Quotes about definition (1773 quotes, page 8)

“A good definition of a network is organic behaviour in a technological matrix.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

“Don't think for a moment that Mbeki is not anti-white - he is, most definitely. His speeches all have anti-white themes and he continues to convince everyone that there are two types of South African - the poor black and the rich white.”

Helen Suzman (1917–2009) South African politician

As quoted in "Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman" https://web.archive.org/web/20120901223952/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1462042/Democracy-It-was-better-under-apartheid-says-Helen-Suzman.html (15 May 2004), by Jane Flanagan, The Telegraph
2000s

Thinking

“He fixed his definition thus: reflection is the possibility of the relation, consciousness is the relation, the first form of which is contradiction. He soon noted that, as a result, the categories of reflection are always dichotomous. For example ideality and reality, soul and body, to recognize – the true, to will – the good, to love – the beautiful, God and the world, and so on, these are categories of reflection. In reflection, these touch each other in such a way that a relation becomes possible. The categories of consciousness, on the other hand, are trichotomous, as language itself indicates, for when I say I am conscious of this, I mention a trinity. Consciousness is mind and spirit, and the remarkable thing is that when in the world of mind or spirit one is divided, it always becomes three and never two. Consciousness, therefore, presupposes reflection. If this were not true it would be impossible to explain doubt. True, language seems to contest this, since in most languages, as far as he knew, the word ‘doubt’ is etymologically related to the word ‘two’. Yet in his opinion this only indicated the presupposition of doubt, especially because it was clear to him that as soon as I, as spirit, become two, I am eo ipso three. If there were nothing but dichotomies, doubt would not exist, for the possibility of doubt lies precisely in that third which places the two in relation to each other. One cannot therefore say that reflection produces doubt, unless one expressed oneself backwards; one must say that doubt presupposes reflection, though not in a temporal sense. Doubt arises through a relation between two, but for this to take place the two must exist, although doubt, as a higher expression, comes before rather than afterwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Johannes Climacus (1841) p. 80-81
1840s, Johannes Climacus (1841)

Love , God , World , Beauty

“History does not produce definitive answers for all time. It is a process.”

Margaret MacMillan (1943) Canadian historian

p.167

History , Time

“My definition of "good" is that you understand that this is a question of power, that you be willing to give up some power, that you be willing to give up some resources, that you be willing to pay black people reparations for our years and years of service in this country, that you be willing to go home and tell your white mother and father about white racism and how it affects and kills black people in our communities. That's my definition of good white people and I haven't met any like that.”

Sister Souljah (1964) American hip hop-generation author, activist, recording artist, and film producer

Television special, The Issue is Race: A Crisis in Black and White (1992)

People , Home , Communication , Understanding

“The preceding criticism … justifies the following definition of the entire human: human existence as the life of “unmotivated” celebration, celebration in all meaning of the word: laughter, dancing, orgy, the rejection of subordination, and sacrifice that scornfully puts aside any consideration of ends, property, and morality.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: On Nietzsche (1945), p. xxxii

Life , Laughter , Dance

“But this is definitely another of those "This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Al-biwan Ke-Viro, you're my only hope" issues. Al? Please don't make me wear that golden bikini.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Re: fasync_remove_entry oops, Torvalds, Linus, 2013-03-07, 2013-05-01 https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/3/7/529,
2010s, 2013

Hope , Help

“I do [like being a redhead]... I do... because lighter is better as you get older... It's nice... I can't be a blonde. I'm definitely not a blonde... So, that doesn't leave too many other colors available.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Style Network (December 15, 2006)
2007, 2008

Color

“Our result thus far is, that determinism and freedom, when justly thought out, are in idea entirely reconcilable. Determinism proves to need no fatalistic meaning, but to be, possibly enough, simply the definite order characteristic of intelligence; while so far from freedom's being indeterminism, chance, or caprice, these are seen to be incompatible with it, and freedom proves to be, like determinism, the spontaneous definiteness of active intelligence.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.324

Intelligence , Idea , Freedom , Chance

“If Kumble was born in Australia or England, he would have got much more prominence in world cricket considering his superb record in both forms of the game. Kumble is definitely the best role model for any youngster entering the game.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

By Arjuna Ranatunga in "Kumble Calls it a Day: Quotes... For and By Kumble..."

World , Game

“The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 12, 1892)
Letters

Idea , Understanding , Dependency

“[In] the definition of international system… There is some "form of control" that regulates behavior and may range from informal rules of the system to formal institutions. …A view prevalent among many scholars of political science is that the essence of international relations is precisely the absence of control… a condition of anarchy…”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

War and Change in World Politics (1981)

Behavior , Science

“Children aren't like that, which is why they look so young, 'cause they always have a sense of style and purpose. When they're walking around, they have a very definite purpose, they're walking. And it's a great walk as well, it's not an adult's sort of bemused shuffle, it's that 'I'm going over here.' And you say 'Why are you going over there?' 'Because I have a harmonica.' 'What are you doing with the harmonica?' 'I'm going to put it in the toilet.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

'Why are you doing tha—' 'Enough questions, goodbye!'
On children's attitude.
Like, Totally (2006)

Children , Question , Sense

“If the variables are continuous, this definition [Ashby’s fundamental concept of machine] corresponds to the description of a dynamic system by a set of ordinary differential equations with time as the independent variable. However, such representation by differential equations is too restricted for a theory to include biological systems and calculating machines where discontinuities are ubiquitous.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

Source: General System Theory (1968), 4. Advances in General Systems Theory, p. 96, as cited in: Vincent Vesterby (2013) From Bertalanffy to Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity http://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings56th/article/viewFile/1886/672

Time

“I am writing definitely primarily for an audience who don’t know India.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

In Amrita Ghosh, "Author in Focus: An Interview with Dalrymple".

