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.

I want to define success by redefining it. For me it isn't that solely mythical definition - glamour, allure, power of wealth, and the privilege from care. Any definition of success should be personal because it's so transitory. It's about shaping my own destiny.

My definition of good is that you understand that this is a question of power. That you be willing to give up some power. That you be willing to give up some resources. That you be willing to pay Black people reparations for our years and years of service in this country. That you be willing to go home and tell your white mother and father about white racism and how it affects and kills Black people in our communities. That's my definition of good white people, and I haven't met any like that.

Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all the acts and events that fill time are the definition, and it must be lived.

My definition of God: God is not only the alpha, the omega, he is friend, he's a confidant, he is a buddy. He is a lover of my soul. That's my definition of God.

[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.

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

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 beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.

Love is the direct opposite of hate. By definition it's something you can't feel for more than a few minutes at a time, so what's all this bullshit about loving somebody for the rest of your life?

Perhaps the greatest definition I think of character and quality is people who when they're truly great rather than making you feel that tall they make you feel that tall, that they're greatness as it were improves you.

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

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.

At one point, I worked up a list of five requirements for a superhero: superpowers, a costume, a code name, a mission, and a milieu. If the character had three out of the five, they were a superhero. But that's just my definition.

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

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 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.

I was involved in the color correction and the digital color correction. In an odd way, you end up making a film many times-the DVD, the archival record of a high-definition master, and so on.

Some things cannot be explained. This is part of the magic of life. There cannot be a word or an idea or a definition attached to everything.

The very idea of "managing" a forest in the first place is oxymoronic, because a forest is an ecosystem that is by definition self-managing.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

The physical five oranges goes up the ladder to the picture of the five oranges which goes up to the representation of the five oranges as a numeral. This points in the direction of a definition of abstraction: when we abstract we voluntarily ignore details of a context, so that we can accomplish a goal.

Everybody has a different definition of the good side.

Every public space is like a billboard, with messages from the collective subconscious of the nation. There one can read passivity, rage indifference, fear, double standards, subversion, bad economy, a twisted definition of 'public' itself, the whole Weltanschauung - an entire range of emotions and attitudes is exposed.

A disciple having asked for a definition of charity, the Master said LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself.

My definition of love is: Being willing to die for someone, that you yourself want to kill.

I'm not really sure that I have the same definition of things as other people. Like, when people talk about being "engaged" with the audience, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

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."

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.

Definition of good neighbor: someone to be trusted; a courteous, friendly source of help when help is needed; someone you can count on; someone who cares.

I think it's offensive to equate evangelical Christians, Catholics, others that view marriage as between a man and a woman, as being racist. We're not racist. We love our fellow man, we think we're all equal under God's eyes, we don't believe we should change the definition of marriage simply because of opinion polls or because of a court that quite frankly isn't looking at the constitution.

A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring.

You have to have the definition of what you're trying to do across the system.

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.

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?

In my experience, Cupid's arrows rarely strike two people with the same definition of cleanliness. One partner usually feels like he or she is being asked to live in a furniture exhibit in the British Museum. The other partner remains convinced that he or she is forced to contend with the human version of Hurricane Gilbert.

Sanity and enlightenment...I've been reading a new book Dogen's Genjo Koan: Three Commentaries, and it contains a commentary on Genjo Koan by Shunryu Suzuki, the author who wrote Zen Mind, Beginners Mind. He doesn't mention sanity at all but I think that one possible definition of enlightenment would be a kind of profound sanity, where being insane is no longer an option.

When the first Superman movie came out, I gave dozens of interviews to promote it. The most frequent question was: What is a hero? My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences. Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.

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.

One dictionary defines denouement as "a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain." By that definition, it is exactly the wrong word to describe this chapter. This chapter will make nothing clear; it will raise many questions; and it may even contain a surprise or two. But I say we call it the denouement anyway because the words sounds so sophisticated and French.

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.

My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restriction of externally imposed definition.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.

There are a lot of discussions where people will decide that James Bond is a superhero, because he's a larger-than-life hero who beats the bad guys by doing larger-than-life things. And I don't think that's a useful definition.

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.