97 Definition Quotes

It is thus quite simply false that whereof one cannot speak (in the sense of 'there is nothing to say about it that specifies it and grants it separating properties'), thereof one must be silent. It must on the contrary be named.

How can Blair fight a war on terror? Terror is not an ideology or an army; terror is a technique.

To say that man is a compound of strength and weakness, light and darkness, smallness and greatness, is not to indict him, it is to define him.

Art is skill, that is the first meaning of the word.

Democracy is the opposite of totalitarianism, communism, fascism, or mobocracy.

No sense in no sense innocence of what of not and what of delight. In no sense innocence in no sense and what in delight and not, in no sense innocence in no sense no sense what, in no sense and delight, and in no sense and delight and not in no sense and delight and not, no sense in no sense innocence and delight.

No one today knows what is indecent.

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.

We are all ill; but even a universal sickness implies an idea of health.

Music is everything that one listens to with the intention of listening to music.

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.

To discover the meaning of what is called 'social justice' has been one of my chief preoccupations for more than 10 years. I have failed in this endeavour - or rather, have reached the conclusion that, with reference to society of free men, the phrase has no meaning whatever.

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.

'What's my philosophy? In a word, integral. And what on earth - or in heaven - do I mean by 'integral'? The dictionary meaning is fairly simple: 'comprehensive, balanced, inclusive, essential for completeness.' Short definition, tall order.

There are several different meanings of the words 'religion' and 'spirituality,' all of which are important. The whole point about an integral or comprehensive approach is that it must find a way to believably include all of those important meanings in a coherent whole.

Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-)

Too much has already been said and written about 'women's sphere'. Leave women, then, to find their sphere.

What is Freedom? - ye can tell That which slavery is, too well - For its very name has grown To an echo of your own.

It would not be difficult to come to an agreement as to what we understand by science. Science is the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thoroughgoing an association as possible. To put it boldly, it is the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization. But when asking myself what religion is I cannot think of the answer so easily. And even after finding an answer which may satisfy me at this particular moment, I still remain convinced that I can never under any circumstances bring together, even to a slight extent, the thoughts of all those who have given this question serious consideration.

We designate by the term 'State' institutions that embody absolutism in its extreme form and institutions that temper it with more or less liberality. We apply the word alike to institutions that do nothing but aggress and to institutions that, besides aggressing, to some extent protect and defend. But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.

The following general definition of an animal: a system of different organic molecules that have combined with one another, under the impulsion of a sensation similar to an obtuse and muffled sense of touch given to them by the creator of matter as a whole, until each one of them has found the most suitable position for it shape and comfort.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. [2]

But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation. --Austin, Papers 73.

Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law.

Engraving is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch.

The thoughts which the word 'God' suggests to the human mind are susceptible of as many variations as human minds themselves. The Stoic, the Platonist, and the Epicurean, the Polytheist, the Dualist, and the Trinitarian, differ infinitely in their conceptions of its meaning. They agree only in considering it the most awful and most venerable of names, as a common term devised to express all of mystery, or majesty, or power, which the invisible world contains. And not only has every sect distinct conceptions of the application of this name, but scarcely two individuals of the same sect, who exercise in any degree the freedom of their judgment, or yield themselves with any candour of feeling to the influences of the visible world, find perfect coincidence of opinion to exist between them.

The pious pretence that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing. Its overshadowing formlessness obsesses the mind. The way to beat an enemy is to define him clearly, to analyse and measure him. Once an idea is intelligently grasped, it ceases to threaten the mind with the terrors of the unknown.

It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the-if he-if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not-that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. : Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.

Running isn't a sport 'cause everybody can do it. Anything we can all do can't be a sport. I can run, you can run. My mother can run : you don't see her on the cover of Sports Illustrated, do you?

I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic.' It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another? ~ Ch. 10

Our racial pride is not aggressive except in so far as the Jewish race is concerned. We use the term Jewish race as a matter of convenience, for in reality and from the genetic point of view there is no such thing as the Jewish race. There does, however, exist a community, to which, in fact, the term can be applied and the existence of which is admitted by the Jews themselves. It is the spiritually homogenous group, to membership of which all Jews throughout the world deliberately adhere, regardless of their whereabouts and of their country of domicile; and it to this group of human beings to which we give the title Jewish race. (13th February 1945)

Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by 'science,' they are likely to differ on the meaning of 'religion.'

It doesn't matter if it displays Mona Lisa, a Banana or Hans Rittman's glasses - the fact is it must be pop!

For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom, others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, others with these, or one of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others include also external prosperity. Now ... it is not probable that these should be entirely mistaken, but rather that they should be right in at least some one respect or even in most respects.

We indeed see the globe caught up in a 'new kind of world war,' but what kind is it? Veterans of World War One and Two would have to shake their heads at a 'war' where people die in fives, dozens or hundreds rather than millions.

Now, to say that a lot of objects is finite, is the same as to say that if we pass through the class from one to another we shall necessarily come round to one of those individuals already passed; that is, if every one of the lot is in any one-to-one relation to one of the lot, then to every one of the lot some one is in this same relation.

What is soul? I don't know! Soul is a hamhock in your cornflakes... Soul is a joint rolled in toilet paper.

Well, I don't agree that it's genocide, but I definitely agree that there's suffering going on there.

'Crap,' said Janet. 'He was a whinger and he wrote it down. That's not poetry.'

