Best 105 quotes in «definition quotes» category

A friend or an enemy can tell me something about my subjective being, a casual lover can judge my body — the man I love judges my entire being. Every one of his caresses tells me how I am: attractive, desirable. Every one of his questions and answers tells me what I am: a person with whom he wants to enjoy himself, who interests him more than all the others he knows. By choosing me among all others, my love has made me unique; I alone in all the world am the one he loves, and no other. If I am lucky in love, the definitions become more precise from day to day; after each date I know even better than before what I want to know about myself. The others can say what they like about me; I don't have to believe a word of it. Only the one I love can tell me about myself. Since his definitions grow increasingly precise, my dependence on him also grows more acute as time goes on, but he is in the same position with regard to me. I tell him that I belong to him alone, that he can do with me what he likes, that I cannot live without him.

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic position, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him. The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction. That it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism.

All definitions are a part of the intellectual dissection and compartmentalization of control.

Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man....

Atheism ... goes back to the Ancient Greek (a — a negative prefix, theos — god), evidencing the antiquity of the outlook of those who saw no presence of God (or gods) in their everyday lives, or who even denied the very existence of God (or gods). There are different types of atheism, but atheism in one form or another has existed in every civilization. [T]he concept "atheist" partially coincides with such notions as "skeptic," "agnostic," and "rationalist" and it borders with such notions as "anticlerical," "God fighter" (theomachist), and "God abuser" (blasphemer). It is wrong to identify an atheist as one who denies God, though this is what opponents of atheism usually claim. If such people exist, it would probably be more correct to call them the "verbal" murderers of God, for the prefix a- means denying as elimination. ... I would like to stress that the prefix a- does not necessarily mean rejection. It can mean "absence of." For example, "apathy" means "absence of passion." Thus, the concept "atheist" does not necessarily mean nihilism.

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

Database Management System [Origin: Data + Latin basus "low, mean, vile, menial, degrading, ounterfeit."] A complex set of interrelational data structures allowing data to be lost in many convenient sequences while retaining a complete record of the logical relations between the missing items. -- From The Devil's DP Dictionary

Definition of money is the reward you get for solving people`s problems.

Definitions only belong to those who need them.

Alec caught him as he began to slide down the wall. "Jace—" "I'm all right," Jace protested, but his hand gripped Alec's sleeve tightly. "I can stand." "It looks to me like you're using a wall to prop you up. That's not my definition of 'standing.' " "It's leaning," Jace told him. "Leaning comes right before standing.

An action made by an unwitting man, shall not define, nor justify a common thought and interpretation.

An action made by an unwitting man, shall not define, nor justify a common thought or interpretation.

An action made by a unwitting man, shall not define, nor justify a common though and interpretation.

A novel is just a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.

Art is the reflection of pure emotion and mind, the nature of sensation. An artist illustrates that.

Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God. The atheist does not say that there is no God, but he says 'I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God. The word God to me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it for me.

A true scientist is aware that ultimately we cannot be absolutely sure about anything.

misgivings, n. Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us. "There are things I miss," you said. "But if I didn't have you, I'd miss more.

COOL·NESS [KOOL-NIS] -noun CATCHING your mom gazing at the crazy crowd like she finally gets it WATCHING your dad head-banging like he’s Finn’s twin brother LEARNING that your new friends Tash and Kallie are a thousand times more complicated than you realized, and loving them for it FEELING every one of your boyfriend’s pounding drumbeats, and thinking it’s the most romantic music ever written REALIZING you’re completely unique . . . even in a crowd

Definition is a choice.

DENIAL Defense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant realities is disavowed; refers to keeping out of conscious awareness any aspects of external reality that, if acknowledged, would produce anxiety.

Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results is at times a sign of sanity.

É clássico aquilo que persiste como rumor mesmo onde predomina a atualidade mais incompatível.

