Quotes About Definition

the word love has no decent definition!

we exist today because this is how our ancestors behaved. We evolve today by ensuring that our definition of our group os wide enough to take advantage of diversity and narrow enough to be actionable.

I don't know what the definition of pornography is and nobody else does either. Pornography is somebody else's erotica that you don't like. People are interested in their own sexuality and they've always reflected it in their art. End of story.

It is the task of the science of man to arrive eventually at a correct description of what deserves to be called human nature. What has often been called human nature is but one of its many manifestations - and often a pathological one - and the function of such mistaken definition usually has been to defend a particular type of society as being the necessary one.

Marriage, n. a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

Positive , adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Along with tableity (the condition of being a table) and paneity (the state of being bread), cellarhood is a wonderful example of the spectacular ways English has of describing things that no ever thinks it necessary to describe.

Preantepenult (adj.) Not the last, not the one before the last, and not the one before the one before the last. The next one. A sterling example of how it often can be far more confusing to use one word than several. It is far easier to say "the third from the last" than preantepenult. Prend

Vanitarianism (n.) The pursuing of vanities. Only one citation is provided for this word, and it comes, rather unsurprisingly, from Thackeray, a writer who seems to have an unreasoning fondness for the word vanity. also

In just the first letter of the OED you will find words as magnificent as agathokakological (composed of good and evil), as delicately shaded as addubitation (the suggestion of doubt), and as odd as antithalian (opposed to fun or festivity). I

I find that my view on what is polite behavior mirrors the view that former Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart had on pornography—I cannot define it but I know it when I see it.

No one is yet using figuratively to mean literally; the confusion, such as it is, is all in one direction.

This is why Fuller's definition depends upon consciousness. Our awareness of energy events defines their existence; we cannot go beyond the limits set by our understanding.

His definition of neighbor was simple: the person you happen to be with at the moment—whether that person is a Samaritan, a hermit bearing gifts, or a television viewer.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

De toutes les définitions de l'homme la plus mauvaise me paraît celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable.

the literary critic is guilty of imprudently prejudging the true nature of cinema, based on a very superficial definition of what is here meant by reality. Because its basic material is photography it does not follow that the seventh art is of its nature dedicated to the dialectic of appearances and the psychology of behavior. While

The essence of oppression is that one is defined from the outside by those who define themselves as superior by criteria of their own choice.

The Canadian Identity, as it has come to be known, is as elusive as the Sasquatch and Ogopogo. It has animated—and frustrated—generations of statesmen, historians, writers, artists, philosophers, and the National Film Board ... Canada resists easy definition.

Some day soon," Lance said, "you'll walk out of here and have to decide how you're going to live the rest of your lives. Will you be defined by what other people see, or by the essence of your soul?

Far too often, we have limited the definition of the Church. While not in all cases, in many cases, 'Church' has become an informational, inspirational weekly gathering rather than the group of people that God has ordained from Heaven to operate on his behalf on Earth in order to bring Heaven's viewpoint into history.

I don't have a definition for depression. I'm productive, and that's not a sign of depression, right? And I don't have weeks where I don't leave my bed. It seems like depressed people have those.