Quotes About Definition

A word is used "correctly" when the average hearer will be affected by it in the way intended. This is a psychological, not a literary, definition of "correctness". The literary definition would substitute, for the average hearer, a person of high education living a long time ago; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak or write correctly.

Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.

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.

This idea of doing it all is the enemy of equality, not the path to do it. It's impossible to do two full-time jobs, and an impossible definition of success is just another way of making women feel like failures... Any definition of success has to include social policies that honor families and men who raise babies as much as women do.

It can be the level of sexual assault is relatively low. What was described on the plane by Ms. Leeds, it would very likely satisfy that definition. She said that he reached under her skirt and fondled and groped her. That type of thing would satisfy the definition for sexual assault.

If we change the definition of marriage to be more inclusive, then it is logical to argue that we should broaden the definition so that won't exclude anyone.

...the mathematician uses an indirect definition of congruence, making use of the fact that the axiom of parallels together with an additional condition can replace the definition of congruence.

I feel most spiritual when I'm out in the woods. I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars. [I used to say] I was an atheist. Now I say, it's all according to your definition of God. According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God.

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

Embryonic cells, by their very definition, are not from your body. Right now, inside your body, you have everything necessary to build what you need now.

We can all be geniuses because one definition of genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.

The definition of terrorism has to be more precise, so that we are able to discriminate between, for example, what it is that the Palestinians are doing to fight the Israeli military occupation and terrorism of the sort that resulted in the World Trade Center bombing.

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

The excitement of life is in the numinous experience wherein we are given to each other in that larger celebration of existence in which all things attain their highest expression, for the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratory event.

Mosts scientist are unable to arrive at a specific definition of biological evolution. “Biological evolution is… change in the properties of populations of organisms (you and me) that [happen during] the lifetime of a single individual. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next

I don’t think success is a place or a definition, I think it’s a direction.

A fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season.

The solution of present-day problems lie in the re-establishment of a harmonious relationship between man and nature. To keep this relationship permanent we will have to digest the definition of real development: development is synonymous with culture. When we sublimate nature in a way that we achieve peace, happiness, prosperity and, ultimately, fulfilment along with satisfying our basic needs, we march towards culture.

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.

In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

All things change. The automobiles change every year. [Your] television set gets lighter and smaller and higher definition. All things in the scientific world change. But politicians do not change. They carry old values and they don't even know it.

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

I think being from Iran sharpened my eye as an art dealer. This is why, today, I think the true definition of so-called postmodernism is the acceptance that we cannot go by old models any longer. The old models were based upon a single narrative of development that happened along a singular path. In the 20th century, you have electricity, you have transportation by plane, you have the telephone and all the various media that developed, you have a multiplicity of events and voices and creativities that are happening all around the world-and that multiplicity escalated after the war.

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.

Quietly affirm that you will define your own reality from now on and that your definition will be based on your inner wisdom

In a lot of ways, the task at hand for any poem is to approach something that defies exactness or definition with a kind of exactness or precision.

Here is a definition which correctly reflects the course of thought and action of a grandmaster: - The plan in a game of chess is the sum total of successive strategical operations which are each carried out according to separate ideas arising from the demands of the position.

The seeds of destruction lie in the definition of "chosen-ness" and can easily blossom into bigotry. It's not inevitable but it needs constant care to avoid.

Intellectuals are judged not by their morals, but by the quality of their ideas, which are rarely reducible to simple verdicts of truth or falsity, if only because banalities are by definition accurate.

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.

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions - none more so than the most capable.

He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.

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.

Everybody has a different definition of the good side.

Continuing to believe the same thing, even in the face of new evidence to the contrary, is the definition of insanity - except in politics where it's called leadership.

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.

Believing in an idea is dangerous! Because belief is absolute, and absolute, is unconditional, it is supreme, its ultimate and therefore fixed, which by definition will never be acceptable to change.

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.

A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children

It is said that life begins when the fetus can exist apart from its mother. By this definition, many people in Hollywood are legally dead.

Forty-five States, as the gentleman just said, have determined by people that were elected by the people of that State that marriage is the definition of one man and one woman.

What's an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows, he doesn't know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone who doesn't admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn't really know how much.

I havent even been drinking, but, at all, but, you know, being a man, Ive got to say that weve got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, you know, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity, and he's a good old boy, and he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck, etcetera like that. Thats not the definition of a man, God Dammit!

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.

I have no difficulty with the recognition of civil unions for non-traditional relationships but I believe in law we should protect the traditional definition of marriage.

People often say to me, "How come you don't want to be CEO of a company?" And I tell them, "I don't want to." I know I can do it, but I don't enjoy it. Why does that have to be the definition of success?

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