Quotes about definition
page 6

“While we talk, the sun is getting older. It will explode in 4.5 billion years. … In comparison everything else seems insignificant. Wars, conflicts, political tension, shifts in opinion, philosophical debates, even passions—everything’s dead already if this infinite reserve from which you now draw energy to defer answers, if in short thought as a quest, dies out with the sun. … The inevitable explosion to come, the one that’s always forgotten in your intellectual ploys, can be seen in a certain way as coming before the fact to render these ploys … futile. … In 4.5 billions years there will arrive the demise of your phenomenology and your utopian politics, and there’ll be no one there to toll the death knell or hear it. It will be too late to understand that your passionate, endless questioning always depended on a “life of the mind.” … Thought borrows a horizon and orientation, the limitless limit and the end without end it assumes, from the corporeal, sensory, emotional and cognitive experience of a quite sophisticated but definitely earthly existence. With the disappearance of the earth, thought will have stopped—leaving that disappearance absolutely unthought of. … The death of the sun is a death of mind. … There’s no sublation or deferral if nothing survives. … The sun, our earth, and your thought will have been no more than a spasmodic state of energy, an instant of established order, a smile on the surface of matter in a remote corner of the cosmos. … Human death is included in the life of the mind. Solar death implies an irreparably exclusive disjunction between death and thought: if there’s death, then there’s no thought.”

Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998) French philosopher

Source: Thought Without a Body? (1994), pp. 286-289

Life, Death, War, Smile

“A recovery after a depression is as inevitable as that day follows night. It can not be permanently suppressed. Its vitality is so powerful that it will break down the barriers set up by the most arbitrary dictator. Hence there is developing a new confidence and a new faith in those principles which have formed the the foundation of economic evolution and industrial progress during the last several decades — principles which we have been proud to call "American principles," and for which we have been reared with a wholesome respect. There are still lacking the assurances of a broad and definitely defined opportunity and the elimination of certain unsound economic policies, thus limiting the application of these vital principles we have always known and retarding their ability to accelerate our economic recovery.”

Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman

Source: "The Broadened Responsibilities of Industry's Executive," 1936, p. 351; Lead paragraph.

Faith, Confidence, Night

“To be a prisoner means to be defined as a member of a group for whom the rules of what can be done to you, of what is seen as abuse of you, are reduced as part of the definition of your status.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1946) American feminist and legal activist

"Francis Biddle's Sister: Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech" (1984), p. 170
Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (1987)

Parting

“The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground

Variant translation: If I had to define man it would be: a biped, ungrateful.
Part 1, Chapter 8 (page 28)
Notes from Underground (1864)

“The effect of any thought is quite precise and definite and set into motion because of the nature of its own electromagnetic identity. The physical body operates within certain electromagnetic patterns and is adversely affected by others. These effects change the actual molecular structure of the cells, for better or worse, and because of the laws of attraction, habitual patterns will operate. A destructive thought, then, is dangerous not only to the present state of the organism, but is also dangerous in terms of the 'future.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 238

Law, Nature, Change, Future

“Every little school boy is trained to recite the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. It is taken as axiomatic that under them the new nation was falling into anarchy and was only saved by the wisdom and energy of the Convention. … The nation had to be strong to repel invasion, strong to pay to the last loved copper penny the debts of the propertied and the provident ones, strong to keep the unpropertied and improvident from ever using the government to secure their own prosperity at the expense of moneyed capital. … No one suggests that the anxiety of the leaders of the heretofore unquestioned ruling classes desired the revision of the Articles and labored so weightily over a new instrument not because the nation was failing under the Articles, but because it was succeeding only too well. Without intervention from the leaders, reconstruction threatened in time to turn the new nation into an agrarian and proletarian democracy. … All we know is that at a time when the current of political progress was in the direction of agrarian and proletarian democracy, a force hostile to it gripped the nation and imposed upon it a powerful form against which it was never to succeed in doing more than blindly struggle. The liberating virus of the Revolution was definitely expunged, and henceforth if it worked at all it had to work against the State, in opposition to the armed and respectable power of the nation.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

¶13. Published under "The Development of the American State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), pp. 33–34. "The State" (1918), II

Love, Wisdom, Money, Hostility

“You mention the circle and I agree with your definition.... why does the circle fascinates me? It is (1) the most modern form, but asserts itself unconditionally, (2) a precise but inexhaustible variable, (3) simultaneously stable and unstable, (4) simultaneously loud and soft, (5) a single tension that caries countless tensions within it. The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form, and in balance. Of the three primary forms (triangle, square, circle), it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from Kandinsky's letter to Will Grohmann, c. 1926; as cited in Kandinsky, Frank Whitford, Paul Hamlyn Ltd, London 1967, p. 36
1920 - 1930

“Theologians intensely dislike the definition of faith as belief without—or in the face of—evidence, for that practice sounds irrational. But it surely is, as is any system that requires supporting a priori beliefs without good evidence. In religion, but not science, that kind of faith is seen as a virtue.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 67

Faith, Religion, Support, Science

“Zen is a form of liberation - being liberated from Yin and Yang elements, and enabling you to remain calm and cool when you are troubled. Zen is not something definite and tangible, it is a refuge for mental solace. Zen is about concentration of mind. It is a profound culture, enabling people to gain spiritual tranqulity and be awakened. Even though not a word is spoken, it enables one to gain a thorough understanding of the truth of life. This is what we call the harmony between Yin and Yang. It is like a substance deep in your soul, generating a kind of wisdom and energy in your mind. It is also a kind of energy of self-confidence, helping you to achieve self-emancipation, self-regulation and self-perfection, leading you to the path of success. As such, Buddhism talks about ‘Faith, Commitment, and Action’. The theory, when applied in the human realm, is all about Zen. Concentration gives rise to wisdom. With concentration, the mind will be focused and it will not be drifting apart. Hence, the problem of schizophrenia will not arise. Zen culture is about the state of mind. It is a kind of positive energy! Positive energy is a kind of compassion, which enables people to understand each other when they encounter problems, to understand the country and society at large, and to understand their family and children, colleagues and friends. In this way, people will be able to live in peaceful co-existence and remain calm when they are faced with problems. When you see things in perspective using rationality and positive energy, you are able to change your viewpoint pertaining to a certain issue. This is the moment Zen arises in your mind! In fact, Zen is within you. This theory is very profound.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

10 October 2013
Special Interview by People' Daily, Europe Edition

Life, Wisdom, Children, People

“There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Miro and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.”

Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) American pop artist

Quoted in Robert Andrews, Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1996), p. 66
1990's

People

“One should oppose the fascination with Hitler according to which Hitler was, of course, a bad guy, responsible for the death of millions — but he definitely had balls, he pursued with iron will what he wanted. … This point is not only ethically repulsive, but simply wrong: no, Hitler did not ‘have the balls’ to really change things; he did not really act, all his actions were fundamentally reactions, i. e., he acted so that nothing would really change, he stages a big spectacle of Revolution so that the capitalist order could survive.”
In this precise sense of violence, Gandhi was more violent than Hitler: Gandhi’s movement effectively endeavored to interrupt the basic functioning of the British colonial state.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

"Disputations: Who Are You Calling Anti-Semitic?" in The New Republic (7 January 2009); Žižek is here quoting a statement he made in a prior essay to distinguish what he had actually said with such assertions as he was portrayed as having made. He asserts that Hitler for all his bluster and brutality was a promoter of established economies and less boldly revolutionary in his ideas and actions than Gandhi.

Death, Guy, Sense, Change

“Oh, they [the Media] definitely don't want to know the real Barrett story… there are no facts involved in the Barrett story so they can make up any story they like, and they do. There's a vague basis in fact: Syd was in the band and he did write the material on the first album, 80% of it, but that's all. It is only that one album, and that's what people don't realise. That first album, and one track on the second. That's all; nothing else.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

quoted in Lost In The Woods by Julian Palacios, 1997
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett

People

“Physical objects cannot exist unless they exist in a definite perspective and space continuum. But each individual creates his own space continuum... I want to tie this in with the differences you seem to see in one particular object. Each individual actually creates an entirely different object, which his physical senses then perceive.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Seth Material (1970), p. 127

Sense

“One wishes to go on. On this great river one could glide forever — and here we discover the definition of bliss, salvation, Heaven, all the old Mediterranean dreams: a journey from wonder to wonder, drifting through eternity into ever-deeper, always changing grandeur, through beauty continually surpassing itself: the ultimate Homeric voyage.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

On the Colorado River, in “Down the River with Major Powell”, p. 201
The Journey Home (1977)

Beauty, Dreams, Change

“Many people think the DPP does not welcome Chinese tourists. This is definitely not true.”

Tsai Ing-wen (1956) President of the Republic of China

DPP candidate: Quotas for Chinese tourists won't be cut if elected, Focus Taiwan, 1, September 10, 2015, 12 September 2015 http://focustaiwan.tw/news/acs/201509100021.aspx,

People, Thinking

“It was important for me to get involved with ‘Ink, Not Mink’ just because of what it’s about. It’s about really talking about the cruelty to animals, what they have to go through. I’m most definitely a big fan of ink, as you can see, and … I would rather wear ink than mink any day.”

Antoine Bethea (1984) American football player, defensive back, safety

"Colts Safety Antoine Bethea Signs With PETA’s No-Fur Team" https://www.peta.org/media/news-releases/colts-safety-antoine-bethea-signs-petas-fur-team/, interview with PETA (18 December 2013).

Animals

“I have now reached a stage in the argument where I have to choose between being too definite or being too vague. If I set forth a concrete proposal in all its particulars, I expose myself to a hundred criticisms on points not essential to the principle of the plan. If I go further in the use of figures for illustration, I am involved more and more in guess-work; and I run the risk of getting the reader bogged in details which may be inaccurate and could certainly be amended without injury to the main fabric. Yet if I restrict myself to generalities, I do not give the reader enough to bite on; and am in fact shirking the issue, since the size, the order of magnitude, of the factors involved is not an irrelevant detail.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 5 : A Plan for Deferred Pay, Family, Allowances and a Cheap Ration

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

“It was a dramatization of total chaos, a functional definition of confusion, an unchoreographed dance of sad violence. It was war.”

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 7 (p. 51)

War, Sadness, Dance

“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?”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Nadine Gordimer, "The Essential Gesture: Writers and Responsibility" http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/gordimer85.pdf, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, University of Michigan (12 October 1984), p. 9 Misattributed

Art, Thinking, Freedom

“Lucid gems are made of water; just as Crystal, which has been concreted from clear water, not always by a very great cold, as some used to judge, and by very hard frost, but sometimes by a less severe one, the nature of the soil fashioning it, the humour or juices being shut up in definite cavities, in the way in which spars are produced in mines.”

William Gilbert (astronomer) book De Magnete

English translation by Silvanus P. Thompson (1900).
De Magnete (1600)

Way, Fashion, Nature, Water

“These two characteristics make revenge the most suitable source for the formation of ressentiment. The nuances of language are precise. There is a progression of feeling which starts with revenge and runs via rancor, envy, and impulse to detract all the way to spite, coming close to ressentiment. Usually, revenge and envy still have specific objects. They do not arise without special reasons and are directed against definite objects, so that they do not outlast their motives. The desire for revenge disappears when vengeance has been taken, when the person against whom it was directed has been punished or has punished himself, or when one truly forgives him. In the same way, envy vanishes when the envied possession becomes ours. The impulse to detract, however, is not in the same sense tied to definite objects—it does not arise through specific causes with which it disappears. On the contrary, this affect seeks those objects, those aspects of men and things, from which it can draw gratification. It likes to disparage and to smash pedestals, to dwell on the negative aspects of excellent men and things, exulting in the fact that such faults are more perceptible through their contrast with the strongly positive qualities. Thus there is set a fixed pattern of experience which can accommodate the most diverse contents. This form or structure fashions each concrete experience of life and selects it from possible experiences. The impulse to detract, therefore, is no mere result of such an experience, and the experience will arise regardless of considerations whether its object could in any way, directly or indirectly, further or hamper the individual concerned. In “spite,” this impulse has become even more profound and deep-seated—it is, as it were, always ready to burst forth and to betray itself in an unbridled gesture, a way of smiling, etc. An analogous road leads from simple *Schadenfreude* to “malice.””

