verbalizing race has words for every old concept . . . and creates new words or new definitions for old words whenever a new concept comes along. Always! A nervous system that is able to verbalize cannot avoid verbalizing; it's automatic.

Robert A. Heinlein

#12. The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.

Anton Chekhov

#13. The skyscraper style first advocated by Louis Sullivan - a tower of strongly vertical character with clear definitions among base, shaft, and crown - has remained remarkably consistent throughout the history of this building type.

Martin Filler

#14. There are definitions of morbid obesity. Doctors define it.

Jane Velez-Mitchell

#15. If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one's own writings in translation.

Vladimir Nabokov

#16. No one can become successful for you. It takes personal definitions, personal decisions, personal convictions, personal actions and personal responsibility to succeed in life.

Archibald Marwizi

#17. Mathematics is entirely free in its development, and its concepts are only linked by the necessity of being consistent, and are co-ordinated with concepts introduced previously by means of precise definitions.

Georg Cantor

#18. It's interesting that one of the definitions of the word 'human' is 'sympathetic.' More and more people are beginning to show that they understand why that is important.

Ingrid Newkirk

#19. And I found there were myriad definitions of this thing called tragedy that had wormed its way through the history of literature; and the simplest of all was this: that it is the story of a figure who, through some moral flaw or personal failing, falls through force of circumstance to his doom.

Helen Macdonald

#20. I am a girl of definitions, of logic, of black and white

Cecelia Ahern

#21. I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.

Gloria E. Anzaldua

#22. A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

Edith Wharton

#23. MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet. The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.

Ambrose Bierce

#24. The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God.

Rob Bell

#25. Because of my mother, who gave me definitions, I knew what I was committed to in life ... I had the most satisfactory of childhoods because Mother, small, delicate-boned, witty, and articulate, turned out to be exactly my age.

Kay Boyle

#26. Like navigation markings in unknown waters, definitions of poverty need to be distinctive and unambiguous. A definition that is not precise is as bad as no definition at all.

Muhammad Yunus

#27. I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you're right that attitudes evolve, including mine.

Barack Obama

#28. Rebelling against the status quo was one of the definitions of conservatism.

Rick Perlstein

#29. Perhaps there is supranatural: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that only makes sense if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in.

Wm. Paul Young

#30. There are alternate definitions of manhood in the West.

Frank Dobson

#31. To be fixated on Sahaja Samadhi is to be fixated. To be fixated on the idea of being not fixated is fixation too. All these ideas and definitions about enlightenment become silly.

Frederick Lenz

#32. One of the better definitions of insanity - doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting the result to be different.

Anthony Kiedis

#33. This much should be clear by now: the term 'renaissance' can only remain fruitful and demanding as long as it refers to a far-reaching idea: that it is the fate of Europeans to develop life and forms of life according to and alongside the Christian definitions of life and forms of life.

Peter Sloterdijk

#34. If one would discern the centers of dominance in any society, one need only look to its definitions of "virtue" and "vice" or "legal" and "criminal," for, in the strength to set standards, resides the strength to maintain control.

Freda Adler

#35. The new focus on the image undermined traditional definitions of information, of news, and, to a large extent, of reality itself.

Neil Postman

#36. The only problem is that it's difficult to imagine something entirely new. We use the words and definitions of the past to shape our ideas. Something that is genuinely the next evolutionary step is unlikely to resemble anything we can imagine. Even the best books on the subject are limited." She'd

Genevieve Cogman

#37. What is a weed? I have heard it said that there are sixty definitions. For me, a weed is a plant out of place.

Donald C. Peattie

#38. In a modern dictionary, the noun "melancholy" has two definitions. First, it means "thoughtful or gentle sadness.

Joshua Wolf Shenk

#39. I have never turned a trick in my life, and I just resent the American definitions of 'sex slave' and 'prostitute' so much. I was a mistress!

Kola Boof

#40. Secular journalists ... tend to accept uncritically the oft - repeated Evangelical Protestant and Conservative Roman Catholic definitions that the Bible is anti - gay. If these people were honest, they would have to admit that the Bible is also pro - slavery and anti - women.

