Attributing Def Quotes

Existentialism, in both its Continental and its Anglo-Saxon versions, is an attempt to solve the problem without really facing it: to solve it by attributing to the individual an empty, lonely freedom, a freedom, if he wishes, to 'fly in the face of the facts'. What it pictures is indeed the fearful solitude of the individual marooned upon a tiny island in the middle of a sea of scientific facts, and morality escaping from science only by a wild leap of the will. But our situation is not like this. ~ Iris Murdoch

I have no skills with machines. I fear them, and because I cannot help attributing human qualities to them, I suspect that they hate me and will kill me if they can. ~ Robertson Davies

Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy. ~ Jill Scott

The new moon rode high in the crown of the metropolis. Shinin', like Who on top of this? ~ Mos Def

I spoke of the tragic illusion of perpetuity, but, no, my friends, it is a comic one. The ludicrous plot in which we are all trapped. The ancient Greeks referred to plot as mythos, attributing the random drift of human affairs to some sort of unknowable but glimpsable divine motion, attempting to attach a certain grandeur to it, the delusion of meaning. But we are characters who do not exist, in a story composed by no one from nothing. Can anything be more pitiable? No wonder we all are grieving. ~ Robert Coover

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records. ~ Chuck D

If Mohammed had been a false prophet. there is no reason why Christ should not have spoken of him as he spoke of Antichrist but if Mohammed is a true Prophet the passages referring to the Paraclete must inevitably concern him - not exclusively but eminently - for it is inconceivable that Christ, when speaking of the future, should have passed over in silence a manifestation of such magnitude. The same reasoning excludes a priori the possibility that Christ. when making his predictions, intended to include Mohammed under the general denomination of' false prophets", for in the history of our era Mohammed is in no sense a typical example among others of the same kind, but on the contrary, a unique and incomparable apparition(1). If he had been one of the false prophets announced by Christ he would have been followed by others and there would exist in our day a multitude of false religions subsequent to Christ and comparable in importance and extension to Islam. The spirituality to be found within Islam from its origins up to our days is an incontestable fact. and "by their fruits ye shall know them." Moreover, it will be recalled that the Prophet in his doctrine has testified to the second coming of Christ without attributing to himself any glory. unless it be that of being the last Prophet of the cycle and history proves that he spoke the truth, no comparable manifestation having followed after him. ~ Frithjof Schuon

In the early '90s, when I really started to find my voice, I was reading a lot of books, and I was moved by the writers, like Chinua Achebe, and I wanted to be able to write rhymes that were as potent as what I was reading. ~ Mos Def

Recall Part 3c's mention of how Cantor took what had been regarded as a paradoxical, totally unhandlable feature of (Infinity)-namely that an infinite set/class/aggregate can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with its own subset-and transformed it into the technical def. of infinite set. Watch how he does the same thing here, turning what appear to be devastating objections into rigorous criteria, by defining a set S as any aggregate of collection of discrete entities that satisfies two conditions: (1) S can be entertained by the mind as an aggregate, and (2) There is some stated rule or condition via which one can determine, for any entity x, whether or not x is a member of S. ~ David Foster Wallace

I never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice. ~ Mos Def

The deepest change begins with men raising children as much as women do and women being equal actors in the world outside the home. There are many ways of supporting that, from something as simple as paid sick leave and flexible work hours to attributing an economic value to all caregiving and making that amount tax deductible. ~ Gloria Steinem

Hip-hop is the last true folk art. ~ Mos Def

Hip-hop is a beautiful culture. It's inspirational, because it's a culture of survivors. You can create beauty out of nothingness. ~ Mos Def

Although, your stripping skills could use a bit of work.