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

The latter, more detached than the former from definite objects, tries to bring about ever new opportunities for *Schadenfreude*.
Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, Men, Smile, Way

“On the French view of international politics: "According to my dictionary, the word 'ally' comes from the Old French. Very Old French, I'd say. For the New French, the word has a largely postmodern definition of 'duplicitous charmer who undermines you at every opportunity.'”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

The Australian, 23 February 2007

“That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chreia, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. Put forth something from your own stock.”
Ideo pueris et sententias ediscendas damus et has quas Graeci chrias vocant, quia complecti illas puerilis animus potest, qui plus adhuc non capit. Certi profectus viro captare flosculos turpe est et fulcire se notissimis ac paucissimis vocibus et memoria stare: sibi iam innitatur. Dicat ista, non teneat; turpe est enim seni aut prospicienti senectutem ex commentario sapere. 'Hoc Zenon dixit': tu quid? 'Hoc Cleanthes': tu quid? Quousque sub alio moveris? impera et dic quod memoriae tradatur, aliquid et de tuo profer.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXXIII

Children, Books, Age, Knowledge

“If in the case of a notion whose specialisations form a continuous manifoldness, one passes from a certain specialisation in a definite way to another, the specialisations passed over form a simply extended manifoldness, whose true character is that in it a continuous progress from a point is possible only on two sides, forwards or backwards. If one now supposes that this manifoldness in its turn passes over into another entirely different, and again in a definite way, namely so that each point passes over into a definite point of the other, then all the specialisations so obtained form a doubly extended manifoldness. In a similar manner one obtains a triply extended manifoldness, if one imagines a doubly extended one passing over in a definite way to another entirely different; and it is easy to see how this construction may be continued. If one regards the variable object instead of the determinable notion of it, this construction may be described as a composition of a variability of n + 1 dimensions out of a variability of n dimensions and a variability of one dimension.”

Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) German mathematician

On the Hypotheses which lie at the Bases of Geometry (1873)

Way, Imagination

“Structures of lines, surfaces, forms, colours. They try to approach the eternal, the inexpressible above men. They are a denial of human egotism. They are the hatred of human immodesty, the hatred of images, of paintings.. Wisdom [is] the feeling for the coming reality, the mystical, the definite indefinite, the greatest definite.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Arp's quote from his text in a catalogue of his exhibition, in Zürich 1915; quoted by Arp himself in his text 'Abstract Art, Concrete Art,' Hans Arp, c. 1942; as quoted in Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, by Herschel Browning Chipp, Peter Selz, p. 390
1910-20s

Wisdom, Men, Feeling, Reality

“I see the expression of… economy clearly in the gradual reduction of the statical laws of machines to a single one, viz., the principle of virtual work: in the replacement of Kepler's laws by Newton's single law… and in the [subsequent] reduction, simplification and clarification of the laws of dynamics. I see clearly the biological-economical adaptation of ideas, which takes place by the principles of continuity (permanence) and of adequate definition and splits the concept 'heat' into the two concepts of 'temperature' and 'quantity of heat'; and I see how the concept 'quantity of heat' leads on to 'latent heat', and to the concepts of 'energy' and 'entropy.”

Ernst Mach (1838–1916) Austrian physicist and university educator

Mach (1910) "Die Leitgedanken meiner naturwissenschaftlichcn Erkennenislehre und ihr Aufnahme durch die Zeitgenossen", Physikalische Zeitschrift. 1, 1910, 599-606 Eng. trans. as "The Guiding Principles of my Scientific Theory of Knowledge and its Reception by my Contemporaries", in S. Toulmin ed., Physical Reality, New York : Harper, 1970. pp.28-43. Cited in: K. Mulligan & B. Smith (1988) " Mach and Ehrenfels: Foundations of Gestalt Theory http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/mach/mach.pdf" 20th century

Law, Idea

“I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for Women six months ago and the more I have spoken about feminism, the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.
For the record, feminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.””

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign (2014)

Women, Men, Hate, Sex

“As long as imperialism exists it will, by definition, exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

Country

“I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras… I have no University education but I have undergone the ordinary school course. After leaving school I have been employing the spare time at my disposal to work at Mathematics. I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a University course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as "startling"…. Very recently I came across a tract published by you styled Orders of Infinity in page 36 of which I find a statement that no definite expression has been as yet found for the number of prime numbers less than any given number. I have found an expression which very nearly approximates to the real result, the error being negligible. I would request that you go through the enclosed papers. Being poor, if you are convinced that there is anything of value I would like to have my theorems published. I have not given the actual investigations nor the expressons that I get but I have indicated the lines on which I proceed. Being inexperienced I would very highly value any advice you give me. Requesting to be excused for the trouble I give you. I remain, Dear Sir, Yours truly…”

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) Indian mathematician

Letter to G. H. Hardy, (16 January 1913), published in Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary American Mathematical Society (1995) History of Mathematics, Vol. 9

Education, School, Error, Mathematics

“…there is never a "right moment" for the revolutionary act - the act is always, by definition, "premature."”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

In Defense of Lost Causes (2008)

“In spite of the growing differences of income, the ever-increasing concentration of capital and the steady increase of the proletariat, in a word, in spite of the growing opposition between classes, there is everywhere a certain social levelling that, at last, puts a definite end to the privileges of birth. This is the last stage of the trend towards the abolition of social distinctions which had been going on since the days of hereditary monarchy and authoritarian priesthood. The decisive step was due to the Sophists, who invented the completely new rationalistic conception of areté, independent of birth and breeding, to which every Greek without exception could attain. The next step in this levelling is taken by the Stoics, who first enunciated standards of human value that are free from all tinge of race and nationality. The Stoics’ freedom from national prejudice merely expressed a state of affairs already achieved in the kingdoms of Alexander’s successors, just as the liberalism of the Sophists is merely a reflection of the social conditions due to the rise of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie of the cities.”