Existence has a fragmented definition. Fragmented liberation. Fragmented illumination.

examination of its own history and of the forms of thought given the name “philosophy” indicates that “philosophy” has itself borne many fundamentally different meanings through the years, and from one school or movement to another.

Freedom has an expanding definition.

FV: Annandale defines 'definition' as "an explanation of the signification of a term." Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as "a statement of the precise meaning of a word." A small, perhaps negligible difference you might think. And neither, would you say, is necessarily more correct than the other? But now look up each of the words comprising each definition, and then the definitions of those definitions, and so on. Some still may only differ slightly, while others may differ quite a lot. Yet any discrepancy, large or small, only compounds that initial difference further and further, pushing each 'definition' farther apart. How similar are they then at the end of this process...assuming it ever would end? Could we possibly even be referring to the same word by this point? And we still haven't considered what Collins here...or Gage, or Funk and Wagnalls might have to say about it. Off on enough tangents and you're eventually led completely off track. ML: Or around in circles. FV: Precisely! ML: Oxford, though, is generally considered the authority, isn't it? FV: Well, it's certainly the biggest...the most complete. But then, that truly is your vicious circle - every word defined...every word in every definition defined...around and around in an infinite loop. Truly a book that never ends. A concise or abridged dictionary may, at least, have an out... ML: I wonder, then, what the smallest possible "complete dictionary" would be? Completely self-contained, that is, with every word in every definition accounted for. How many would that be, do you suppose? Or, I guess more importantly, which ones? FV: Well, that brings to mind another problem. You know that Russell riddle about naming numbers?

Friends, are you a man according to Gods definition? Have you ever placed yourself under God’s microscopic eyes? Have you examined yourself according to his standards of judgment? Does he call you a man

Globalization is not just about changing relations between the ‘inside’ of the nation-state and the ‘outside’ of the international system. It cuts across received categories, creating myriad multilayered intersections, overlapping playing fields, and actors skilled at working across these boundaries. People are at once rooted and rootless, local producers and global consumers, threatened in their identities yet continually remaking those identities.

Identity was just a box people liked to put themselves in, a mast to tether to in a storm, a security blanket.

How would I explain to him that I couldn’t make peace with him? How would I explain that if I did I would immediately lose my inner balance? How would I explain that one of the arms of my internal scales would suddenly shoot upward? How would I explain that my hatred of him counterbalanced the weight of evil that had fallen on my youth? How would I explain that he embodied all the evils in my life? How would I explain to him that I needed to hate him?

Good communication is less about saying what you mean, and more about defining what you say.

Identity was a liquid state, ever interchangeable, and adaptable to its surroundings... It was better to not have favourites - a snake didn't mourn when it had to shed its skin.

I'm agnostic. By definition, I'm unsure of what to believe in, but I'm also borderline-capable of believing in anything and everything, or nothing at all... and I want to believe in something.

I’d rather be the creep in the night and the fire that burns your eyes than the way you use and define life.

I have loved every single person I met in my life, just the definition and situation varied.

I like the word 'fuck'. The word means what it means, but it also means whatever you need it to mean.

'Mysticism' here means, in the literal sense, a change of sensory impressions and organ sensations into something unreal and beyond this world.

In despair, I offer your readers their choice of the following definitions of entropy. My authorities are such books and journals as I have by me at the moment. (a) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy of a system which cannot be converted into work by even a perfect heat engine.—Clausius. (b) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which can be converted into work by a perfect engine.—Maxwell, following Tait. (c) Entropy is that portion of the intrinsic energy which is not converted into work by our imperfect engines.—Swinburne. (d) Entropy (in a volume of gas) is that which remains constant when heat neither enters nor leaves the gas.—W. Robinson. (e) Entropy may be called the ‘thermal weight’, temperature being called the ‘thermal height.’—Ibid. (f) Entropy is one of the factors of heat, temperature being the other.—Engineering. I set up these bald statement as so many Aunt Sallys, for any one to shy at. [Lamenting a list of confused interpretations of the meaning of entropy, being hotly debated in journals at the time.]