“I have long known of Mr. Shaw, read his plays and prefaces, and loved him. I admire heroic effort. Accomplishment I love. What I am about to say is no invention, and I am putting it down for whatever it may be worth to the historian of literature and for the student of influences of men on men, and because it is true and must therefore be made known. As a boy, charging pell-mell through literature, reading everything I could lay hands on in the Public Library of Fresno, I found many men to whom I felt deeply grateful — especially Guy de Maupassant, Jack London, and H. L. Mencken — but the first man to whom I felt definitely related was George Bernard Shaw. This is a presumptuous or fatuous thing to mention, perhaps, but even so it must be mentioned.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Hello Out There (1941)

Love , Men , Guy , Boy

“If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation,—amicably if they can, violently if they must.”

Josiah Quincy III (1772–1864) American politician

Regarding the admission of Orleans Territory as a U.S. State. Abridged Cong. Debates, Jan. 14, 1811. Vol. iv. p. 327. This was later famously paraphrased by Henry Clay: The gentleman [Mr. Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." Speech, Jan. 8, 1813.

“In the most abstract sense, a system is a set of objects together with relationships among the objects. Such a definition implies that a system has properties, functions, and dynamics distinct from its constituent objects and relationships.”

Tom R. Burns (1937) American sociologist

Source: Systems theories (2006), p. 1.

Sense

“I was attracted to studies of cancer families because epidemiological studies show that virtually all cancers manifest a tendency to aggregate in families. Close relatives of a cancer patient are at increased risk of that neoplasm, and perhaps other forms of cancer. The excess site-specific cancer risk is exceptionally high for carriers of certain cancer genes, in whom the attack rate can approach 100 percent. In candidate cancer families, the possibility that clustering is on the basis of chance must be excluded through epidemiological studies that establish the presence of an excess cancer risk. Predisposed families are candidates for laboratory studies to identify the inherited susceptibility factors. These investigations have led to the identification and isolation of human cancer genes, the tumor suppressor genes. These cancer genes are among more than 200 single-gene traits associated with the development of cancer. Approximately a dozen inherited susceptibility genes have been definitively identified, and many more are being sought. From studies of retinoblastoma and other rare cancers, important new information was generated about the fundamental biology of cancers that arise in many patients. Isolation of an inherited cancer susceptibility gene provides opportunities for presymptomatic testing of at-risk relatives. However, testing of healthy individuals also raise important issues regarding informed consent, confidentiality and potential for adverse psychological, social and economic effects.”

Frederick Pei Li (1940–2015) American physician

Frederick Li - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/frederick-li/.

Family , Study , Chance

“Macroevolution is properly defined as the emergence of new taxa at or above the species level. The only time creationists will use the proper definition is when they are as-yet unaware of the fact that speciation has already been directly-observed and documented dozens of times –both in the lab and in naturally-controlled conditions in the field. In fact, we’ve seen it so many times we’ve had to categorize recurrent types of macroevolution we’ve seen so often repeated. Once creationists find out about all this, their first reaction is to use the excuse that some newly evolved species of fruit fly or fish somehow still doesn’t count because it’s “still” a fly or it’s “still” a fish. Well of course it is! Evolution couldn’t permit them to be anything else. Creationists demand that the new species be so different from their parents that one can’t even tell they’re related. The irony there is that evolutionary theory never suggests that one “kind” of thing ever turned into another, fundamentally-different “kind” of anything, not unless you ignore all the intermediate stages –which of course creationists do.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"11th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm277H3ot6Y, Youtube (June 26, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Nature , Parent , Fish , Time

“If all the theories pertinent to systems engineering could be discussed within a common framework by means of a standard set of nomenclature and definitions, many separate courses might not be required.”

A. Wayne Wymore (1927–2011) American mathematician

Source: A Mathematical Theory of Systems Engineering (1967), p. vi; cited in: Jack Murph Pollin (1969) Theoretical Foundations for Analysis of Teleological Systems. p. 63.

“For Witold Doroszewski, at the root of semantic analysis lies the philosophical issue of the relationship between the general and the particular, the starting point being the analysis of the function of the copula "is". Doroszewski analyses the problem of meaning as closely linked with denotation. It is in that question that he sees the focal point of semantics.
According to Doroszewski, the history of meaning consists in the growth of a "gap" between the sign and its designatum. and the cause of changes in meanings lies in the conflict between the general character of the sign and the need for its being made to rise to the occasion whenever it is concretely embodied.
The attitude of Doroszewski, a representative of linguistic semantics, is of interest not only because he draws concrete conclusions from the general definition of semantics, but also because of his reflections on the relationship between semantics as pursued by linguists, and semantics as pursued by logicians. By touching here upon that issue, I anticipate further analysis. This does not advance the clarity of exposition, but is, unfortunately, often inevitable. In this case, it is justified in so far as it helps us to realize better the specific traits of linguistic semantics and its research objectives.”

