Quotes About Definition

There may well be a few extremists out there somewhere calling for a militant, women-only utopia, but why should this be the definition of 'feminist' when it's already the definition of 'silly'?

The smell of subjectivity clings to the mechanical definition of complexity as stubbornly as it sticks to the definition of information.

Perhaps no man is an island, but every man and woman is a nation unto herself. I actually had to look up the definition of "nation"; this is how awkward my relation is to this concept. And it is defined as, "a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory." Perhaps if you replace "descent" with "dissent" the definition becomes more meaningful.

I don't really see huge barriers between any styles of music. My definition of music is "organizing sound and silence into emotion," and that's a very broad definition.

If pressed to supplement Tweedledee's ostensive definition of logic with a discursive definition of the same subject, I would say that logic is the systematic study of the logical truths. Pressed further, I would say that a sentence is logically true if all sentences with its grammatical structure are true. Pressed further still, I would say to read this book.

If anyone wants to know what the definition of 'dope' means, it's: 'Definition of Public Enemy.

One person's definition of evil is another person's different definition.

The conscious mind is easily overwhelmed. The unconscious mind is vast and far more powerful, but by definition we're not aware of it.

What is the definition of guts? Grace under pressure.

Books can accommodate the proximity of computers but it doesn't seem to work the other way around. Computers now literally drive out books from the place that should, by definition, be books' own home: the library.

I do think we are seeing the definition of what is a carrier changing. You can turn America-class amphibious assault ships into smaller, less expensive versions of carriers. You can equip surface ships like destroyers as well as submarines with not just missiles and torpedoes but drones than can do roles traditionally performed by carrier aircraft, like surveillance or even strike, such as finding and taking out opponents' missile batteries.

The two-word definition of sustainability is 'one planet.'

The definition of S & M is letting someone hurt you that you know would never hurt you.

The definition of hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing.

It's not easy having a good marriage--but I don't want easy. Easy doesn't make you grow. Easy doesn't make you think. I thank God everyday that I am married to a man who makes me think. That's my definition of true love.

The definition of a revolution: it destroys the perfect and enables the impossible.

If you think spreading money around by force seems like an odd definition of fairness, you're not alone.

The definition of a modern approach to war is the acknowledgement of individual lives lost.

Gentlemen, let us suppose that man is not stupid. (Indeed one cannot refuse to suppose that, if only from the one consideration, that, if man is stupid, then who is wise?) But if he is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. In fact, I believe that the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

The brightest minds in our field have been trying to find a definition of science fiction for these past seventy years. The short answer is, science fiction stories are given as possible, not necessarily here and now, but somewhere, sometime.

Maybe the best definition of what a great partnership or great love is when people make each other grow in a better direction than they would have grown on their own.

My definition of prosperity would be quite different than what most people probably imagine or think, because I think that a wholeness word that means nothing missing, nothing broken. It's not finances or materialism.

They say the definition of ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.

I don't believe in doing thousands of cuts, then giving it to the editor to make the movie. 'Dump-truck directing' is my reference to that style of moviemaking. You have to know how to cut before you can shoot well. The lack of definition in movies today is appalling. Very few people know how to mount a narrative anymore. If a scene works in one cut, you don't need 10. Or it might need 10. Let's not make it 20.

Selfish people are, by definition, those whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness. Yet. . . these selfish people are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy.

Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.

Dreams are, by definition cursed with short life spans.

He had by now divested himself of schoolboy attitudes. He was unburdened by the desire to be a martyr or a hero. Any thoughts in that direction, Belgica effectively had quashed. Heroism in the corrupt sense of the age almost by definition, meant wanton self-sacrifice and bungling. For neither had he any taste. He wanted rational attainment; victory, but not at any price. No point upon the globe was worth the cost of a single life.

How come all the harmless people were so lame? Maybe that was the definition of safe.

We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.

... human free will implies God's prior decision not to tamper with the metaphysical base of that free will. It also implies man's ability to reject the persuasion God uses to influence that free will while leaving its metaphysical base intact! Persuasion, not compulsion, is what even He must rely upon! And persuasion, by its very definition, must be resistible!

My definition of an artist is anyone who's ahead of his time and behind on his rent.

I am the complete and utter definition of a Luddite.

We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course.

At first, the idea of doing a 90-minute workout in a 40 degree room sounded like torture. But the sweating is exactly what I became addicted to. My body changed dramatically almost immediately. Within three classes, I noticed less belly fat. My knees and legs are stronger than ever now; my arms have definition for the first time in my life; and my posture is much, much better. I also feel completely energized from all of the deep breathing. I leave class relieved of any anxiety I went in with, and the sweating and detoxifying make my skin feel great.

The court's injected itself in the definition of marriage, deciding whether or not human life is worth protecting, permitting government to transfer private property from one person to another, even interpreting the Constitution on the basis of foreign and international laws.

I've always been interested in definitions, because in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are there but there's no real clear definition of what sin is, in a fundamental sense - how we can use the words to evaluate our lives as we go along: Am I doing something that is ethically good? Am I being worthwhile in my life at this moment?

I don't think there's any one definition, but to do effective political work you have to have vision and practicality, and learn how to persuade people that what you feel needs to be done does need to be done.

It's amazing what a bit of soot and shaving can do for muscle definition, honestly.

School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition.

Tolstoy's definition of art is the inverse of the truth; the task of art is to transform not perception into feeling, but feeling into perception.

It is always brave to insist on undergoing transformations that feel necessary and right even when there are so many obstructions to doing so, including people and institutions who seek to pathologize or criminalize such important acts of self-definition. I know that for some feels less brave than necessary, but we all have to defend those necessities that allow us to live and breathe in the way that feels right to us. Surgical intervention can be precisely what a trans person needs – it is also not always what a trans person needs.

In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration".

When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.

A discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge. During my lifetime, I made two. Both were rejected offhand by the popes of the field. Had I predicted these discoveries in my applications, and had those authorities been my judges, it is evident what their decisions would have been.

The best definition of an immortal is someone who hasn't died yet.

My definition of success? The more you are actively and practically engaged, the more successful you will feel.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.