It was characteristic of the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany and of the Communist movements in Europe after 1930 that they recruited their members from this mass of apparently indifferent people whom all other parties had given up as too apathetic or too stupid for their attention. The result was that the majority of their membership consisted of people who never before had appeared on the political scene. This permitted the introduction of entirely new methods into political propaganda, and indifference to the arguments of political opponents; these movements not only placed themselves outside and against the party system as a whole, they found a membership that had never been reached, never been "spoiled" by the party system. Therefore they did not need to refute opposing arguments and consistently preferred methods which ended in death rather than persuasion, which spelled terror rather than conviction. They presented disagreements as invariably originating in deep natural, social, or psychological sources beyond the control of the individual and therefore beyond the power of reason. This would have been a shortcoming only if they had sincerely entered into competition with other parties; it was not if they were sure of dealing with people who had reason to be equally hostile to all parties.

Influence is when you are not the one talking and yet your words fill the room; when you are absent and yet your presence is felt everywhere.

It seems to me that those who claim to be 'true' and 'bible believing' Christians and yet spend all their time and energy spreading unhappiness and hatred for others - and are themselves consumed by it - are by the very definition of the term - false prophets.

In old days, instead of asking a teacher, people looked at the dictionary to know the complete definition of teacher. Now Google becomes our teacher and to know about Google, people Google it.

Iskari let others define her because she thought she didn't have a choice. Because she thought she was alone and unloved.

Logic, it is often said, is the study of valid arguments. It is a systematic attempt to distinguish valid arguments from invalid arguments.

Love don't have definition .It was just as it was since the world was created. People are just trying to explain it in vain.

Love is always by definition a choice

Most people are afflicted with an inability to say what they see or think. They say there’s nothing more difficult than to define a spiral in words; they claim it is necessary to use the unliterary hand, twirling it in a steadily upward direction, so that human eyes will perceive the abstract figure immanent in wire spring and a certain type of staircase. But if we remember that to say is to renew, we will have no trouble defining a spiral; it’s a circle that rises without ever closing. I realize that most people would never dare to define it this way, for they suppose that defining is to say what others want us to say rather than what’s required for the definition. I’ll say it more accurately: a spiral is a potential circle that winds round as it rises, without ever completing itself. But no, the definition is still abstract. I’ll resort to the concrete, and all will become clear: a spiral is a snake without a snake, vertically wound around nothing. All literature is an attempt to make life real. All of us know, even when we act on what we don’t know, life is absolutely unreal in its directly real form; the country, the city and our ideas are absolutely fictitious things, the offspring of our complex sensation of our own selves. Impressions are incommunicable unless we make them literary. Children are particularly literary, for they say what they feel not what someone has taught them to feel. Once I heard a child, who wished to say that he was on the verge of tears, say not ‘I feel like crying’, which is what an adult, i.e., an idiot, would say but rather, ’ I feel like tears.’ And this phrase -so literary it would seem affected in a well-known poet, if he could ever invent it - decisively refers to the warm presence of tears about to burst from eyelids that feel the liquid bitterness. ‘I feel like tears’! The small child aptly defined his spiral. To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming- like worms when a rock is lifted - under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky.

My definition of Theology My proverb of theology is a doctrine study of overall foundation of biblical notions, transcendence, an scriptures relativist, researcher and conservative of the Word of God with sensible and measured pursuit of infinite growth, a marriage of the spiritual knowledge (Gnosis), and unutterable love for the faith in constant pursuits and mission for truths with devoutness to prowess faith and love from faith’s vocation and noetic that’s flamed within that gives us the calling (vocation) of theologian. For theology pursues and endless journey of the Lord’s knowledge while maintaining the faith and is the strength hold of creed that manifest purpose, ontology and guardianship of the soul and wisdom, in a relation, a sound mind for divinity. . .

Netiquette Positive Word of The Day: Able - having skill to do something. Intelligence is a synonym. NetworkEtiquette.net