Adam Schaff (1913–2006) Polish Marxist philosopher and theorist

Source: Introduction to semantics, 1962, p. 6

History , Question , Problem , Change

“Although people cannot define existence and do use the term with some looseness, yet it is possible to give an extensive definition by pointing to the sorts of things that everyone believes to exist. It is still easier to point to the sort of entities that people agree in believing not to exist, and happily, this is really what concerns us most. People mean by saying that causation only applies to things that exist that it applies, if at all, to what can change; and they believe that, if anything can change, it is things like chairs and tables and minds, and not those like the propositions of Euclid and the multiplication table. What would be agreed then is that, if causal laws apply to anything it is to what can change in so far as it changes.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

Perception, Physics, and Reality : An Enquiry into the Information that Physical Science can Supply about the Real (1914), Ch. 2 : On Causation; and on the Arguments that have been used against Causal Laws

People , Law , Change

“I definitely worry about that. I think about it all the time because that's the way Hollywood thinks. It's all about momentum and keeping your name out there, and college certainly takes you away from that. But, if I look at it in the longer term, it's so worthwhile.”

Julia Stiles (1981) American actress

On the fear that taking a career break to attend Columbia University will stall her career,
London Times, March 29, 2001

Way , Thinking , Time

“You want to talk about rape? That's— that's media rape right there. You said you would not do that! Since when does your no mean yes? Do you know the definition of no, sir? You've just raped Bill Cosby. You said you wouldn't do it. You just did it. And then you blamed it on him. My gosh, maybe we should have a lesson on rape.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2014-11-20
Radio, quoted in [2014-11-20, Glenn Beck: AP reporter ‘just raped Bill Cosby’ by asking him about alleged rapes, David Edwards, The Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/glenn-beck-ap-reporter-just-raped-bill-cosby-by-asking-him-about-alleged-rapes/, 2014-11-24]
Regarding clip from a interview where Bill Cosby refused to comment on the multiple rape allegations against him, and Cosby requesting that footage of AP reporter Brett Zongker asking him about it be "scuttled".
2010s, 2014

“One doesn't bother to believe the credible: the credible is believed already, by definition. There's no adventure of the mind.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

1:313
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

“Gaskell could not abide this indecorous version of his beloved linear progress theory. He could not bear to imagine that the grand procession from jellyfish to man, orchestrated by an ever-increasing mass of nervous tissue, once paused in its stately and orderly march toward human consciousness in order to execute a fancy little flip, a clever jig of inversion, just at the sublime and definitive moment of entrance into the vertebral home stretch.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 327
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Home , Imagination

“I'm not exactly known as a huge fan of Apple. In fact, for nearly a decade and half I've refused to use their products and I'm supposedly banned for life from Apple's properties. It's definitely personal between me and that company …”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

Why Apple is right to fight FBI over iPhone access http://cio.com/article/3035517/legal/why-apple-is-right-to-fight-fbi-over-iphone-access.html in CIO (19 February 2016)

Life , Personality

“When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

War power authority should be returned to Congress, March. 9, 1999 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec99/cr030999.htm
1990s

War , Personality

“I have a definite feeling for the West, the vast horizontality of the land, for instance... I have always been very impressed with the plastic qualities of American Indian art. The Indians have the true painter's approach in their capacity to get hold of appropriate images, and in their understanding of what constitutes painterly subject-matter. Their colour is essentially Western, their vision has the basic universality of all real art. Some people find references to American Indian art and calligraphy in parts of my pictures. That wasn't intentional; probably [it] was the result of early memories and enthusiasm.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Quote of Pollock, from Twentieth-century American painting, Gail Levin, The Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. London, 1987, p. 267
1940's, Art and Architecture (1944)

People , Art , Feeling , Understanding

“Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out depends upon what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from peascod, so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Geological Reform", Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, Vol. 25 (1869); as reprinted in Huxley, Discourses, Biological and Geological essays (1909), pp. 335–336
1860s

World , Mathematics , Dependency

“Part of the definition of guerrilla decontextualization is the attempt to intentionally misrepresent an individual’s character or intentions for purpose of decreasing any measure of influence or authority they might possess in either public or private circles. Hence: the popularity of such a technique among battling politicians.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(from 2012 article 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, On Guerrilla Decontextualization

Parting

“The scalar principle is the same form in organization that is sometimes called hierarchical. But, to avoid all definitional variants, scalar is here preferred. A scale means a series of steps, something graded. In organization it means the grading of duties, not according to different functions, for this involves another principle of organization, but according to degrees of authority and corresponding responsibility. For convenience we shall call this phenomenon of organization the scalar chain. The common impression regards this scale or chain merely as a "type" of organization, characteristic only of the vaster institutions of government, army, church, and industry. This impression is erroneous. It is likewise misleading, for it seems to imply that the scalar chain in organization lacks universality. These great organizations differ from others only in that the chain is longer. The truth is that wherever we find an organization even of two people, related as superior and subordinate, we have the scalar principle. This chain constitutes the universal process of coordination, through which the supreme coordinating authority becomes effective throughout the entire structure.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 94-95; as cited in: Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 251-252

People , Truth , Universe

“Must an artist live in the world or out of it? I believe this to be an unanswerable question. Total retirement, natural to the Saint, is injurious to most artists. They work marvelously so long as there are materials at hand. Goethe has further advice: "Solitude is a wonderful thing when one is at peace with oneself and when there is a definite task to be accomplished."”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Working

World , Peace , Question , Nature

“What's evil for the hawk is the mouse because, you know, the mouse is quick and gets away but I did this one realization every scientist goes through at one point… if you gave the hawk power, the power of God, the first thing the hawk might do is to slow down the mouse. But then the hawk would lose it's speed. And then if you slow the mouse all the way down, so it can just barely move, the hawk would lose its flight. So that in a weird way the tension between those two say natural enemies is what gives birth to their beauty. So I definitely feel that the tension we have right now within the human community in particular — that those are ultimately going to be resolved with a deeper harmony and a deeper appreciation for one another.”