John Shelby Spong

#41. Matter can be conveniently divided for descriptive purposes into space , time , mass, and energy . However we can only describe any one of these phenomena in terms of the other three. Any definitions we care to make about matter are thus tautological .

Peter J. Carroll

#42. Excuse me ... but I reject your definitions of me.

Saul Bellow

#43. Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds?
There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable.

Edmond De Goncourt

#44. It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.

Samuel Johnson

#45. The trees show definitions of themselves subtly like the face of a man.

Daniel J. Rice

#46. I done forgot all abt words
aint got no definitions

Ntozake Shange

#47. ... Here we come close to one of the definitions of literary fiction. Even the best kind of popular novel just comes straight at you; you have no conversation with a popular novel. Whereas you do have a conversation (you have an intense argument) with [literary fiction].

Martin Amis

#48. Helplessness was a strange experience, new to her; she had never found it hard to face things and make decisions; but she was not dealing with things - this was a fog without shapes or definitions, in which something kept forming and shifting before it could be seen ...

Ayn Rand

#49. I'm totally calm. I would just like to know who marred your skin so that I can put a name and face to the creature I'm going to kill very slowly." "I think we might have different definitions of calm," I said wryly. "I've never been calmer in my life.

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#50. The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

Maxine Hong Kingston

#51. In Hollywood films everything is tidied up at the end with clean lines and clean character definitions. It's sort of unsatisfying.

Jim Broadbent

#52. He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.

Peter L. Berger

#53. All right, then, her first rule for the rest of her days: no more looking outside for definitions. She might not have any clue who she was, but better to be lost and searching than shoved into a social box by someone else.

J.R. Ward

#54. Definitions, contrary to popular opinion, tell us nothing about things. They only describe people's linguistic habits; that is, they tell us what noises people make under what conditions.

S.I. Hayakawa

#55. Sexuality and love can be different things. I can be attracted to a woman sexually, but it doesn't mean I want to be in love with a woman. If I'm going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn't mean I'm a lesbian. We put these restraints and definitions on people, but it's hard to define.

Cameron Diaz

#56. Most weeks, I work 100-plus hours. There are definitions of 'work-life balance' that would say I have none.

Kathryn Minshew

#57. A lady is nothing very specific. One man's lady is another man's woman; sometimes, one man's lady is another man's wife. Definitions overlap but they almost never coincide.

Russell Lynes

#58. Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Toni Morrison

#59. The reality we live in is selected by our conceptual definitions. You and I may be in the same physical space, but each of us will see it as entirely different.

Ram Dass

#60. Definitions from Mulla Do-Piaza
Adherent:
Someone who will believe anything except what he should.

Idries Shah

#61. Is your Christian experience a set of definitions, a list of orthodox doctrines, or a living relationship with God?

Warren W. Wiersbe

#62. I am very much afraid of definitions, and yet one is almost forced to make them. One must take care, too, not to be inhibited by them.

Robert Delaunay

#63. Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions.

Tryon Edwards

#64. Boarding-House Geometry DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS All boarding-houses are the same boarding-house. Boarders in the same boarding-house and on the same flat are equal to one another. A single room is that which has no parts and no magnitude. The landlady of a boarding-house is a

Stephen Leacock

#65. Definitions must contain the means of reaching a decision in a finite number off steps, and existence proofs must be conducted so that the quantity in question can be calculated with any degree of accuracy.

Leopold Kronecker

#66. ...but the truth is, the more hours I spend in contemplation, the less I know about God-and the more I realize how arrogant it is for us poor humans to squeeze the Infinite into our limited definitions.

Patry Francis

#67. If we could all give our own definitions of God, there would be as many definitions as there are men and women.

Mahatma Gandhi

#68. In general, religious people seem to be happier than non-religious people - under various definitions of "religiosity," such as church attendance or professed spiritual beliefs.

Gretchen Rubin

#69. The definitions of the Church are the rules of true faith.

Alphonsus Liguori

#70. Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.

Toni Morrison

#71. The thesis that the universe has an originating divine cause is logically inconsistent with all extant definitions of causality and with a logical requirement upon these and all possible valid definitions or theories of causality.

Quentin Smith

#72. All true definitions of art are circular, and all untrue definitions of art ascribe to it a specific function. A

Julian Barnes

#73. People should decide what success means for them, and not be distracted by accepting others' definitions of success.

