Definitions Quotes - Page 37

• As long as male behavior is taken to be the norm, there can be no serious questioning of male traits and behavior. A norm is by definition a standard for judging; it is not itself subject to judgment.

  Myriam Miedzian

  Taken, Judging, Long

  Myriam Miedzian (2002). “Boys Will Be Boys: Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence”, p.64, Lantern Books

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• Economists use the word consume to mean "utilize economic goods," but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary's definition is more appropriate to ecologists: "To make away with or destroy; to waste or to squander; to use up." The economies that cater to the global consumer society are responsible for the lion's share of the damage that humans have inflicted on common global resources.

  Alan Thein Durning

  Mean, Oxford, Use

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• A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales...

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Science, Scales, Fractals

  The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 91, No. 9, (p. 594), November 1984.

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• And, to prevent mistakes, I must advertize you, that I now mean by elements, as those chymists that speak plainest do by their principles, certain primitive or simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately resolved: now whether there be any such body to be constantly met with in all, and each, of those that are said to be elemented bodies, is the thing I now question.

  Robert Boyle

  Mistake, Mean, Science

  Robert Boyle (2013). “The Sceptical Chymist”, p.187, Courier Corporation

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• There is no rigorous definition of rigor.

  Morris Kline

  Science, Rigor

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• Diversity is, by definition, discrimination. It leads to things like quotas and racial profiling.

  Mary Kissel

  Diversity, Quota, Discrimination

  Source: www.wsj.com

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• In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Art, Book, Mountain

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, 1897.

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• We've all received our share of good fortune, so that's my definition of much. A single blessing is all the bounty in the world, and if you've been blessed at all you're meant to pass some of that on. You're meant to set a positive example. That's our responsibility

  Denzel Washington

  Life, Success, Faith

  Denzel Washington, Daniel Paisner (2006). “A Hand to Guide Me”, p.20, Meredith Books

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

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Would Be, Use, Good Things

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• It would be an instructive exercise for the skeptical reader to try to frame a definition of taxation which does not also include theft. Like the robber, the State demands money at the equivalent of gunpoint; if the taxpayer refuses to pay, his assets are seized by force, and if he should resist such depredation, he will be arrested or shot if he should continue to resist.

  Murray Rothbard

  Exercise, Trying, Doe

  Murray N. Rothbard (2015). “The Ethics of Liberty”, p.163, NYU Press

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• The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.

  James Madison

  Tyranny

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• art, n. This word has no definition.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Art

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.14, 谷月社

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Maxims

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.344

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• The presidency does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can be experienced.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Morning, Yield, Sunrise

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• I am not learning definitions as established in even the latest dictionaries. I am not a dictionary-maker. I am a person a dictionary-maker has to contend with. I am a living evidence in the development of language.

  William Stafford

  Development, Language, Makers

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• To see with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, to feel with the heart of another. For the time being, this seems to me an admissible definition of what we call social feeling.

  Alfred Adler

  Heart, Eye, Feelings

  Alfred Adler (2002). “The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler: Journal articles : 1927-1931”, p.64, Alfred Adler Institute

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• My definition of a character actor is - they never get the girl.

  James Cromwell

  Girl, Character, Actors

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• Mastery is an elusive concept. You never know when you achieve it absolutely and it may not help you to feel you've attained it. We can recognize it more readily in others than we can in ourselves. We have to discover our own definition of it.

  Twyla Tharp

  May, Mastery, Helping

  Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter (2003). “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Simon and Schuster

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• There is no such thing as real happiness in life. The justest definition that was ever given of it was "a tranquil acquiescence under an agreeable delusion"--I forget where.

  Laurence Sterne

  Real, Acquiescence, Forget

  Laurence Sterne (1814). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: With a Life of the Author”, p.330

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• How do I define who Usher is? I'm still doing it - every day, every new opportunity, every stage, every interview, every other thing that I've done, every time that I've invested in anything that is all the definition of who I am.

  Usher

  Opportunity, Who I Am, Done

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• My definition of success? Being the kind of woman that I would want to have as a friend.

  Maria Shriver

  Want, Kind, Definition Of Success

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• My definition of success is doing what you love. I feel many people do things because they feel they have to, and are hesitant to risk following their passion.

  Tony Hawk

  Passion, Doing What You Love, People

  Interview with Gary Cohn, Entrepreneur Magazine, October 2009.

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• Another definition of modernity: conversations can be more and more completely reconstructed with clips from other conversations taking place at the same time on the planet.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Conversation, Planets, Clip

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.33, Random House

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• My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restriction of externally imposed definition.

  Audre Lorde

  Self, Who I Am, Energy

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• Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language -- it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart" - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

  Brené Brown

  Latin, Heart, Stories

  "The power of vulnerability". TED Talk, www.ted.com. June 2010.

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