Arnold Hauser (1892–1978) Hungarian art historian

The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999, Chapter III. Greece and Rome

Birth, Decision, Freedom

“Polling time that lasts from 7:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night is definitely a form of torture. Whether for citizens, candidates, media personnel, government workers, or tellers, it's torture.”

Ann Chiang (1955) Hong Kong politician

Source: http://news.rthk.hk/rthk/ch/component/k2/1223885-20151116.htm

Time, Night

“Although it was only nine o'clock he had already gone once around the pharmacological wheel to which he'd strapped himself for the evening, stolen a tuba, and offended a transvestite; and now his companions were beginning, with delight and aplomb, to barf. It was definitely a Crabtree kind of night.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys (1995)

Night

“What renders a problem definite, and what leaves it indefinite, may best be understood from mathematics. The very important idea of solving a problem within limits of error is an element of rational culture, coming from the same source. The art of totalizing fluctuations by curves is capable of being carried, in conception, far beyond the mathematical domain, 65 where it is first learned. The distinction between laws and coefficients applies in every department of causation. The theory of Probable Evidence is the mathematical contribution to Logic, and is of paramount importance.”

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) Scottish philosopher and educationalist

Source: Education as a Science, 1898, pp. 151-152.

Law, Art, Error, Mathematics

“… the same mistake that disfigured the coverage of the Bosnian war, where every consumer of news was made to understand that there was fighting between Serbs, Croats, and "Muslims." There are two apples and one orange in that basket, as any fool should be able to see. Serbian and Croatian are national differences, which track very closely with the distinction between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic beliefs. Many Muslims are Bosnian, but not all Bosnians are Muslim. And in fact, the Bosnian forces in the late war were those which most repudiated any confessional definition.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2000s, 2005

War, Fools, Understanding, Fight

“The mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed articulately in words involves that it is still open to question; and the mere fact that a difficulty can be definitely conceived involves that it is open to solution.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Thought and Word, iv
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

Idea, Question

“I was asked by one of the reports whether or not I would call Mary Cheney a selfish hedonist. I didn't mention her name. See, one of the articles said I had mentioned her. This is not true. I didn't mentioned her. But leave that aside. All I said was, she had come forward as a lesbian, she identifies herself as someone who engages in homosexual sexuality. I have just said that by definition, it involves selfish hedonism. I can't change that. Now, it might be true [that] the argument I've just given is the best argument in support of the Republican plank on gay marriage that I think can be made. There are lots of other arguments that can be added, but, in principle, that's the best one because we need to understand that marriage is procreational sex, not recreational sex. Now, I want to tell you. If my daughter or anybody else engages in behavior that put them under that descriptive label, I will not consent to lie about it, and I will not tell the American people that I support a plank that requires this logic and then exempt my daughter from the logic that it requires.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Party for the President, September 2, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_09_02partypresident.htm. 2009

Marriage, People, Lie, Sex

“I don't really know where I got my artists idea. The scraps of what I remember do not explain to me where it came from. I only know that by this time [her eight grade's year] it was definitely settled in my mind.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

About becoming an artist
1970s, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)

Idea, Time

“The official definition of "open source software," as published by the Open Source Initiative, is very close to our definition of free software; however, it is a little looser in some respects, and they have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1990s, Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" (1998)

“The hallmark, then, of the advanced religious, nonsectarian or any other (and I graciously include in the definition of an "advanced religious," odious though the phrase is, all Christians on the great Vivekananda's terms; i. e, "See Christ, then you are a Christian; all else is talk") — the hallmark most commonly identifying this person is that he very frequently behaves like a fool, even an imbecile.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Seymour: An Introduction (1959)

Fools, Christ, Personality

“As everyone knows, we (Malaysia) are in a very tight financial situation. Our yearly development budget is very limited. Every airport (in Malaysia) needs expansion. It will definitely cost the government a lot of money to upgrade or development airports. However, infrastructure projects must go on. We will look into ways to work on this plan. We will answer it when the government decides its ways forward.”

Loke Siew Fook (1976) Malaysian politician

Loke Siew Fook (2018) cited in " Government to decide financing model for airports upgrade by year end https://www.nst.com.my/business/2018/09/413597/government-decide-financing-model-airports-upgrade-year-end" on The Straits Times, 21 September 2018

Money, Way

““You’re not corporate,” she said definitely. “Corporates don’t do this stuff. Not like this.”
“The corporates do whatever turns a profit. Don’t let your prejudices blind you. Sure, they’ll burn down entire villages if it pays. But if having a human face is what cuts it, they’ll whip out a human face and put it on.””

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 30 (p. 377)

“We all have multiple identities in India; we are all minorities in India. Our heterogeneity is definitional.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The Hindu, "License to Be Himself", April 1, 2001
2000s

“The ideology of "competitive, atomistic can make a place for themselves only if they first create, via critiques, an awareness of the factors that alienate them. Many individual white women found in the women's movement a liberatory solution to personal dilemmas. Having directly benefited from the movement, they are less inclined to criticize it or to engage in rigorous examination of its structure than those who feel it has not had a revolutionary impact on their lives or the lives of masses of women in our society. Non-white women who feel affirmed within the current structure of feminist movement (even though they may form autonomous groups) seem to also feel that their definitions of the party line, whether on the issue of black feminism or on other issues, is the only legitimate discourse. Rather than encourage a diversity of voices, critical dialogue, and controversy, they, like some white women, seek to stifle dissent. As activists and writers whose work is widely known, they act as if they are best able to judge whether other women's voices should be heard.”

Bell Hooks book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Source: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Chapter 1: Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory, p. 9.

Women, Feeling, Personality

“Necessity may be defined in two ways, conformably to the two definitions of cause, of which it makes an essential part. It consists either in the constant conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the understating from one object to another.”

