Quotes About Definition

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

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.

The beauty of being black in American society is that black has always been an inclusive definition. White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.

Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.

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.

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

No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this-'devoted and obedient.' This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.

Any trade that is voluntarily made is mutually beneficial, by definition, and, indeed, is balanced, by definition.

The definition of an asshole is someone who doesn't believe what he is seeing.

By definition pop is extremely catchy, whether you like it or not.

My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. You can be sincere and still be stupid.

And what gift of America to the rest of the world is actually most appreciated by the rest of the world? It is African American jazz and its offshoots. What is my definition of jazz? Safe sex of the highest order.

I tried to come up with a definition of this new paradigm in six articles entitled "Russia after Putin." I would consider Russia's integration into Europe the most important element of this strategy.

Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.

The definition of eternity is two people and a ham.

Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love - which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal we find happiness. Pleasure is not the purpose of anything; pleasure is a by-product resulting from doing something that is good. One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, 'How can I please God?' and, 'Why am I not better?' It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition.

Our lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change... If you disable change, if you effectively stop time, if you prevent the possibility of the alteration of an individual's circumstances — and that must include at least the possibility that they alter for the worse — then you don't have life after death; you just have death.

We've all received our share of good fortune, so that's my definition of much. A single blessing is all the bounty in the world, and if you've been blessed at all you're meant to pass some of that on. You're meant to set a positive example. That's our responsibility

I love my editor, but that would be the definition of hell to me to live with someone and have them go page by page through my manuscript. That I want to avoid at all costs.

Everything about the enterprise, and then by definition the software the enterprise uses has changed - just in the last 5 years.

Early withdrawal from Iraq would result in unarguably, defeat and humiliation for the United States. There's no question. We would be defeated by definition. We would be humiliated in that defeat.

The very definition of 'beauty' is outside.

For the record, feminism by definition is: 'The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.'

The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out. The moment you carry out any of your dreams or your fantasies - travel around the world, climbing a high mountain, buying a new house, writing a novel, carrying out a sexual fantasy, traveling to an unknown country - the moment you carry out your dreams, it's always, by definition less perfect and rosy than it had been as a dream. This is the nature of dreams.

If you dont love, youve lost your distinction, definition, uniqueness, and identity.

I have a type of bipolar that swings up and down all day long. There are significant mood swings within a day, within a week, within a month. I go through at least four major episodes a year. That's really the definition of bipolar rapid cycle. But I have ultra-rapid, so I have tiny little episodes all day long.

The question of the family now divides our society so deeply that the opposing sides cannot even agree on a definition of the institution they are arguing about.

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

Under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control.

There are many people like me who believe firmly, if somewhat incoherently, that pockets on this planet are filled with what humans have left behind them, both good and evil, and that any such spiritual accumulation can stay there forever, past definition of such a stern word.

If one is going to change the definition of marriage to be, quote, 'same sex,' then there is absolutely no valid argument constitutionally or rhetorically you can make against multiple people getting married. These are radical social changes.

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.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I'd invented it, because it is very true.

The God who inspired the Bible is the same God who made the universe, Earth, and all life. This God is the very definition of truth; therefore nature's record will never contradict Scripture and vice versa. When a seeming contradiction confronts us, we can know with certainty we have either misunderstood (one, the other, or both revelations) or perhaps we haven't yet dug deploy enough. Whatever the case, we can embrace the opportunity to gain greater knowledge and appreciation for the Bible, for nature, and for the God who is responsible for both.

One would expect that private property taken by eminent domain would become land available for public use such as parks and roads. Unfortunately, this decision creates a loophole for government to manipulate the definition of public use simply to generate greater tax revenue.

It is almost as hard to define mathematics as it is to define economics, and one is tempted to fall back on the famous old definition attributed to Jacob Viner, "Economics is what economists do," and say that mathematics is what mathematicians do. A large part of mathematics deals with the formal relations of quantities or numbers.

The definition of disappointment in life is expectations minus reality equals disappointment. The only two solutions you have to get over disappointment is to either alter your reality or alter your expectations.

A choice is the root of all morality. Without choice, one can have no moral code. In a vacuum bereft of alternatives, there can be no values. And without values, there can be no reason for a code of ethics. What gives our lives meaning is which alternatives we choose. If we have no options, if we can take but one path, we are by definition slaves.

By definition, memoir demands a certain degree of introspection and self-disclosure: In order to fully engage a reader, the narrator has to make herself known, has to allow her own self-awareness to inform the events she describes.

Maybe we don't have the same definition of about what's beautiful. So define it. Define true beauty.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then liberalism is a form of insanity.

The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.

You can never have 'equality' between two things that are not equal by definition. And so, for example, you can have equality among 'people', but not between 'men' and 'women'.

I have kept diaries, of course, but they can't be read for quite a long time. I'm always curious about people who are fascinated by writers' lives. It seems to me that we're always in our books, quite nakedly. I wonder, too, does the private life really matter? Who cares what is known about you and what isn't? Even when you make public something that's been private, most people don't get it - not unless they're the same generation and have gone through more or less the same experiences. So, in a sense, we're all private, by definition.

The definition of hell in the legal system is: endless due process and no justice; (in the corporate world) it would be: endless due diligence and no horse sense.

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

I think we will make it. Because one quality people have - certainly Americans have it - is that they can adapt when they see necessity staring them in the face. What to avoid is what someone once called the definition of hell: truth realized too late.

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.'