“Define your terms, you will permit me again to say, or we shall never understand one another.”

—  Voltaire

Définissez les termes, vous dis-je, ou jamais nous ne nous entendrons.
"Miracles" http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/voltaire-the-works-of-voltaire-vol-vi-philosophical-dictionary-part-4 (1764)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Original

Définissez les termes, vous dis-je, ou jamais nous ne nous entendrons.

Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Define your terms, you will permit me again to say, or we shall never understand one another." by Voltaire?
Voltaire photo
Voltaire 167
French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

Related quotes

Carl R. Rogers photo

“If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change. So as I say, it is not an easy thing to permit oneself to understand an individual”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Cheryl Strayed photo

“You get to define the terms of your life.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“We must never permit anyone with limited knowledge of us to define who we are. It is best to disassociate from their existence.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Aleister Crowley photo

“Every one interprets everything in terms of his own experience. If you say anything which does not touch a precisely similar spot in another man's brain, he either misunderstands you, or doesn't understand you at all.”

Aleister Crowley book Diary of a Drug Fiend

Source: Diary of a Drug Fiend

R. Scott Bakker photo

“If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.”

R. Scott Bakker book The Darkness That Comes Before

AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN
The Darkness That Comes Before (2004)

Jane Hirshfield photo

“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”

Jane Hirshfield (1953) Poet

Source: The Lives of the Heart

Ambrose Bierce photo

“The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: Epigrams, p. 352

Nicholas Sparks photo

“Sometimes my grief is overwhelming, and even though I understand that we will never see each other again, there is a part of me that wants to hold on to you forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Clive Staples Lewis photo

“We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

Equality (1943)
Context: Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.

Thomas Jefferson photo

“I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

.
Letter to George Logan (12 November 1816). Published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, pp. 43
1810s

Related topics