David Hume book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

§ 8.27
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

Way, Parting

“Even after proper discount is made for false propaganda, the evidence is indisputable that every invading army perpetrates atrocity, so much so that war may correctly be defined as atrocity. Reference to various standard dictionaries reveals the following definition of atrocity: "A deed of violence or savagery; great cruelty or reckless wickedness; extreme cruelty; enormous wickedness."”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Must We Go to War? (1937)

War, Falseness

“For me the voice of God, of Conscience, of Truth or the Inner Voice or ‘the still small Voice’ mean one and the same thing. I saw no form. I have never tried, for I have always believed God to be without form. One who realizes God is freed from sin for ever…. But what I did hear was like a Voice from afar and yet quite near. It was as unmistakable as some human voice definitely speaking to me, and irresistible. I was not dreaming at the time I heard the Voice. The hearing of the Voice was preceded by a terrific struggle within me. Suddenly the Voice came upon me. I listened, made certain that it was the Voice, and the struggle ceased. I was calm. The determination was made accordingly, the date and the hour of the fast were fixed…. Could I give any further evidence that it was truly the Voice that I heard and that it was not an echo of my own heated imagination? I have no further evidence to convince the sceptic. He is free to say that it was all self-delusion or hallucination. It may well have been so. I can offer no proof to the contrary. But I can say this — that not the unanimous verdict of the whole world against me could shake me from the belief that what I heard was the true voice of God.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Harijan (1933, July 8); also in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Vol. 61), and in The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi (Prabhu and Rao, eds., 1967, pp. 33-34)
1930s

God, Truth, World, Dreams

“If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits. In so doing, and in ignoring the fact that they are links in a continuous chain of events, we also ignore the possibility that their possession may later lead to definite disadvantages.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 3

War, Idea, Learning

“It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value."”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

On Hacking (2002) http://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html 2000s

Thinking

“I don’t play a lot of video games outside of work because for me video games are work. There are a lot of things I choose to do with my free time besides play games. But whenever I do hear about something interesting – if there is a new game that has a particularly interesting hook – that is something I will want to spend some time playing. But when it comes to genre, I definitely don’t specify one particular genre that I’m interested in. I’ll absolutely play anything in regards to genre.”

Eiji Aonuma (1963) Japanese video game designer

Zelda Producer Eiji Aonuma Talks Creating Majora's Mask And His Personal Hobbies http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2015/02/21/zelda-eiji-aonuma-interview.aspx?PostPageIndex=3 (February 21, 2015)

Game, Time

“The language of the game is interesting. You can think of the pauses as caesuras, breaks between the lines. As a poem the game is composed of a number of short lines representing the pitches. The number of lines per batter form a stanza. Then there is a space. Sometimes the stanzas become breathless, rushing full paragraphs that build rapidly on each other until the poem-inning explodes. The poem lives for this sudden blossoming out of prosodic regularity. Should someone make a computer analysis of baseball prosody, I believe that they would come up with something close to the prosody of some great American lyrical epic, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, let’s say, or Doc Williams’s Patterson…. The game is definitely an epic … formed of many lyrical moments dependent on silences for their effectiveness. An unfolding story punctuated by brief emotional swellings.”

Andrei Codrescu (1946) American writer

“A Kind of Love,” The Muse Is Always Half-Dressed (1993).

Game, Thinking, Silence, Grass

“Operational research OR is regarded by many as being in crisis. If OR is taken to be ‘classical OR’, this is indisputable … If, however, the definition of OR is widened to embrace other systems-based methodologies for problem solving, then a diversity of approaches may herald not crisis, but increased competence and effectiveness in a variety of different problem contexts.”

Mike Jackson (1951) systems scientist

As cited in Jackson (2007, p. 15)
Towards a System of Systems Methodologies (1984)

Problem

“I think blacks are definitely moving together. This is good, because in order to have any movement, you've got to have togetherness. But I also feel that because of the way society is now, we cannot get along without the white man. And the way it is now, he cannot get along without us…We've got to go to the roots of it and just change the whole society - that's why I don't believe in what some people say about having a black state and a separate black nation.”

Yolanda King (1955–2007) American actress

1970s

People, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) Swiss author

Pt. 4, ch. 10
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)

God, Sense

“a) The definition of history? Every historian would agree, I think, that history is a kind of research or inquiry. What kind of inquiry it is I do not yet ask. The point is that generically it belongs to what we call the sciences: that is, the forms of thought whereby we ask questions and try to answer them. Science in general, it is important to realize, does not consist in collecting what we already know and arranging it in this or that kind of pattern. It consists in fastening upon something we do not know, and trying to discover it. Playing patience with things we already know may be a useful means towards this end, but it is not the end itself. It is at best only the means. It is scientifically valuable only in so far as the new arrangement gives us the answer to a question we have already decided to ask. That is why all science begins from the knowledge of our own ignorance: not our ignorance of everything, but our ignorance of some definite thing-the origin of parliament, the cause of cancer, the chemical composition of the sun, the way to make a pump work without muscular exertion on the part of a man or a horse or some other docile animal. Science is finding things out: and in that sense history is a science.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 9

Way, History, Question, Knowledge

“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of Hell.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

1910s, Misalliance (1910)

Hell, Holiday

“I do like girls as friends, but definitely not as girlfriends. Bleurgh! Lots of girls try to hug me and tell me I'm cute, which is really embarrassing.”

Joseph McManners (1992) British singer, actor

Interview with British Newspaper The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk:

Girl

“Immediately and definitively [after starting a painting] I determine the effect of sunlight, day and shadow, without being concerned with any detail. This enable me to see in the started painting the whole of it, which my mind already saw before I begun to work - I see it appearing on the panel or canvas rather soon and can consider in this way the harmony of the composed objects and colors.”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Ik bepaal dadelijk en voor vast [nadat ik een schilderij begin] het effect van zonlicht, dag en schaduw, zonder mij met eenige uitvoerigheid op te houden. Hierdoor ben ik in staat gesteld, om in mijne aangelegde schilderij een geheel, dat mijn geest reeds vóór dat ik begon te arbeiden zag, binnen korten tijd op het paneel of doek te zien, en over de harmonie de zamengestelde voorwerpen en kleuren te kunnen oordelen..
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 99:

Color, Way, Appearance, Painting

“Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal. You know, I only got to spend a short amount of time with her but, you know, it was been asked if I felt any presence when I was with John McCain or Barack Obama. You know, with Sarah Palin, I don't want to say I felt a presence but she definitely had energy and she definitely went to work for American people, and it disgusts me on how often they try to bash her just for her sincerity. It's just, you know, she really wants to work for America and I mean, I wish people would listen to her and let them, and let her work for us. You know, she wants to serve us. She's not looking for power.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

"Glenn talks to Joe the Plumber" at GlennBeck.com (10 December 2008) http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/19055/.

