Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions.
quote by Tryon Edwards
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Fitting Conditions One Accepts
Look for them.
Definitions!
They will be there.
Used for what they are...
To become redefined,
To suit minds seeking reason.
On their terms.
To find a value that expresses,
One's way of life.
To either correct or ignore,
What is right.
To apply these definitions...
Fitting conditions one accepts.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Half the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. We need not dispute, we need not prove, we need but define. At all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all and then see who are left for us to dispute; what is left for us to prove.
quote by John Henry Cardinal Newman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The book of definitions
Solely defined descriptively engaged
A totally defining clarity is
To be clear of definitions
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mr. Me
Once a boy named mister me bemoaned a great regret
I've floundered in the misty sea, but can't abide its mystery
I wound up sad, you bet
So onward go and edward ho into the bounding main
Enjoy the show look out below but mind the misty sea
Or end up sad like mister me
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
So take the hand of mister me and mister, make him glad
To swim the mister misty sea and cease the mister mystery
That mister, made him sad
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
He ended up sad
He ended up sad
He ended up really, really, really sad
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is odd how learned persons fail to see that new terms and definitions are apt to mean new doubts and litigation.
quote by Frederick Pollock
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Define insanity, define me
'A spectrum of behaviours characterised by
certain abnormal mental or behavioural patterns
that may manifest as violation of societal norms
including becoming a danger to themselves and others or
nowadays denoting mental instability'
Hey! wiki define abnormal, because I don't understand
Tell me who decides societal norms, cause I didn't contribute to them
Let me be dangerous, let me be myself
The stability of whom should I look at?
Define love, define pain, define sufferance
define mercy, define justice, define tolerance
define passion, define sex, define complexity
define insanity, please define me
Take me out of this dream, I can't catch the reality
lead me through this wet fog, guide me home
all my senses are enhanced when
I'm abandoned to your memory
Borderline attitude of being nervous, occasionally anguished
a stormy spirit supposedly calm, a balance quite disturbed
people are arrogant with strange guys
people are scared about non-linear minds
are you among them?
Define love, define pain, define sufferance
define mercy, define justice, define tolerance
define passion, define sex, define complexity
define insanity, please define me
poem by Ilaria Boffa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Definitions
Things began to define them.
Giving them reason and a purpose to live.
Living without things teased...
They felt an emptiness within.
With a shallowness they would defend,
With pretention.
And an awareness of self...
A depth did not know.
They did not grow to love themselves...
If they could not purchase things to define them.
And definitions of who they were...
Had to have style and be flaunted,
To identify themselves with cliques of importance.
And...
Where they had been and where they are going,
Depend on things obtained to impress.
And not the lack of substance...
No one has that to qualify,
To ensure that can be addressed or expressed
With comprehension understood and digested.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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After the atomic bombs were dropped, the war ended and we went into Tokyo Bay with the rest of the fleet, the Missouri and the rest of them, while they signed the terms of surrender that ended the war.
quote by Barney Ross
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Demo-Interventioncy
'No longer will the terms 'nationalism'
And/or 'socialism' be used...
As descriptive definitions.
We will continue the encouragement,
Of 'capitalistic' points of view.
Although we are aware of those depleted,
And exhausted values!
Please relate to your constituents...
We too are convinced of their desires.
And from this day foreward,
We will honor their fantasies...
By describing our intentions,
In the warmest of terms.
We've decided to call what is being done,
'Demo-Interventioncy'!
If the opposition has a better suggestion...
We, of course, have adopted a transparent policy.
As long as what is achieved,
Depicts what has been set into motion! '
~This process is going to fail! ~
'Not acceptible!
Next suggestion? '
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?
quote by Dennis Prager
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.
quote by George Will
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.
quote by Stokely Carmichael
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If you're going to define me properly, you must think in terms of my failures as well as my successes.
quote by Harrison Ford
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I define my sexuality in terms of the people that I love.
quote by George Michael
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I can't really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too?
quote by Audre Lorde
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms.
quote by Arthur Keith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In fact, from then on scholars engaged in a kind of game of comparing different Indo-European languages with one another, and eventually they could not fail to wonder what exactly these connections showed, and how they should be interpreted in concrete terms.
quote by Ferdinand de Saussure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.
quote by Neal Boortz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On Their Own Terms
On their own terms,
People have a right to do and choose...
As they please.
This should not lead to an argument.
However...
When those terms and choices one chooses,
At the crossing over a threshold into someone's home...
Anyone believing they should be treated,
Based upon their own terms...
Should excuse themselves immediately.
Before they are asked to leave.
Thus making the keeping of their own terms,
An issue not needing to be debated.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.
quote by Walter Pater
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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