Quotes About Definition

Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart" - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

It is fair to say, Bernie Sanders, that in your definition, as you being the self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism, I don't know anyone else who fits that definition, but I know a lot of really hard fighting progressives in the Democratic party who have stood up time, and time again against special interests, against the powerful on behalf of those who are left behind and left out.

Now that's a concept that's always fascinated me: the real world. Only a very specific subset of people use the term, have you noticed? To me, it seems self-evident that everyone lives in the real world - we all breathe real oxygen, eat real food, the earth under our feet feels equally solid to all of us. But clearly these people have a far more tightly circumscribed definition of reality, one that I find deeply mysterious, and an almost pathologically intense need to bring others into line with that definition.

Even if it's a definition that feels oppressive to us, that oppression can be inspiring because it helps us push up against something while we're writing. Or if it's a definition that we want to defend and uphold, we are given a sense of the boundaries within which we can work.

Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential. Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it.

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

[Cities] are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of these is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.

The definition of genius, really, should be that that person can do what the rest of us have to learn how to do.

There is no response to stubbornly by many posed the question of the meaning of expeditions in the high mountains. I've never felt the need for such a definition. I walked to mountains and defeated them. That's all.

Men are enforced into a kind of silence about their gender; they're supposed to not think of it as a performance. That's the definition of manliness - that it's not a performance; it's being yourself, authentic. Whereas women have understood gender as performance. Men have not yet made that quantum leap, or rather they're making it in many ways, they're not thinking about it.

The definition of eternity is two people and a ham.

God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.

I do not know what might be the most fitting description.... I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff: I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.

No-one has held back. They have put some definition around the numbers and now we have to wait for the reality.

We don't consider black, urban films as 'indies,' though many of them are shot for under $10 million which is kind of the definition of an indie.

The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.

Any person who wants to govern the world is by definition the wrong person to do it.

I'm inspired by strong, courageous women. My mother is the definition of a self-sufficient, independent woman whom I have always looked up to. I also greatly admire incredible women like Aung San Suu Kyi, and human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 4 years in Iran, simply for giving a voice to the voiceless and defending the helpless. And I'm in awe of the young Pakistani student and activist, Malala Yousafzai, for her bravery and resilience in the face of brutal repression.

My definition of evil is unfriendliness.

A son or daughter in any human family is either born to or adopted by the parents. By definition, a child can't be both. But with God we're both born of Him and adopted by Him.

My definition of secularism is very clear. The sole religion of the Government is Nation First, the holy book is the Constitution.

Many people believe that decentralization means loss of control. That's simply not true. You can improve control if you look at control as the control of events and not people. Then, the more people you have controlling events - the more people you have that care about controlling the events, the more people you have proactively working to create favorable events - the more control you have within the organization, by definition.

But at the beginning, our definition of the genocide was what happened to Armenia in 1917 or 1919, it's happened to the Jew in Europe, and we were not realizing - In our point of view, they have not the tools to do a genocide.

The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

Once you call something a story, it's set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can't be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it's not the same story anymore

As children in the seventies we were told about nebulous 'strangers'. By definition, we didn't know who these strangers were, and we didn't know what they wanted to do, but only that they were sinister. I think that was the stage the seventies were at.

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.

Maleness in America is not absolutely defined; it has to be kept and re-earned every day, and one essential element in the definition is beating women in every game that both sexes play.

The Democrats stand to lose even more seats in the Senate. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It's certainly a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix everything that has been on our minds for 30 years. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it's not being utilized - and it isn't being utilized, sadly, because the perception is that it's House and Senate Republicans that are refusing to work with Donald Trump, that they're embarrassed of him, that they don't want Trump to become the definition of a Republican.

When you are dealing with a serious compulsion or addictive pattern, then by definition self-will, self-discipline, and any other machinations of the conscious mind are not enough by themselves to handle the problem. It is like a breaker switch in your brain is simply flipped. Anybody who has had this kind of a problem knows that it doesn't matter how intelligent you are. Sigmund Freud said, "Intelligence will be used in the service of the neurosis."

Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.

My new 9mm didn’t fit my hand as well as my old one, but it was rapidly becoming a familiar weight. At first I’d decided it was okay to wear as long as I shot only at supernatural bad guys who were already shooting at me. Lately, I’d had to broaden that definition to anytime my life was in danger. I was currently leaning toward a slightly more comprehensive rule somewhere between proactive self-defense and the-bastards-had-it-coming, which, if I survived long enough, I intended to blame on my deranged partner rubbing off on me.

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.

I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by definition all rational understanding; why are they so eager to concede without a struggle the defeat of knowledge; and where does their irrepressible need to belittle rational understanding come from, this rage to affirm the irreducibility of the work of art, or, to use a more suitable word, its transcendence.

Does something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become a part of the edge and thus a part of the boundary, the definition which gives the whole its shape?

My definition of patriotism is to defend your country with the truth, no matter the consequences.

That is almost the definition of any friendship that is worthwhile - that we don't care a damn how you behave yourself.

Don't take anyone else's definition of success as your own. (This is easier said than done.)

Human rights are not a privilege granted by the few, they are a liberty entitled to all, and human rights, by definition, include the rights of all humans, those in the dawn of life, the dusk of life, or the shadows of life.

While an artist can choose whether or not to be responsive and responsible towards other human beings, by definition a designer must be.

By definition, saving - for anything - requires us to not get things now so that we can get bigger ones later.

I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others.'

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.

The only truly dependable production technologies are those that are sustainable over the long term. By that very definition, they must avoid erosion, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource waste. Any rational food-production system will emphasize the well-being of the soil-air-water biosphere, the creatures which inhabit it, and the human beings who depend upon it.

Do you realize what's been done to this whole definition of immigrants? The way Democrats and the left talk about immigration, immigration is anybody who wants to come to the country. And so if you're opposed to anybody coming in, then you're anti-immigrant.

The very definition of the innate hollowness of leading a political life when you end up on your nearest and dearest moments or most personal evenings with donors. That should - that should tell you all you need to know about the ramble that is politics.

The whole art of allowing the truth to take possession of you is of being vulnerable, of being open, of being in a let-go. Or in other words, the whole art consists of one word, "surrender". And that's what sannyas is, that's my definition of a sannyasin: a man who is surrendered to existence so totally that he never thinks in terms of achievement any more, because he is no more. Who is there to achieve? - he has disappeared totally, he has not left even a trace behind. In that very moment, when you are just a pure nothingness, truth arrives. It is a gift of God.

I believe that the definition of luck is when preparation meets with opportunity.