Brian Swimme (1950) American cosmologist

Meaningoflife.tv interview, 2013

God , Beauty , Way , Feeling

“Robert Motherwell: Would you say that a fair statement of your position is that the 'meaning' of a work of art consists of the relations among the elements, and not the elements themselves?
Hofmann: Yes, that I would definitely say. You make a thin line and a thick line. It is the same with geometrical shapes. It is all relationship. Without all these relationships it is not possible to express higher art.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

Interview in Modern Artists in America, First Series (1952), ed. R. Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt, and B. Karpel, p. 19, 39
1950s

Art

“Traditional philosophy, almost by definition, has concerned itself with the unsaid. The nearly exclusive focus on the said by twentieth-century analytical linguistic philosophers is the shared contention that the unsaid is unsaid because it is unsayable.”

Joseph Kosuth (1945) American conceptual artist

Art after Philosophy, 1969

“[In 1932, Lionel Robbins declared economics ‘the science of choice’ (Robbins 1932). In the same year, when students at the University of Chicago opened their social sciences course reader, they read Knight’s response:] Such definitions come too near to saying that economics is the science of things generally, of everything that men are for practical reasons interested in. Such a definition is useless and misleading”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: The Economic Organization, 1951, p. 4 as cited in: Ross B. Emmett (ed). The Elgar Companion to The Chicago School of Economics http://books.google.com/books?id=MaCciKWcDIAC&pg=PA54, 2008. p. 53

Men , Universe , Science , Reading

“As contractors began to understand project management better and stronger cost control became a requirement, the definition of success changed. Success came to be defined as accomplishing the effort on time, within budget, and at an acceptable level of quality.”

Harold Kerzner (1940) American engineer, management consultant

Source: In search of excellence in project management (1998), p. 24

Understanding , Effort , Change , Time

“I do know without fear of contradiction what the definition of life is and it is 12 words long. 'Life is defined by how much you improve the lives of others.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

"
" Senior Convocation Speech http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/Olbermann_speech.html," Cornell University (1998-05-23)

Life , Fear

“Opinion is steadily inclining towards making the division of labor an imperative rule of conduct, to present it as a duty. Those who shun it are not punished precise penalty fixed by law, it is true; but they are blamed. The time has passed when the perfect man was he who appeared interested in everything without attaching himself exclusively to anything, capable of tasting and understanding everything finding means to unite and condense in himself all that was most exquisite in civilization. … We want activity, instead of spreading itself over a large area, to concentrate and gain in intensity what it loses in extent. We distrust those excessively mobile talents that lend themselves equally to all uses, refusing to choose a special role and keep to it. We disapprove of those men whose unique care is to organize and develop all their faculties, but without making any definite use of them, and without sacrificing any of them, as if each man were sufficient unto himself, and constituted an independent world. It seems to us that this state of detachment and indetermination has something anti-social about it. The praiseworthy man of former times is only a dilettante to us, and we refuse to give dilettantism any moral value; we rather see perfection in the man seeking, not to be complete, but to produce; who has a restricted task, and devotes himself to it; who does his duty, accomplishes his work. “To perfect oneself,” said Secrétan, “is to learn one's role, to become capable of fulfilling one's function... The measure of our perfection is no longer found in our complacence with ourselves, in the applause of a crowd, or in the approving smile of an affected dilettantism, but in the sum of given services and in our capacity to give more.””

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

[Le principe de la morale, p. 189] … We no longer think that the exclusive duty of man is to realize in himself the qualities of man in general; but we believe he must have those pertaining to his function. … The categorical imperative of the moral conscience is assuming the following form: Make yourself usefully fulfill a determinate function.
Source: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), pp. 42-43.

Men , World , Law , Penalty

“It is part of the task of linguistics to describe texts, and all texts, including those prose or verse, which fall within any definition of literature and are accessible to analysis by the existing methods of linguistics.”

Michael Halliday (1925–2018) Australian linguist

Source: 1950s–1960s, The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching, 1964, p. 1.

Literature , Parting

“For truth be told, I was tormented by perceptions and their corollary temptation which from a social definition rendered me unsane, though from a more absolute viewpoint what I might be said to have been suffering from was an excess of insight.”