People, Time, Sincerity

“This new generation, for example, is not content with preachings against that vile form of collective murder — lynch law-which has broken out in our midst anew. We know that it is murder, and a deliberate and definite disobedience of the Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." We do not excuse those in high places or in low who condone lynch law.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Address before the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. December 6, 1933 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14574 1930s

Law

“One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? … Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. … amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 3 : Application of the Argument.

Wisdom, Question, Nature, Animals

“[M]emory politics are by definition political and shift accordingly. There was a time when both the South Korean left and North Korea were more interested in good relations with Japan than the right here was.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Confederation Again (July 2018)

Time

“The statute in section 3(1) contains a definition of a “racial group”. It means a “group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins.” That definition is very carefully framed. Most interesting is that it does not include religion or politics or culture. You can discriminate for or against Roman Catholics as much as you like without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against Communists as much as you please, without being in breach of the law. You can discriminate for or against the “hippies” as much as you like, without being in breach of the law. But you must not discriminate against a man because of his colour or of his race or of his nationality, or of “his ethnic or national origins.” … You must remember that it is perfectly lawful to discriminate against groups of people to whom you object - so long as they are not a racial group. You can discriminate against the Moonies or the Skinheads or any other group which you dislike or to which you take objection. No matter whether your objection to them is reasonable or unreasonable, you can discriminate against them - without being in breach of the law.’}}”

Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge

Denning judged in the Court of Appeal at the time, and held that Sikhs were not a racial or ethnic group. His ruling was overturned in the House of Lords, notably by Ian Fraser, Baron Fraser of Tullybelton, who outlined seven points by which ethno-religious groups were to be defined.
Judgments

People, Religion, Law, Personality

“There is imagery. Symbolism is a difficult idea. I'm not a symbolist. In other words, these are painting experiences. I don't decide in advance that am going to paint a definite experience, but in the act of painting, it becomes a genuine experience for me. It's not symbolism any more than it's calligraphy. I'm not painting bridge constructions, skyscrapers or laundry tickets.... I don't paint a given object – a figure or a table; I paint an organization that becomes a painting.... it's not these things that get me started on a painting.”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

1958
1960's, Talks with Seventeen Artists, 1962

Idea, Painting

“I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

Dogs, Thinking, Parting, Painting

“It was a doctrine old as the common law, maintained by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors centuries before it was planted in the American Colonies, that taxation and representation were inseparable correlatives, the one a duty based upon the other as a right But the neglect of the government to provide a system which made the Parliamentary representation conform to the increase of population, and the growth and decadence of cities and boroughs, had, by almost imperceptible degrees, disfranchised the great mass of the British people, and placed the legislative power in the hands of a few leading families of the realm. Towards the close of the last century the question of Parliamentary reform assumed a definite shape, and since that time has constituted one of the most prominent features in British politics. It was found not only that the basis of representation was unequal and unjust, but that the right of the elective franchise was granted to but few of the inhabitants, and was regulated by no fixed and equitable rule. Here I may quote from May's Constitutional History: 'In some of the corporate towns, the inhabitants paying scot and lot, and freemen, were admitted to vote; in some, the freemen only; and in many, none but the governing body of the corporation. At Buckingham and at Bewdley the right of election was confined to the bailiff and twelve burgesses; at Bath, to the mayor, ten aldermen, and twenty-four common-councilmen; at Salisbury, to the mayor and corporation, consisting of fifty-six persons. And where more popular rights of election were acknowledged, there were often very few inhabitants to exercise them. Gatton enjoyed a liberal franchise. All freeholders and inhabitants paying scot and lot were entitled to vote, but they only amounted to seven. At Tavistock all freeholders rejoiced in the franchise, but there were only ten. At St. Michael all inhabitants paying scot and lot were electors, but there were only seven. In 1793 the Society of the Friends of the People were prepared to prove that in England and Wales seventy members were returned by thirty-five places in which there were scarcely any electors at all; that ninety members were returned by forty-six places with less than fifty electors; and thirty-seven members by nineteen places having not more than one hundred electors. Such places were returning members, while Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester were unrepresented; and the members whom they sent to Parliament were the nominees of peers and other wealthy patrons. No abuse was more flagrant than the direct control of peers over the constitution of the Lower House. The Duke of Norfolk was represented by eleven members; Lord Lonsdale by nine; Lord Darlington by seven; the Duke of Rutland, the Marquis of Buckingham, and Lord Carrington, each by six. Seats were held in both Houses alike by hereditary right.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People, Family, Law, Quotes

“The sentiment of reality can indeed attach itself so strongly to our object of belief that our whole life is polarized through and through, so to speak, by its sense of the existence of the thing believed in, and yet that thing, for the purpose of definite description, can hardly be said to be present to our mind at all.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture III, "The Reality of the Unseen"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Life, Reality, Sense

“…he realized that the same thing that made women initially attractive to him--their need to be taken care of--was the very thing that eventually signaled he end of the relationship. How did that old saying go? If you've been divorced once, you might be right in thinking your ex was the problem. If you've been divorced three times? Well, folks, the problem is most definitely you. Granted, he hadn't been divorced, but the point was well taken.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Travis Parker, Chapter 12, p. 144-145
2000s, The Choice (2007)

Women, Problem, Thinking, Time

“Honest change? Honest? Has someone altered the definition of the word while my back was turned, or have you recently developed a sense of humor?”

Ellen Kushner book The Privilege of the Sword

Part II, Chapter II (p. 130)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Sense, Change

“Love is large; love defies limits. People talk about the sanctity of love -- love is by definition sacred. Not some love between some people, but all love between all people.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Speech at 4th Annual Power Up Premiere Gala, Los Angeles, California (7 November 2004) http://jennifer-beals.com/media/speeches/powerup.html.

