Quotes About Definition

It is simply up to the individual to decide what "the One" is: how it should be defined, and how it should be experienced

Blaze was stumped for a moment. Then he blurted, "George." "Lovely name! From the Greek. It means, 'to work the earth.'

Perhaps, then, the words male and female have no general meaning.

Goodness is no part of the definition of the God Hypothesis, merely a desirable add-on.

We needn't bother with exactly what 'electric charge' means here.

There is no universally agreed definition of a gene.

The earliest form of natural selection was simply a selection of stable forms and a rejection of unstable ones. There is no mystery about this. It had to happen by definition.

I define a replicator as anything in the universe of which copies are made.

The word replicator is purposely defined in a general way, so that it does not even have to refer to DNA.

Remember Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'.

Well, my family has been Catholic for generations, so doesn't that make me Catholic?' 'That's lazy, sloppy abuse of language. My family has been farming for generations but that doesn't define me as a farmer.

Ambrose Bierce's witty definition of the verb 'to pray': 'to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy'.

You could call it the one big box, outside which there isn't another box.

Le progrès est toujours difficile à définir

You can define a net two ways, depending on your point of view. Normally you would say it is a meshed instrument designed to catch fish. But you could, with no great injury to logic, reverse the image and define the net as a jocular lexicographer once did: he called it a collection of holes tied together with string.

Perhaps love could never be captured in a definition; it could only ever be captured in a story.

Margaret used to say that there were two kinds of women: those with clear edges to them, and those who implied mystery.

The men responsible were charged with grand theft. Their original defense, that dolphins are persons (humans in dolphin suits, one defendant said), was quickly thrown out by the judge. I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.

I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through. A

They just seemed to define themselves by not being the other faction.

And he explained that there was no Mandalorian word for "hero." It was only not being one that had its own word: Hut'uun.

Personally, I don't think it right to make up things about real people—although I suppose there's an argument for saying that once you're dead you're not real any more. But then we have to define what we mean by real and none of us wants to go down that tortuous path because we all know where it leads (madness or a first-class honours, or both).

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself

The true meaning of a term is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not by what he says about it.