Norman Spinrad book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 14 (p. 177)

Truth , Suffering

“First of all, principles should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter III, Section 23, pg. 131

“We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person who you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real--but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (2005)

Love , Life , People , Feeling

“However, such myths developed earlier in the Byzantine periphery. In the heart of the Empire, it was really only in its final phase from 1261, under the Palaeologan emperors, after the chastening experience of the Sack of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, and the subsequent period of ‘penance’ in the Nicene Empire, that we can begin to speak of a definite Greek ethnic component fuelled by strong anti-Latin sentiment, alongside the Universal Church and its mission to outsiders (see Raynes and Moss 1969: 33—6). In fact, a strong Greek ethnic sentiment had developed already at Nicaca. In John Armstrong’s words: At Nicaea after the Crusader conquest of Constantinople, the literati demanded that the emperor in-exile entitle himself king of the Hellenes”. Two centuries later the last emperor was mourned as Constantine the Hellene (Armstrong 1981: 179). For Armstrong, this was partly the result of a long-term homogenizing socialization process required for a powerful, integrated, and hierarchical central bureaucracy. But it was also due to Greek adherence to classical learning and literature, and to Byzantine unwillingness to accept the parity of Latin as a language of empire”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Armstrong 1982.: 178—8 I, 116—17
Chosen Peoples (2003)

Literature , Strong , Learning , Universe

“In this world, the question has already been asked. The world has already started to face the problems, the problems which are vital for the human race. There is no need to discuss the problems, but I would like to present my opinion. In the midst of all this, I still sincerely think that this Knowledge, the Knowledge of God, the Knowledge of our Creator, is our solution. Many people might not think so, and carry a completely different opinion, but my opinion is that since man came on this planet earth, he has always been taking from it. Remember, this planet Earth is not infinite, it is finite, and though it has a lot to give, it is limited. Maybe now we can somehow manage to stagger along, cutting our standards of living, cutting gas, reducing the speed limit more, but the next very terrifying question is What about the future? I think this Knowledge which I have to offer this world, free of charge, is the answer. For if everybody can understand that everybody is a brother and sister, and this world is a gift, not a human-owned planet, and have the true understanding of such, we'll definitely bring peace, tranquillity, love and Grace, which we need so badly. I urge this world to try. I do not claim to be God, but do claim I can establish peace on this Earth by our Lord's Grace, and everyone's joint effort.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Proclamation for 1975, signed Sant Ji Maharaj the name by which Prem Rawat was known at that time. Divine Times (Vol.4 Issue.1, February 1, 1975)
1970s

Love , God , People , World

“Science and mathematics… have added little to our understanding of such things as Truth, Beauty, and Justice. There may be definite limits to the applicability of the scientific method.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and Statistics (1985)

Truth , Justice , Beauty , Mathematics

“Consider the impasse of a one-God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere, since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything, since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic, having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, to keep his dying show on the road.”

William S. Burroughs book The Western Lands

lyric from spoken-word recording "A One God Universe," featured on Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, paraphrased by Burroughs from The Western Lands, p. 113
The Western Lands (1987)

Death , God , War , Fear

“The Text is not a definitive object.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Proposition 1
Variant translation: The Text is not to be thought of as an object that can be computed. It would be futile to try to separate out materially works from texts.
From Work to Text (1971)

“What you have to love about drinking is, every swallow is an irrevocable decision. You charging ahead, in control if the game. It’s the same with pills, sedatives and painkillers, every swallow us a first definite step down some road.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 4, Slumming by Lady Baglady

Love , Game , Drink , Decision

“Let your self go. If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered, and engaged, you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will be a better person. That, I propose, is the secret to spirituality, and it has nothing at all to do with believing in an immortal soul, or in anything supernatural.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Secret , World , Beauty , Exercises

“When you put the corset on it gives you a glimpse into what those women's lives must have been like, a little bit. Just the fact that they did that to themselves to look a certain way gives you an idea of how important it was to be a proper young lady in those times, to kind of fit the mold of what they were trying to accomplish socially. The director, Jay Russell told me to use the corset as a device to remind myself that not only physically, but emotionally, she was trapped in her surroundings and wanted desperately to get out. It was definitely a reminder because the thing is so tight!”

Alexis Bledel (1981) American actress

About the film Tuck Everlasting
[Lynn B, http://www.agirlsworld.com/rachel/hangin-with/alexisbledel.html, We're Hangin' With.....Alexis Bledel, A Girl's World, October 7, 2002, 2007-02-26]

Women , Way , Idea , Time

“It may take either of two forms, according as the sinking into sense directly involves only the violation of the spirit's own self-reverence or the graver assault upon the sacredness of others. In either case it is dishonour of God. The risk of it lies in the nature of our being, goes back to the conditions of our existence, of our self-definition in freedom; is constituent in our freedom as this is defined against the freedom of God. This risk is therefore "original" in a sense even deeper than that in which traditional theology makes sin to be original,”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.368-9

God , Nature , Sense , Freedom

“The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

Political Theology (1922), Ch. 4 : On the Counterrevolutionary Philosophy of the State

Hope , Decision

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech in Detroit, Michigan (7 October 1952)

“I am surprised to see that today everything that does not amount to surrender pure and simple to generalized capitalism, let us call it thus, is considered to be archaic or old-fashioned, as though in a way there existed no other definition of what it means to be modern than, quite simply, to be at all times caught in the dominant forms of the moment.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

From Can Change Be Thought? A Dialogue with Alain Badiou by Bruno Bosteels, in Alain Badiou: Philosophy And Its Conditions, edited by Gabriel Riera. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ISBN 0791465047.