Love, People

“The " general" definition may give you no hint as to the way in which a particular assertion is meant to be interpreted. When, therefore, as in formal debate, a proposition is advanced by persons other than those who discuss it, clearness in defining is not sufficient. In such cases a definition must have two qualities: it must be clear, and it must be satisfactory to the persons addressed. They must know what the speaker means, and they must be convinced that his meaning is the correct one, — correct for that particular proposition at the time and place and under the conditions of that particular debate. Otherwise, they may object in the end that he has proved, not the given proposition, but another which he has substituted for it by means of arbitrary definitions.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 27; partly cited in: Branham (2013, p. 39)

Way, Time, Personality

“We have to claim anarchy and realize that systems have a life of their own that is anti-humanist. There is definitely an anti-humanist tendency in all systems.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Psychedelic Society (1984)

Life

“In the coming year I must do a large painting which will definitely get me recognized for what I truly am, for I want all or nothing. All those little paintings are not the only thing that I can do... I want to do large-scale painting. One thing is certain, that within five years, I must have a name in Paris; that is what I strive for. It's hard to get there, I know... To move faster I only lack one thing, and that's money, in order to boldly execute what I have in mind.”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from his letter (10 March 1845); as cited in 'Gustave Courbet', by Georges Riat, Parkstone International, 2015
very soon after this letter Courbet attacked a canvas of eight feet high and ten feet wide
1840s - 1850s

Money, Painting

“Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy, as commonly conceived and hitherto practiced, is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege in favor of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the state. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities.”

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) British philosopher and political economist

Source: On Representative Government (1861), Ch. VII: Of True and False Democracy; Representation of All, and Representation of the Majority only (p. 247)

People, Democracy, Idea

“Systems engineering is most effectively conceived of as a process that starts with the detection of a problem and continues through problem definition, planning and designing of a system, manufacturing or other implementing section, its use, and finally on to its obsolescence. Further, Systems engineering is not a matter of tools alone; It is a careful coordination of process, tools and people.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

A.D. Hall (1965) "Systems Engineering from an Engineering Viewpoint" In: Systems Science and Cybernetics. Vol.1 Issue.1

People, Problem

“It is not so bad that my paintings have been placed in the so-called reading room [Amsterdam exhibition, probably Arti et Amicitiae at the Rokin? ]. But it will be just as you write, they will definitely have to serve for FW Jansen and others. They certainly must get the medals and have to show in a most favorable way... Are there many beautiful things exhibited or is everything rather mediocre? Is there something to see of Breitner and Bauer.”

Suze Robertson (1855–1922) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Suze Robertson's brief:) Het valt me nog mee dat mijn schilderijen in de zoogenaamde leeszaal geplaatst zijn [tentoonstelling Amsterdam, waarschijnlijk nl:Arti et Amicitiae aan het Rokin?]. Maar het zal wel net zijn zoals je schrijft, ze zullen zeker dienst moeten doen voor FW Jansen en anderen. Die moeten zeker de medailles hebben en moeten op zijn gunstigst uitkomen.. ..Is er veel moois of is alles nogal middelmatig? Is er van Breitner nog iets en Bauer.
In a letter of Suze Robertson from Heeze, 11 Sept. 1904, to her husband Richard Bisschop; as cited in Suze Robertson 1855-1922 – Schilderes van het harde en zware leven, exhibition catalog, ed. Peter Thoben; Museum Kemperland, Eindhoven, 2008, p. 12
1900 - 1922

Beauty, Way, Reading, Painting

“Rick Santorum: In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality—
Lara Jakes Jordan: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Marriage, Dogs, Knowledge, Thinking

“When terms… evolve and change definition with time; and when the social reality which terms are intended to organize and render intelligible is also seen to be in flux, capturing the truth in a net of words becomes a matter of intuition and style more than of any scientific method that can be replicated by others and made to achieve the same result every time someone asks the same question, or undertakes the same operations.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Discrepancies among the Social Sciences (1981)

Truth, Intelligence, Question, Reality

“Talking about the definition of the niche, or niche market, I really have the completely opposite opinion. The people the other companies are targeting are very limited to those who are high-tech oriented, and core game players. They cannot expand beyond that population. We are trying to capture the widest possible audience all around the world. In other words, we are trying to capture the people who are even beyond the gaming population. So for that kind of company, we don't think the term 'niche' is appropriate.”

Satoru Iwata (1959–2015) Japanese video game programmer and businessman

Q&A: Video-game industry maverick promises a Revolution, 2007-03-03, Bishop, Todd, 2005-05-20, Seattle Post-Intelligencer http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/225097_e3iwata20.html, In response to Bill Gates' labeling Nintendo as a "niche player" in the seventh generation console wars

People, World, Game, Thinking

“In its most general form and from the point of view of physics, love is the internal, affectively apprehended, aspect of the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world, centre to centre. This is how it has been understood by the great philosophers from Plato, the poet, to Nicolas of Cusa and other representatives of frigid scholasticism. Once this definition has been accepted, it gives rise to a series of important consequences. Love is power of producing inter-centric relationship. It is present, therefore (at least in a rudimentary state), in all the natural centres, living and pre-living, which make up the world; and it represents, too, the most profound, most direct, and most creative form of inter-action that it is possible to conceive between those centres. Love, in fact, is the expression and the agent of universal synthesis.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

pp. 70–71 https://archive.org/stream/ActivationOfEnergy/Activation_of_Energy#page/n65/mode/2up Activation of Energy (1976)

Love, World, Nature, Universe

“We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA's tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature's construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a “transitional object”—a baby's warm blanket for our adult comfort. But when we do (for we must), nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Rocks of Ages

Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (Ballantine, 1999), p. 178

Wisdom, People, Beauty, Optimism

“We definitely didn't want it to be anything like our first or second records. We wanted to experiment more than we ever had and take any new idea and run with it as far as we could.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

On The Used's album "Lies For The Liars", reported in Market Wire (May 3, 2007) "Band to Unleash New Album -- "Lies For The Liars" -- on Reprise Records May 22nd and Join the Warped Tour for Select Dates This Summer", AP Alert - Financial, Associated Press.

