Top 317 Definitions Quotes & Sayings

The western mind makes definitions; it draws lines.

It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.

Here's a philosophical rule of thumb: always start with the negative definitions. Negative definitions are always easier to understand. So, here's a negative definition. We must not conceive difference in terms of the differences we find between things that already exist. Difference is not empirical differences.

My definition of cursing is probably different from what other people's definitions are.

How likely are definitions to be pleasurable.

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

As a company commander you have absolute definitions: the mission, the people.

We cannot study creativeness in an ultimate sense until we realize that practically all the definitions that we have been using of creativeness are essentially male or masculine definitions of male or masculine products. We've left out of consideration almost entirely the creativeness of women.

There's got to be a voice deep within you that is untouched by definitions. And it is there that you become divinely who you are.

No government in any country can run on static definitions of economic thinking.

Definitions.... are never really needed, and rarely of any use

Science, incidentally, not only ignores the question of indwelling 'essences' by looking instead at measurable relationships, but science also does not agree that knowledge is obtained through Rothbard's Medieval 'investigation by a reason,' i.e., by inventing definitions and then deducing what your definitions implicitly assumed.

If we are to reclaim our culture, we cannot afford narrow definitions.

Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them.

He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.

This is one of my definitions of mountaineering: to go where others do not.

Throw away the light, the definitions, and say what you see in the dark.

I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.

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

Sure, some [teachers] could give the standard limit definitions, but they [the students] clearly did not understand the definitions - and it would be a remarkable student who did, since it took mathematicians a couple of thousand years to sort out the notion of a limit, and I think most of us who call ourselves professional mathematicians really only understand it when we start to teach the stuff, either in graduate school or beyond.

The endless definitions for feminism are exhausting. It's this, it isn't this, it's only this if you're this, etc.

In some ways we want definitions that can help protect our own interpretations of the genre.

Art. Its definitions are legion, its meanings multitudinous, its importance often debated. But amid the many contradictory definitions of art, one has always stood the test of time, from the Upanishads in the East, to Michelangelo in the West: art is the perception and depiction of the sublime, the transcendent, the beautiful, the spiritual.

The thesis that the universe has an originating divine cause is logically inconsistent with all extant definitions of causality and with a logical requirement upon these and all possible valid definitions or theories of causality.

The world's definitions are one thing and the life one actually lives is quite another. One cannot allow oneself, nor one's family, friends, or lovers - to say nothing of one's children - to live according to the world's definitions: one must find a way, perpetually, to be stronger and better than that.

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

There are almost as many definitions of co-dependency as there are experiences that represent it.

Odd that we think definitions are definitive.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition.

There are alternate definitions of manhood in the West.

The definitions of the Church are the rules of true faith.

I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions.

Just letting it out is one of the definitions of bad art.

There are definitions of morbid obesity. Doctors define it.

A theorem is a proposition which is a strict logical consequence of certain definitions and other propositions.

No requirement of industry is so much neglected as operational definitions.

Democracy has many definitions, but what's in it for me is not an element of any of them.

I don't pay attention to definitions or titles or try to fit within them.

Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on.

I see myself as someone who makes things. Definitions have never done anything but constrain.

My definitions of comedy, drama, and straight man are all blurry for me. I don't think of it in those terms.

The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.

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.

I have my own definitions of success. And I have my own definitions of country music that, luckily, I share with more people than I realized before.

There are different definitions of love, and one of the most wonderful definitions of love is to allow somebody to be.

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

Part of diplomacy is to open different definitions of self-interest.

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined.

Other Definitions of Worry Anxiety is the great modern plague. But faith can cure it.

Just definitions either prevent or put an end to disputes.

There's room for many definitions of masculinity in the modern era.

A classification is a definition comprising a system of definitions.

Those objecting to the concept of race argue that the taxonomic definitions are arbitrary and subjective.

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.

There are several kinds of truths, and it is customary to place in the first order mathematical truths, which are, however, only truths of definition. These definitions rest upon simple, but abstract, suppositions, and all truths in this category are only constructed, but abstract, consequences of these definitions ... Physical truths, to the contrary, are in no way arbitrary, and do not depend on us.

In every society, the definitions of sanity and madness are arbitrary - are, in the largest sense, political.

Mankind is a science that defies definitions.

All of my definitions of family were heavily influenced by my 'Star Trek' experience.