Quotes About Definitions

The dictionary is an ossuary of empty words.

I don't really identify with America. I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture…

The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord.

Sometimes our definitions fall short. Take, for example, the way we view income and labor. It simply doesn't cover enough of the work that women, and in particular poor women, are doing - especially in their own households and the vast 'informal' economy in which most of the world's poorest people work.

I think in a lot of romantic comedies it ends with a kiss, and I feel like in modern day relationships, and maybe just my own experience, it starts with a kiss and then all sort of falls apart and then comes together. You're texting. You're wondering what's going on. There's no definitions, there's no labels.

Rhythm is the only thing secure. In this darkness, rising, I recall the Pacific stars. This ritual ascendance goes on in a city that has erased them and blurred its sun out altogether. Iron Wolf has something. I want it without the bother of definitions. The dangerous illumination, the light in the exploding eye, is not for this other city.

Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.

It is often said that definitions of Islamic government are imprecise. To me, however, they seemed to have a clarity that was completely familiar and also, it must be said, far from reassuring.

Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.

Mainstream dictionary definitions reduce racism to racial prejudice and the personal actions that result. But this definition does little to explain how racial hierarchies are consistently reproduced.

The opposition's means, used against us, are always immoral and our means are always ethical and rooted in the highest of human values. George Bernard Shaw, in Man and Superman, pointed out the variations in ethical definitions by virtue of where you stand. Mendoza said to Tanner, "I am a brigand; I live by robbing the rich." Tanner replied, "I am a gentleman; I live by robbing the poor. Shake hands." The

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

Love simply is. That is the testament of Athena or Sherine or Hagia Sofia - love is. No definitions. Love and don't ask too many questions. Just love.

The domain model will typically derive from the domain experts' own jargon but will have been "cleaned up," to have sharper, narrower definitions.

One never knows how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her — is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? It is the very least question of definitions.

I've always been interested in definitions, because in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are there but there's no real clear definition of what sin is, in a fundamental sense - how we can use the words to evaluate our lives as we go along: Am I doing something that is ethically good? Am I being worthwhile in my life at this moment?

Far too many people, many of them white men, are losing healthcare insurance as they lose their manufacturing jobs. This is commerce by most real world definitions.

Another determined skeptic of animal awarenss write that the definition of consciousness has eluded us for over a century. But this isn't the problem at all. The problem is that as animals meet the old definitions, like conscious pain and deliberate communication, the experts keep making up new definitions.

The truth or falsehood of all of man's conclusions, inferences, thought and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions.

Helplessness was a strange experience, new to her; she had never found it hard to face things and make decisions; but she was not dealing with things—this was a fog without shapes or definitions, in which something kept forming and shifting before it could be seen...

For the next few weeks there will be no political discussions in America: we have entered the Season of Platitudes—an election campaign. All issues, principles and definitions vanish during an election campaign. They dissolve into a fog of rubber terms that can mean anything to anyone—while the candidates compete for how to be misunderstood-in the greatest number of ways by the greatest number of people.

Language-lovers know that there is a word for every fear. Are you afraid of wine? Then you have oenophobia. Tremulous about train travel? You suffer from siderodromophobia. Having misgivings about your mother-in-law is pentheraphobia, and being petrified of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth is arachibutyrophobia. And then there's Franklin Delano Roosevelt's affliction, the fear of fear itself, or phobophobia.

I think that people feel they know what love means, it's probably one of the most used words in the world but has the most completely different definitions from one person to another.

There are no facts. Hierarchical position and reputation as a consequence of skill and competence? All definitions of skill and of competence are merely made up by those who benefit from them, to exclude others, and to benefit personally and selfishly.