Tony Levin

#74. In general I don't like definitions, but 'Minimalist' is a term that means elegance and openness, so I would prefer to be called a Minimalist than something else.

Ludovico Einaudi

#75. One never knows how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her - is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is the very least question of definitions.

Gregory Maguire

#76. Want to guarantee nasty conflicts? Take a word with multiple, fuzzy, definitions, force people to strike an agreement on it, attach large amounts of money to it, and then watch them fight about it a year or two later.

Michael T. Nygard

#77. Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can't reason without them.

Robert M. Pirsig

#78. In other words, Cantor is able to show that real numbers themselves can serve as the limits of fundamental sequences of reals, meaning his system of definitions is self-enclosed and VIR-proof.

David Foster Wallace

#79. To demystify the meaning of love, the art and practice of loving, we need to use sound definitions of love when talking with children, and we also need to ensure that loving action is never tainted with abuse.

Bell Hooks

#80. Having all these lies so that you could feel special. It's time to let go of fantasy and imagined problems. It's time to embrace the crude and harsh truths.

That the existents, the discourses, the frameworks, your words, your meanings, and your definitions, all begin to fade, away, again

Camilo Garzon

#81. An intelligent adult often feels it is demeaning to pay attention to simplistic definitions.

Robert T. Kiyosaki

#82. If a person is intelligent, then of course he is either an agnostic or an atheist. Just as he is a physical coward. They are automatic definitions of high intelligence.

John Fowles

#83. Yet human experience and the practice of communication have shown throughout the ages that definitions are an illusion, like having a speech defect and trying to say love but unable to get the word out, or, better, having a tongue in one's head but unable to feel love.

Jose Saramago

#84. I think people have different definitions of team unity. My definition is doing whatever it takes to win, what makes a great team; it's performance on the field, respect on the field.

Hope Solo

#85. These are society's definitions of poverty and wealth: To be poor is to have less and to be rich is to have more. Under these definitions, we are always poor, always covetous, always dissatisfied, no matter the size of our salary, or how comfortable we are, or if our needs are in fact fulfilled.

Ken Ilgunas

#86. My definition of cursing is probably different from what other people's definitions are.

Jimmy Kimmel

#87. Part of diplomacy is to open different definitions of self-interest.

Hillary Clinton

#88. Faeries are not fantasy, but a connection to reality. Faeries are irrational, poetic, absurd, and very, very wise. Faeries say there is nonsense in dogma, and sense in nonsense. Faeries express themselves with high seriousness and low humour. Faeries are resistant to all definitions.

Brian Froud

#89. DSM definitions do not include personal and contextual factors such as whether the depressive symptoms are an understandable response to loss, a terrible life situation, psychological conflict or personality factors.

Allen Frances

#90. No requirement of industry is so much neglected as operational definitions.

W. Edwards Deming

#91. Greek was very much a live language, and a language still unconscious of grammar, not, like ours, dominated by definitions and trained upon dictionaries.

Gilbert Murray

#92. One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.

Alvin Toffler

#93. Games of chance fell outside the boundaries of urban reformers' definitions of respectable labor and amusement

LaShawn Harris

#94. Each opinion, each view is necessarily partial, truncated, inadequate. In philosophy and in anything, originality comes down to incomplete definitions.

Emil Cioran

#95. The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

James Baldwin

#96. A few rules include all that is necessary for the perfection of the definitions, the axioms, and the demonstrations, and consequently of the entire method of the geometrical proofs of the
art of persuading.

Blaise Pascal

#97. Like the sea, the Web is volatile: 70 percent of its communications last less than four months. Its virtue (its virtuality) entails a constant present-which for medieval scholars was one of the definitions of hell.23

Alberto Manguel

#98. We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.

Sarah Dessen

#99. The spiritual path has no negative emotions and we are spiritual beings having human experience. The experiences need courage to complete the cleansing process. It defines the design that conforms to the external definitions of what we are.

Robert Jordan

#100. I define a diva as a woman who possesses courage, beauty, style, and confidence. Based on that definitions, I've probably got a bit more work to do.

Faith Hill