Way , Fashion , Time

“Heisenberg finds that facts of observation lead uniquely and inevitably to the theoretical structure known as matrix mechanics. This shows that the total radiation in any region of empty space can change only by a single complete quantum at a time. Thus not only in the photo-electric phenomenon, but in all other transfers of energy through space, energy is always transferred by complete quanta; fractions of a quantum can never occur. This brings atomicity into our picture of radiation just as definitely as the discovery of the electron and its standard charge brought atomicity into our picture of matter and of electricity.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

Photo , Change , Time

“Iconography becomes even more revealing when processes or concepts, rather than objects, must be depicted—for the constraint of a definite “thing” cedes directly to the imagination. How can we draw “evolution” or “social organization,” not to mention the more mundane “digestion” or “self-interest,” without portraying more of a mental structure than a physical reality? If we wish to trace the history of ideas, iconography becomes a candid camera trained upon the scholar's mind.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"A Tale of Three Pictures", p. 428
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

Imagination , History , Idea , Reality

“I try not to obsess about recording. I'm definitely the one who will leave all the mistakes-to have that balance between what's undone and done. I try to move on to the next thing. I have friends who have been working on the same song for five, six years. They just won't let the songs go.”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Rolling Stone magazine, 1996

“When shall we open our minds to the conviction that the ultimate reality of the world is neither matter nor spirit, is no definite thing, but a perspective?”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Meditations on Quixote (1914)

World , Reality

“Many Christians deny what faith means, at least initially. Some try to equivocate. Some resort to the logical fallacy of false equivalence, insinuating that science depends on faith too, or that their religion has evidence. Some Christians even try to reverse the definition of faith into a belief that is based on evidence. But that’s not what it is. Faith is not simply “trust” either, as some allege. That is the wrong context. Faith in the context of religion is a form of trust, but with a prefix and suffix required to turn mere trust into faith. It must be a [complete] trust [that is not based on evidence]. This is according a consensus of mainstream authoritative religious and other definitive sources, not just within Abrahamic religions in the Bible and Qur’an, but also in other religions like the Hindu’s Bhagavad-Gita.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Philosophistry http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/04/12/philosophistry/ (April 12, 2017)

Faith , Religion , Science , Dependency

“Why don’t you believe in God? I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless. People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith.” I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe” comes across as both patronizing and impolite.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

"Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist," WSJ, 2010 http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/

God , People , Faith , Feeling

“Why not? We will definitely give them and charge rent.”

Lalu Prasad Yadav (1948) Indian politician

When asked Asked if ICL would be able to use Railway stadiums ( Lalu Prasad Yadav backs ICL, NDTV, August 9, 2007, 2007-08-29 http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtvcricket/showstory.aspx?id=SPOEN20070022069,)".

“By definition, a catalogue raissonne employs methodical scholarship to gather and digest in systematic form all that can be known of an artist's work and life. In short the evidence of his intellectual and cultural life.”

Gail Levin (1948) art historian

Introduction -'Edward Hopper-an intimate biography' University of California Press, Berkeley, 1995 ISBN 0520214757

Life

“Mathematics is that form of intelligence in which we bring the objects of the phenomenal world under the control of the conception of quantity. [Provisional definition. ]”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

"The Departments of Mathematics, and their Mutual Relations," Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 5, p. 164. Reported in Moritz (1914)
Journals

World , Intelligence , Mathematics

“The power of purity—it is a definite power.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Some of Mr. Gregory’s poems have merely appeared in The New Yorker; others are New Yorker poems: the inclusive topicality, the informed and casual smartness, the flat fashionable irony, meaningless because it proceeds from a frame of reference whose amorphous superiority is the most definite thing about it—they are the trademark not simply of a magazine but of a class.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Town Mouse, Country Mouse”, p. 70
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Fashion , Appearance

“A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.”

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

Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Faith , Religion , Spring , Appearance

“Faith, by definition, is a risk.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 125

Faith

“To be in contact with scientists, to become in a small way a scientist myself if possible, perhaps to cast new light on physical phenomena, to be able to uncover what is real and definitive, was my life's great dream.”

Ernest Solvay (1838–1922) Belgian chemist, industrialist, philanthropist

quoted by [Pierre Marage, Grégoire Wallenborn, The Solvay Councils and the Birth of Modern Physics, Birkhäuser Verlag, 1999, 3-764-35705-3]

Life , Dreams , Way , Light

“He considers [it's] insulting and false to say that gods are magical anthropomorphic immortals. But however insensitive that may seem, we cannot fairly dismiss all the hundreds of gods who were worshiped by millions of people for thousands of years. However we define what a god is, that definition must include every entity already universally accepted as a deity by those who worship it. My research in this area would have me submit that all gods are magical anthropomorphic immortals, because that description does seem to apply to all of them. They all have miraculous powers and human characteristics, and even if you can kill the body, they still exist and can still return in some other form, or the same form, or be literally born again as it was with Dionysus II. Even on the rare occasion that gods can be killed, none of them die from cancer or old age, and all of them survive for centuries. Even the immortals in movie, the Highlander could be killed–one particular way only. Otherwise, they’re immortal with human characteristics. Give them magic powers and they’d be gods.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Philosophistry http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/04/12/philosophistry/ (April 12, 2017)

God , People , Age , Way

“Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night," he had said. "You must not try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

"Death"
Winesburg, Ohio (1919)

Love , Disappointment , Kiss , Tree

“A genius and an Apostle are qualitatively different, they are definitions which each belong in their own spheres: the sphere of immanence, and the sphere of transcendence.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Two Ethical-Religious Minor Essays (1849), P. 90-91

“The lower lip definitely states that all actors are cattle—including the authorǃ”

Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) British filmmaker

Handwritten note accompanying Hitchcock's sketched self-portrait; as seen in—and addressed to the author of— "Melodrama Maestro" http://www.mediafire.com/view/uvl045zkpces0io/MELODRAMA_MAESTRO.jpg by Hume Cronyn, in McClean's (1 November 1944).

