A Quote by Toni Morrison

Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined.

Toni Morrison

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Belong Defined Definitions

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Toni Morrison
American - Novelist
February 18, 1931 - August 5, 2019

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Toni Morrison

While theoretically a person may block God out, logically there will be a breakdown because ultimately all enunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind. And if that moral doctrine is not absolute then the definer himself becomes undefined. That's what we are living with - an undefined definer giving us definitions for our course, and we are being trapped in the quicksand of the absence of objective truth.

Ravi Zacharias

My experience is that I find myself having to constantly define myself to others, day-in, day-out. The quote that's helped me the most through that is from Toni Morrison's "Beloved" where she says, "Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined" - so I find myself defining myself for other people lest I be defined by others and stuck into some box where I don't particularly belong.

Wentworth Miller

We use the official definitions of terrorism. The definitions in the U.S. code, in British law, in U.S. Army manuals and so on. And if you use those definitions it follows instantly that the United States is the leading terrorist state in the world.

Noam Chomsky

Old definitions of segments are going to get blurred. Once you defined cars by horsepower, engines. That has changed.

Anand Mahindra

Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.

Toni Morrison

Play cannot be defined, because in play all definitions slither, dance, combine, break apart, and recombine.

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all things to fulfill its own.

Anthony Marra

Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions.

Frank Herbert

If we could all give our own definitions of God, there would be as many definitions as there are men and women.

Mahatma Gandhi

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I'm not comfortable with categories, and I distrust most definitions. The word 'definition' is based on the word 'finite,' which would seem to indicate that once we've defined something, we don't need to think about it anymore.

Artie Shaw

In other words, the propositions of philosophy are not factual, but linguistic in character - that is, they do not describe the behaviour of physical, or even mental, objects; they express definitions, or the formal consequences of definitions. Accordingly we may say that philosophy is a department of logic. For we will see that the characteristic mark of a purely logical enquiry, is that it is concerned with the formal consequences of our definitions and not with questions of empirical fact.

A.J. Ayer

I don't belong to anyone else but myself. I have to make my own decisions. Happiness is defined by me.

Keke Palmer

Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?

Dennis Prager

A Quote by Toni Morrison

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