Quotes About Definition

But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done - this was something else again.

The definition of 'safe' is not strictly an engineering term; it's a societal term. Does it mean absolutely no loss of life? Does it mean absolutely no contamination with radiation? What exactly does 'safe' mean?

I used to be fast and loose with the term 'country' because I didn't know what else to call my music. I still don't.

CO2 is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term.

On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term.

'Easy listening' is a term that is often used incorrectly.

I've always hated the term 'alternative'; I only use it because when I say it, people know what I'm talking about. I always thought it was weird when guys like myself or Patton Oswalt or Dana Gould, these older guys, were called 'alternative' comedy.

Horror by definition is the emotion of pure revulsion. Terror of the same standard, is that of fearful anticipation.

It would be easy to define terrorism as attacks against human rights and international humanitarian law forbids attacks against innocent non-combatants which is often the definition used for terrorism.

We still lack a global definition of terrorism.

The simplest definition of advertising, and one that will probably meet the test of critical examination, is that advertising is selling in print.

People know a planet when they see one, and I think that's a pretty darn good test, in fact, for planethood.

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we can't define it.

The thought came to me that all one loves in art becomes beautiful. Beauty is nothing but the expression of the fact that something is being loved. Only thus could she be defined.

Everyone is sure they know what fascism is.

Definitions are inherently limiting. They frame a static picture of something that is better perceived in movement, and they portray as "frozen 'statuary'" something that is better understood as a process.

And all times are one time, and all those dead in the past never lived before our definition gives them life, and out of the shadow their eyes implore us. That is what all of us historical researchers believe. And we love truth.

You seek a false comfort when you demand that I define myself for you with words. Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing.

She thinks: I resent being different from men when men are defining that difference. She thinks: Do I resent being different from men when I and other women are defining the difference? Do I resent that difference if a singular power is not at work to enforce it, but our multiple powers are at work to explore it?

It always happens when women become at last the subject and not the object: in order to define what women, or a group of women, or an individual woman are/is, first one must define what this subject is not. So thorough is the stereotyping, the perception of female as Other, the deliberate misinterpretation of motive, that the lies must be peeled away before a female reality can even be approached.

Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don't need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God. (p. 21)

A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa—to be a bay—releases the water from bondage and lets it live.

It's our scars that define us, Sara. Diego has to live life to appreciate life." "Yes." A knot forms in my stomach at the idea that I still don't know how deeply Chris's scars define him.

It reminded him of that definition of his father's. A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind. The mind was the first and final battleground; the stuff in between was just noise.