“Perhaps the Russians have done the right thing, after all, in abolishing copyright. It is well known that conscious and unconscious appropriation, borrowing, adapting, plagiarizing, and plain stealing are variously, and always have been, part and parcel of the process of artistic creation. The attempt to make sense out of copyright reaches its limit in folk song. For here is the illustration par excellence of the law of Plagiarism. The folk song is, by definition and, as far as we can tell, by reality, entirely a product of plagiarism.”

Charles Seeger (1886–1979) American musicologist

Unsourced

Law , Reality , Sense , Parting

“I have never had to look up a definition of honor. I knew instinctively what it was. It is something I had the day I was born, and I never had to question where it came from or by what right it was mine. If I was stripped of my honor, I would choose death as certainly and unemotionally as I clean my shoes in the morning. Honor is the presence of God in man.”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

Source: The Lords of Discipline (1980), p. 46. Said by character General Bentley Durrell.

Death , God , Shoe , Question

“Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.”

Richard Whately (1787–1863) English rhetorician, logician, economist, and theologian

Introduction, p. 1
Elements of Rhetoric (1828)

Nature

“To adequately understand evolution, you not only have to understand how to be scientific, (which is the real trick for most people) but you also have to know something about cellular biology, genetics, and anatomy, geology, particularly paleontology, as well as environmental systems, tectonics, atomic chemistry, and especially taxonomy, which most people don’t know squat about at all. Most people who accept evolution also tend to know a whole lot about cosmology, geography, history, sociology, politics, and of course, religion. But to believe in creationism, you don’t have to know anything about anything, and its better if you don’t! Because creationism relies on ignorance. It is not honest research! It is a scam, a con job exploiting the common folk, and preying on their deepest beliefs and fears. Creationist apologetics depends on misrepresented data and misquoted authorities, out-of-date and out-of-context, and uses distorted definitions if it uses definitions at all.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"1st Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY, Youtube (November 11, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

People , Fear , Religion , History

“Josh Smith: But specifically where you stand when it comes to rape, and should it be legal for a woman to get an abortion if she's —
Paul Ryan: Yeah, well, so I'm very proud of my pro-life record, and I've always adopted the idea — the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

WJHL interview http://video.wjhl.com/v/61772220/exclusive-interview-josh-smith-sits-down-with-vp-candidate-paul-ryan.htm,

Life , Idea , Change

“The statement is so frequently made that the differential calculus deals with continuous magnitude, and yet an explanation of this continuity is nowhere given; even the most rigorous expositions of the differential calculus do not base their proofs upon continuity but, with more or less consciousness of the fact, they either appeal to geometric notions or those suggested by geometry, or depend upon theorems which are never established in a purely arithmetic manner. Among these, for example, belongs the above mentioned theorem, and a more careful investigation convinced me that this theorem, or any one equivalent to it, can be regarded in some way as a sufficient basis for infinitesimal analysis. It then only remained to discover its true origin in the elements of arithmetic and thus at the same time to secure a real definition of the essence of continuity. I succeeded Nov. 24, 1858.”

Richard Dedekind (1831–1916) German mathematician

p, 125
Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen (1872)

Way , Time , Dependency

“How can this cosmic religious experience be communicated from man to man, if it cannot lead to a definite conception of God or to a theology? It seems to me that the most important function of art and of science is to arouse and keep alive this feeling in those who are receptive.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Wording in Ideas and Opinions: How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
1930s, Religion and Science (1930)

God , Art , Feeling , Communication

“The aesthetic is the sine qua none for art: if a work is not aesthetic, it is not art by definition... We feel through the senses, and everyone knows that the content of art is feeling; it is the creation of an object for sensing that is the artist's task; and it is the qualities of this object that constitute its felt content.”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Source: 1940s, Beyond the Aesthetics' (1946), pp. 36-37

Art , Feeling , Sense

“Ever since quantum phenomena became definitely recognized many attempts were made to picture their mechanism.”

Boris Podolsky (1896–1966) American physicist

in his early Quantum Mechanics paper On King's Classical Theory of Radiation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 1, 1927, vol. 13, no.3, p. 97-100.

“Every transfinite consistent multiplicity, that is, every transfinite set, must have a definite aleph as its cardinal number.”

Georg Cantor (1845–1918) mathematician, inventor of set theory

Letter to Richard Dedekind (1899), as translated in From Frege to Gödel : A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879-1931 (1967) by Jean Van Heijenoort, p. 117

“Oh, I've wept. Yeah, I've definitely wept just with the world, you know, how judgmental they are. You know what, I know I'm a good mom.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

Matt Lauer interview http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13347509/page/4/, MSNBC (14 June 2006)

World , Moms

“My mother, whom I loved very much, had trouble with me. I had very good school certificates. But I tormented her with horribly stinky collections. It was not enough for me at home to have a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish, and even a white mouse, which loved to walk around the apartment, although it lived in a cage. I added the protozoa to this menagerie. Traditional definitions regarded these small organisms – such as, for example, amoebae, flagellates, sponges, algae – as single-celled. What in these asexually reproducing animals or plants could intrigue the little boy so much that he permanently endured this abomination (as the mother would say) home?! After all, neither the request nor the threat of this exceptionally tolerant woman, who carried out her home diligently on a daily basis, did not help. A trip to the ponds, or actually to the stagnant at Bonarka – where today is Mateczny Roundabout – were exciting for the little boy. And even more he enjoyed moments when he could watch for hours what was happening in aquariums, jars or cages.”

