Definitions Quotes

Many people operate as though the definition of faith were, Don't ask questions, just believe. They quote Jesus himself, who taught his followers to have the faith of a child (Mark 10:15). But I once heard Francis Schaeffer respond by saying, "Don't you realize how many questions children ask?"

By definition, risk-takers often fail. So do morons. In practice it's difficult to sort them out.

God is by definition the holder of all possible knowledge, it would be impossible for him to have faith in anything. Faith, then, is built upon ignorance and hope.

It wasn't until I started reading the history of religion that I understood that the definition of Christianity has shifted in many different directions over time, and the mainstream view today certainly doesn't have any exclusive ownership of what being a Christian means. Realizing that freed me to use the terminology without needing to be tied down to it.

Everything about the enterprise, and then by definition the software the enterprise uses has changed - just in the last 5 years.

I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.

The definition of what it means to be dying has changed radically. We are able to extend people's lives considerably, including sometimes, good days.

'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth

I like to write short stories more because I never met a writer who wasn't lazy. And a short story is, by its very definition, short. It is something that generally you can turn out in a week to two weeks depending on how well it goes for you. But, at the same time, it gives the same satisfaction of creating a complete world.

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

Misunderstanding may arise by confusing the Buddhist and scientific definitions of death. Within the scientific system you spoke quite validly of the death of the brain and the death of heart. Different parts of the body can die separately. However, in the Buddhist system, the word death is not used in that way. You'd never speak of the death of a particular part of the body, but rather of the death of an entire person. When people say that a certain person died, we don't ask, "Well, which part died?"

When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self - the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.

We've been in a recession, by any common sense definition, because if you look at the American public, they've got 20 billion - 20 trillion, I should say, worth of residential homes.

In Zen Buddhism, "The Great Cessation" is a term that points to the abandoning of the effort to define one's self by any outer definition and to give up acts of futility. It is to let the world remain a mystery that cannot be captured by science, language, or any invention of the mind.

Some people say Bowie is all surface style and second-hand ideas, but that sounds like a definition of pop to me.

at least nine-tenths of all the original reality ever created lies outside the multiverse, and since the multiverse by definition includes absolutely everything that is anything, this puts a bit of a strain on things. Outside the boundaries of the universe lie the raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas, all being created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas. Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can leak in.

Does something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become a part of the edge and thus a part of the boundary, the definition which gives the whole its shape?

This definition about against their will, that's a made up term. Did any of those little kids say I didn't want to come here? Did they say I was brought here against my will? Some of them were walking across the border on their own, lots of them, and we'll see them coming across every day at McCallum, Texas. They're still pouring across the border. They know what they're doing. It's not against their will.

Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about.

If you're analytical, you have to be blunt. That's by definition. You can't analyze something and not be blunt about it. What would you rather hear if not the truth?

What we need is something, a definition of a human, starting from the ground up, so that the suitable moral structure that goes around it makes sense. The context has to come from the human first, rather than bits and pieces of fragments of old religion and all of the old moral superstructure, whatever it used to be.

Relevance is a big, big question. It's more about what's your definition of being relevant. In the music world, agism is a big issue. It's about youth and youth culture. There's no other art form that I know that requires you to be a certain age.

I've heard [Bernie] Sanders comments, and it's really caused me to wonder who's left in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Under his definition, [Barack] Obama is not progressive because he took donations from Wall Street; [Joe] Biden is not progressive because she supported Keystone; [Jeanne] Shaheen is not progressive because she supports the trade pact. Even the late, great Paul Wellstone would not fit this definition because he voted for DOMA.

Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand on its own merits.

I was a man who played basketball and after I played basketball and before I played basketball I was going to be a psychologist, whereas most people who play their occupation is their definition - and then when they stop doing who they are, they become nothing.

If you look up the definition of greatness in the dictionary, it will say Michael Jordan.

Self-esteem is the basis for feminism because self-esteem is based on defining yourself and believing in that definition. Self-esteem is regarding yourself as a grown-up.

Too many individuals are like Shakespeare's definition of "echo,"--babbling gossips of the air.

We find no sense in talking about something unless we specify how we measure it; a definition by the method of measuring a quantity is the one sure way of avoiding talking nonsense.

It is scripture alone, not conservative Evangelical tradition or any other human authority, that must function as the normative authority for the definition of what we should believe. The authority of the scripture means that all the words in scripture are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.

Some artists are told what to like and told definitions of what the music business is. That's a problem. Music is artistry, and you want your music heard, your act known. But artists don't know. They are ignorant the minute they sign a contract.

Art is on the side of the oppressed. Think before you shudder at the simplistic dictum and its heretical definition of the freedom of art. For if art is freedom of the spirit, how can it exist within the oppressors?

The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

I thought Donald Trump approach on Brexit was a fascinating window into how he thinks. His basic point was that [David] Cameron should resign because he didn't read the public mood on the issue right. And that Boris Johnson should be the next prime minister because he did. That's a very different definition of leadership than many politicians have. Or at least say they have.

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience towards evil and a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. But what is more important than the definition is the field of its application. The important point here is this: Tolerance applies only to persons but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth but never to persons. Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error.

The geometry reveals five development direction for applications (each with endless possibilities); dividing, dwelling, trestle, fenestration and artistic installation. I find these enabled designs so reflective of an ever-changing world where contextual factors and technological resources are shifting definitions of architecture, design, and the traditional boundaries between disciplines.

My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism

I think human beings are almost, by definition, religious people,in the sense that we ask questions of meaning, we anticipate future events, we deal with the issues of mortality from the first time we see a dead bird as a little child.

The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.

Definition of a Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits than under analysis some of them won't stand up either.

There’s an important difference and distinction between the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion of whether or not I’m disabled. Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability I’ve had to confront is the world ever thinking that I could be described by those definitions.

I've always tried to write California history as American history. The paradox is that New England history is by definition national history, Mid-Atlantic history is national history. We're still suffering from that.

I wake up early enough every morning to have some alone time. I have an app called Simply Being that's made for meditation. I do that for 5-10 minutes in the morning. Somehow, it helps make the chaos of life have some sort of definition. Exercise, too, keeps me able to deal with everything and not get too stressed.

The answer, usually, is no. Wisdom is a quality that defies easy definition but psychologists who study aging have found that some of its components - judgment, emotional regulation - do improve with age in most people, consciously or not. Of course there is a subset of people out there who are sitting in their rocking chairs, spewing hate, but my guess is that these people weren't very pleasant to begin with, ... The reality is that the data are fairly convincing that people as they get older become more positive and less self-absorbed.

I'm very proud of my pro-life record, and I've always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life.

People who go around saying that it is wrong to fly and to eat meat are not so much making appeals to us from within our shared morality, but engaging in something more like "persuasive definition." They want us to look at the world and ourselves in a different way. Someday these prohibitions against flying and eating meat may be written into our moral psychology, but it will only be after there are viable, widely shared alternatives that are beginning to be widely adopted.

Through developing trusting and respectful relationships with the boys in our lives, we can help boys to value and acknowledge their relational capabilities, which they may otherwise learn to discount or overlook. We can also offer and model for them definitions of maturity, masculinity, health and success that will enable them to remain grounded in their self-knowledge (e.g. as they encounter societal pressures to conform to group and cultural norms), and to form relationships that will sustain rather than constrain them.

Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

When all mental activity around who you think you are or what you need for happiness is stopped, there is a crack in the authority of perception, in the structure of the mind. I invite you to enter through that crack. Come in through that opening. When you do, the mind is no longer filled with its latest self-definition. In that moment, there is only silence. And in that silence, it is possible to recognize absolute fulfilment: the truth of who you are.