Definition Quotes

Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style. (Jonathan Swift)
For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery. View quote
Jonathan Swift
Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty. View quote
Ron Paul
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy. View quote
Alfred North Whitehead
Definition: CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else. View quote
Ambrose Bierce
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell. View quote
George Bernard Shaw
Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable. View quote
James Baldwin
Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand. View quote
Saul Bellow
Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock. View quote
Kurt Cobain
The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. (George S. Patton)
If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV. View quote
Val Kilmer
Definition of Good and Evil: Good is what you like. Evil is what you don't like. View quote
Anton LaVey
The best definition of an immortal is someone who hasn't died yet. View quote
Tom Holt
If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. View quote
Harvey Fierstein
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. View quote
Catharine MacKinnon
In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word 'frustration'. View quote
Alan Perlis
I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can't read any poetry. View quote
Randall Jarrell
Any person who wants to govern the world is by definition the wrong person to do it. View quote
Greg Iles
The historian is, by definition, absolutely incapable of observing the facts which he examines. (Marc Bloch)
To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is too condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness. View quote
Émile Durkheim
A general definition of civilization a civilized society is exhibiting the fine qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace. View quote
Alfred North Whitehead
The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand. View quote
Thom Gunn