Włodzimierz Ptak (1928–2019) immunologist

Bętkowska, Teresa (August–September 2010). "Mistrz niszowej dyscypliny" http://www2.almamater.uj.edu.pl/126/17.pdf (PDF). Alma Mater (in Polish). Kraków: Jagiellonian University (126–127): pp. 41–46.

Love , School , Dogs , Home

“Today, the Israelis tightened the noose on the mass media in northern occupied Palestine and occupied Palestine. No one can report any news or broadcast any footage. [News reports] are subject to the Israeli censorship which permits and disseminates them. Even you at Al-Jazeera Channel were subjected to arrests, interrogation, restricted activities, and the like. Why do the Israelis resort to concealing the truth on the other side? Why? Do they do that only because they accuse the media outlets of setting the coordinates? This is nonsense. We have the coordinates of these Israeli settlements and military positions in the north, centre, or in any part of occupied Palestine. We do not need anybody to give us information, images, or the like. In that case, they want to conceal the true scene of the war on the other side because it will have definite impact on the Israeli street and media and the morale of the Israelis.”

Hassan Nasrallah (1960) Secretary General of Hezbollah

Hassan Nasrallah, Al-Jazeera interviews Hezbollah chief http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=AL-20060722&articleId=2790 Al-Jazeera 20 July 2006
Quote, 2006

War , Truth , Parting

“The terms "black box" and "white box" are convenient and figurative expressions of not very well determined usage. I shall understand by a black box a piece of apparatus, such as four-terminal networks with two input and two output terminals, which performs a definite operation on the present and past of the input potential, but for which we do not necessarily have any information of the structure by which this operation is performed. On the other hand, a white box will be similar network in which we have built in the relation between input and output potentials in accordance with a definite structural plan for securing a previously determined input-output relation.”

Norbert Wiener book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine

Preface. page xi. (Footnote 1)
Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)

Understanding , Past , Box

“[ Monet is].. hard at work for some time now. His paintings has really progressed, I'm sure it will attract a lot of attention. He has sold thousands of franc's worth of paintings in the last few days, and has one or two other small commissions. He's definitely on his way.”

Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) French painter

Quote of Bazille in a letter to his brother, December 1865; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 43
1861 - 1865

Way , Time , Painting

“The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who's winning an argument with a liberal.”

Peter Brimelow (1947) American journalist

Source: Today’s Letter: A VDARE.COM Contributor Worries About Smears; Peter Brimelow Reassures Him. https://archive.is/20120529012624/www.vdare.com/letters/tl_090503.htm

“Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?”

Richard Eberhart (1904–2005) American poet

"The Fury of Aerial Bombardment"

God , Truth , Stupidity , Soul

“Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream (1978)

Life , Truth , Dreams , Soul

“There are accepted definitions of Americanism. There is none of Americanization. The reason is not hard to find. There is in America a national impulse called Americanization, which was understood as a war necessity before it had developed in time of peace. It acquired a generalization before it had become specific. It was subjected to organization and committed to the achievement of results before it was a branch of knowledge fairly evolved and reduced to practice.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

War , Peace , Knowledge , Time

“Many people think there are no transitional species because the only fossil forms they’re aware of at all are a handful of plastic pieces in a prehistoric play set. They’ve no idea how rich the fossil record is! We know of several hundred species just within dinosaurs, to say nothing of the thousands of examples of each of hundreds more taxa apart from that. Experts estimate that all the collective genera still roaming around now only amount to about 1% of all the species that have ever lived. Practically everything there ever was ain’t no more. Every species living today has definite relatives both extant and extinct, and evident in the fossil record. And in one sense, all of them, even the things still alive, count as transitional species.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"9th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU, Youtube (May 8, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

People , Idea , Thinking , Sense

“Once a definition of congruence is given, the choice of geometry is no longer in our hands; rather, the geometry is now an empirical fact.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

“I have loved my stay here, enjoyed the wildlife at the Mara and the weather in Mombasa with my family. The hospitality has been first class and am definitely looking forward to coming back sometime in the future… I learned two Swahili words: jambo (Hello!) and asante”

Aaron Ramsey (1990) Welsh association football player

Thank you!
XinhuaNet http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sports/2013-06/02/c_13242781.htm (2 June 2013)

Love , Family , Learning , Future

“What mystifies me is how he or any one else can determine what is a desirable type of industry such as should qualify for special assistance of this kind. In my own simple way I should have thought that a desirable industry was, almost by definition, one which could establish itself and thrive without special assistance in ordinary market conditions. Anything else suggests a degree of omniscience which I, at least, am not prepared to credit even the most expert with. I trust the commercial judgment only of those who are themselves taking the risks.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 27, 1968, page 212.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Way

“Awareness of ideal values is the first step in the conscious creation of images of the future… for a value is by definition that which guides a ‘valued’ future.”

Fred Polak (1907–1985) Dutch futurologist

Source: The Image of the Future, 1973, p. 10 as cited in: Rowena Morrow (2006) "Hope, entrepreneurship and foresight". In: Regional frontiers of entrepreneurship research

Future

“Every artist feels alone and isolated. Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

Daily Close-up, after the Flag, Roberta Brandes Gratz, New York Post, 30 December 1970, p. 25
1970s

Feeling

Quotes about definition page 8

Quotes about definition
page 8