Idea

“To make our story shorter than the miniature groom's, he learnt that his own property in himself was in danger; and that, if the patriot’s definition of liberty be true —"it is like the air we breathe, without it we die"—his life was near its termination. A writ was issued against him; and, thanks to a douceur to his valet, two professional gentlemen, as he left his toilet, would deprive his friends at the Clarendon of his company.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life

“One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities—that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that he is always kind or wise, and of another that he is always wicked or foolish. And yet we thus divide people. This is erroneous. Men are like rivers—the water in all of them, and at every point, is the same, but every one of them is now narrow, now swift, now wide, now calm, now clear, now cold, now muddy, now warm. So it is with men. Every man bears within him the germs of all human qualities, sometimes manifesting one quality, sometimes another; and often does not resemble himself at all, manifesting no change. With some people these changes are particularly sharp. And to this class Nekhludoff belonged.”

Leo Tolstoy book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 57

Men, People, Water, Change

“Relationship (definition): Liaison usually involving two people and their dirty dishes.”

Richard Summerbell (1956) Canadian mycologist

Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary (1985)

People

“As a general definition, it may be stated that a food is a substance which, when introduced into the body, supplies material which renews some structure or maintains some vital process; and it is distinguished from a medicine in that the latter modifies some vital action, but does not supply the material which sustains such action.”

Edward Smith (physician) (1819–1874) British physician, born 1819

Introd., p. 1
Foods

Food

“The insufficiency of defining goodness as not hurting others is clearly demonstrated by the general assessment of the behavior of most Germans under the Nazis. According to this definition, most Germans during the Holocaust were good people, since they did not hurt anyone. Yet most of us do not consider such Germans good people, clearly indicating that we recognize the impossibility of defining a good person as one who does not hurt anyone.
You do not have to do something bad in order to do bad; you only have to do nothing.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

Source: 1980s, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism (1986), p. 43

People, Behavior, Hurt, Personality

““Policy” is the negation of politics; policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite, which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Fragments for an Anarchist Anthropology (2004), p. 9

People, Idea

“For, for aught we know, or for aught that the new science can say to the contrary, the gods which play the part of fate to the atoms of our brains may be our own minds. Through these atoms our minds may perchance affect the motions of our bodies and so the state of the world around us. To-day science can no longer shut the door on this possibility; she has no longer any unanswerable arguments to bring against our innate conviction of free-will. On the other hand, she gives no hint as to what absence of determinism or causation may mean. If we, and nature in general, do not respond in a unique way to external stimuli, what determines the course of events? If anything at all, we are thrown back on determinism and causation; if nothing at all, how can anything ever occur? As I see it, we are unlikely to reach any definite conclusions on these questions until we have a better understanding of the true nature of time.”

James Jeans book The Mysterious Universe

Source: The Mysterious Universe (1930), p. 29-30 of 1930 ed.

God, Fate, World, Way

“The concept of communication includes all of those processes by which people influence one another… This definition is based on the premise that all actions and events have communicative aspects, as soon as they are perceived by a human being; it implies, furthermore, that such perception changes the information which an individual processes and therefor influences him.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, 1951, p. 6 as cited in: Stewart L. Tubbs, Robert M. Carter (1978) Shared Experiences in Human Communication. p. 1

People, Communication, Change

“The ethical regime [of the Jews] was quite definitely Ptolemaic, revolving around the small group of Jews, not the larger Gentile group—and, accordingly, they learned to remain unimpressed by Gentile temporal power. Being unimpressed did not mean being unafraid—material power might beat or starve one to death; it did mean refusing to surrender moral hegemony to the majority merely because it had power.”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

“A Philosophy for ‘Minority’ Living,” p. 56
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

Death, Learning

“Every man knows there are evils in this world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as what these evils are. But to most men one in particular stands out vividly. To some, in fact, this stands out with such startling vividness that they lose sight of other evils, or look upon them as the natural consequence of their own particular evil-in-chief.”

Henry Hazlitt (1894–1993) American journalist

Henry Hazlitt, Thinking As A Science (1916).

Men, World, Idea, Nature

“When I get to Australia in January I know what is going to happen. They are going to wheel out all the so-called eyewitnesses. One in particular, Mrs. Altman, I've clashed with once or twice. She is very convincing. They can be very convincing. Because they have to do it so often over the years. They've had a free run. We're going to meet because she has that tattoo. I am going to say,'You have that tattoo, we all have the utmost sympathy for you. But how much money have you made on it! In the last 45 years! Can I estimate! Quarter of a million! Half million! Certainly not less. That's how much you've made from the German taxpayers and the American taxpayers.' Ladies and gentlemen, you're paying $3 billion a year to the State of Israel. Compensation to people like Mrs. Altman. She'll say,'Why not, I suffered.' I'll say you didn't. You survived. By definition you didn't suffer. Not half as much as those who died…. They suffered. You didn't. You're the one making the money. Explain to me this. Why have you people made all the money, but Australian soldiers who suffered for five years in Japanese prison camps haven't got a bent nickel out of it!”

David Irving (1938) British writer and Holocaust denier

Speech in Portland, OR. September 18, 1996 http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denier_quotes.asp

Money, People, Suffering, Tattoo

“Involuntarily and without any definite motive, I had a thought that often occurs to me. Not only did I begin drawing relatively late in life, but it may also be that I shall not live for so very many years to come… I think I may presume without rashness: that my body will keep a certain number of years "quand bien meme" - a certain number, say between six and ten years for instance… This is the period on which I reckon firmly.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 309), p 23 1880s, 1883

Life, Motivation, Thinking, Drawing

“Pluralist India must, by definition, tolerate plural expressions of its many identities.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

The Hindu, "After the Dust is Settled", April 15, 2001
2000s

“The best definition of love in the world is not worth one kiss from the girl you love.”

Machado de Assis book The Mirror (short story)

A melhor definição do amor não vale um beijo de moça namorada.
"O Espelho", from Papéis avulses (1882); William L. Grossman and Helen Caldwell (trans.) The Psychiatrist, and Other Stories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) p. 60.

Love, World, Girl, Kiss