Toute definition implique un axiome, puisqu'elle affirme l'existence de l'objet defini. La definition ne sera donc justifiee, au point de vue purement logique, que quand on aura demontre qu'elle n'entraine pas de contradiction, ni dans les termes, ni avec les verites anterieurement admises.

By a State I mean, a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others.

(When asked to define 'Acid Rock') I wouldn't know. I'm a juicer.

'We are Motorhead, and we play rock 'n' roll.' - Lemmy's opening words at Motorhead concerts.

Of course you know what a Snark is? If you do, please tell me: for I haven't an idea what it is like.

Man is man because he capable of and only in so far as exercises self restraint.

Very early on, I determined not to let other people's lack of imagination define my life.

Apocatastasis. What it means: 1) Restoration, re-establishment, renovation 2) Return to a previous condition 3) (Astronomy) Return to the same apparent position, completion of a period of revolution. Think about it.

The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly -- or people; after all, the 'flight' of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I'm told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage.

Look for Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr in Wiktionary, our sister dictionary project.

If 'socialism' is defined as 'ownership of the means of production'--and this is both the orthodox and the only rigorous definition--then the United States is the first truly Socialist country. -- The Pension Fund Revolution (1976)

Well I think we do have to define torture. One man's torture is another man's CIA's sponsored swim lesson.

I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.

What does it mean, to understand? ... I don't know.

Before something can be dynamic it must first be specific.

'Huxleyism: the theory of the anthropoid descent of man and its inevitable consequences.'

I think it's great that it's caused a reaction. But at the same time I think the people who are criticising us haven't really watched the show. We are not claiming to be marriage guidance people, or anything.

(King of The Ring 2001 Interview) 'I'm da WWF's bump machine!'

Tarbash: 'What does 'iconoclast' mean?' Diane the Flower Lady: 'I don't know.' Tarbash: 'Then I speak English better than you. It means breaker of idols, icons. Iconoclast.' Diane the Flower Lady: 'It's not a word.'

The term 'cult' is always one of individual judgment. It has been variously applied to groups involved in beliefs and practices just off the beat of traditional religions; to groups making exploratory excursions into non-Western philosophical practices; and to groups involving intense relationships between followers and a powerful idea or leader. The people I have studied, however, come from groups in the last, narrow band of the spectrum: groups such as the Children of God, the Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Krishna Consciousness movement, the Divine Light Mission, and the Church of Scientology. I have not had occasion to meet with members of the People's Temple founded by the late Reverend Jim Jones, who practiced what he preached about being prepared to commit murder and suicide, if necessary, in defense of the faith.

I do not believe that Landmark or The Landmark Forum is a cult or sect, or meets the criteria of a cult or sect.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another? ~ Ch. 10

I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not. ~ Ch. 10

I was asked by one of the reports whether or not I would call Mary Cheney a selfish hedonist. I didn't mention her name. See, one of the articles said I had mentioned her. This is not true. I didn't mentioned her. But leave that aside. All I said was, she had come forward as a lesbian, she identifies herself as someone who engages in homosexual sexuality. I have just said that by definition, it involves selfish hedonism. I can't change that. Now, it might be true [that] the argument I've just given is the best argument in support of the Republican plank on gay marriage that I think can be made. There are lots of other arguments that can be added, but, in principle, that's the best one because we need to understand that marriage is procreational sex, not recreational sex. Now, I want to tell you. If my daughter or anybody else engages in behavior that put them under that descriptive label, I will not consent to lie about it, and I will not tell the American people that I support a plank that requires this logic and then exempt my daughter from the logic that it requires.

sincerely yours/I'm a thug, the product of a broken home

Beauty? What's that?

I am not a bad guy!

A melhor definicao do amor nao vale um beijo de moca namorada.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.

A large share of our art heritage is now derived from peoples whose idea of art was quite other than ours, and even from peoples to whom the very idea of art meant nothing.

My favourite definition of 'Intellectual' is: 'A person whose education surpasses their intelligence.'

Einstein, Planck, and other leading scientists said, 'We're going to have to reassess and redefine the physical universe.' - They defined the physical universe as 'an aggregate of non-simultaneous and only partially overlapping transformation events.'

What humans have spontaneously identified as good and bad - or as positive and negative - are evolutionary complementations in need of more accurate identifications.

There is no art when one does something without intention.

Il est difficile de definir l'amour. Dans l'ame c'est une passion de regner, dans les esprits c'est une sympathie, et dans le corps ce n'est qu'une envie cachee et delicate de posseder ce que l'on aime apres beaucoup de mysteres.

When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding 'truth' within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare 'look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be 'true in itself' or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man.

Whence do you have it that the terrestrial globe is so heavy? For my part, either I do not know what heaviness is, or the terrestrial globe is neither heavy nor light, as likewise all other globes of the universe. Heaviness to me (and I believe to Nature) is that innate tendency by which a body resists being moved from its natural place and by which, when forcibly removed therefrom, it spontaneously returns there. Thus a bucketful of water raised on high and set free, returns to the sea; but who will say that the same water remains heavy in the sea, when being set free there, does not move?

I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms? (p. 26)

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of 'art'. What one person considers to be 'art' is often not 'art' to another. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly' are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only 'kitsch' is not art - we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is 'kitsch'? If only I knew!

Love is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable.

Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something less than Quality itself.

Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible.

I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.

A full 'definition of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants.

Is this a painting?

To define is to limit.