Yeah, well, excuse the fuck out of me. You just said take them off... wasn't aware I was supposed to put on some Def Leppard and make a show of it. ~ J.M. Darhower

My radio's loud like a fire alarm:
The floor vibrates, the walls cave in,
The bass makes my eardrums seem thin.
Def sounds in my ride, yes the front and back ...
You would think it was a party, not a Cadillac! ~ LL Cool J

So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years. ~ Jermaine Dupri

Restlessness is my nemesis/ It's hard to just chill and sit still ~ Mos Def

Shit," Clutch said after a few minutes. "The high-def has totally ruined porn. Are those ingrown hairs? ~ Joanna Wylde

I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture. ~ Mos Def

And from the moment that I saw you, I knew you was trouble,
But I disregarded detour signs,
And did not stop til you was mine.
I guess God was like, 'Aight, fine.'
Careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it in heaps.
Try to give it back, He be like, 'Nah, that's yours to keep.' ~ Mos Def

I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly. ~ Mos Def

Meanwhile, the travellers pursued their journey; Emily making frequent efforts to appear cheerful, and too often relapsing into silence and dejection. Madame Cheron, attributing her melancholy solely to the circumstance of her being removed to a distance from her lover, and believing, that the sorrow, which her niece still expressed for the loss of St. Aubert, proceeded partly from an affectation of sensibility, endeavoured to make it appear ridiculous to her, that such deep regret should continue to be felt so long after the period usually allowed for grief. At ~ Eliza Parsons

Justin Bieber is signed to Def Jam, and I don't believe in touching nothing that ain't mine. I want someone to give me the same respect - don't touch nothing that's mine. I still want what I want. But Justin Bieber is definitely a friend of a family. Me, Drake, Wayne. We rock with the little homie, so he a part of us in heart. ~ Birdman

What do you do when you are faced with several different gods each claiming the same territory? The Babylonian Marduk and the Greek Zeus was each considered master of the sky and king of gods. You might also decide, since they had quite different attributes, that one of them was merely invented by the priests. But if one, why not both? And so it was that the great idea arose, the realization that there might be a way to know the world without the god hypothesis; that there might be principles, forces, laws of nature, through which the world could be understood without attributing the fall of every sparrow to the direct intervention of Zeus. ~ Carl Sagan

When people say, 'I don't see you enough,' well just because you don't see me don't mean I don't exist, or just 'cause you haven't heard me don't mean I haven't been making noise. But if I keep making noise, you'll pick up. ~ Mos Def

Why did one straw break the camel's back?
Here's the secret:
The million other straws underneath it. ~ Mos Def

You can positively affect and change a social circumstance with art, and it's vital that a change happens now. ~ Mos Def

Oh, we solved that long ago!" Rubedo chuckled. "I believe that was Greengallows, Henrik Greengallows? Is that right, my love? Ancient history has never been my subject. A famous case study even reported a method for turning straw into gold! The young lady who discovered it wrote a really rather thin paper - but she toured the lecture circuit for years! Her firstborn refined it, so that she could make straw from gold and solve the terrible problem of housing for destitute brownies."

"Hedwig Greengallows, my dear," mused Citrinitas. "Henrik was just her mercurer. Men are so awfully fond of attributing women's work to their brothers! ~ Catherynne M. Valente

It's one thing to be the greatest; it's another thing to be necessary. The best are the most necessary: those who take less than they give and love more than they hate. ~ Mos Def

I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job. ~ Mos Def

Autonomy is the capacity to act on principles that are one's own and one will exercise this capacity by means of a process of rational reflection on these principles. Autonomy is thought to be necessary for attributing political responsibility. ~ Alison Assiter

I have always been involved with radio, whether it was as an artist talking to radio about my own songs, or as a promotion man at Def Jam to working records through my company. In 2000 I was asked to host a show in Norfolk VA and through that show I was then asked to host the morning show in Detroit. The concept of the show was around Hip Hop. We were active in the community and we wanted to do a local show that had a hip hop feel around it. ~ MC Serch

I just didn't wanna put the pressure on myself to be in there [Def Jam South] to work as an artist and to have the hat as the executive with other projects. ~ DJ Khaled

But how can we venture to reprove or praise the universe! Let us beware of attributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is neither perfect nor beautiful nor noble, and has no desire to become any of these; it is by no means striving to imitate mankind! It is quite impervious to all our aesthetic and moral judgments! It has likewise no impulse to self-preservation or impulses of any kind; neither does it know any laws. Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress ... ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

As to the inventions of printing and of paper, we generally consider these in the wrong oredr, attributing too much importnace to printing and too little to paper. ~ Norbert Wiener

def leppard lyric from Rock of Ages: It's better to burn out than fade away. This is not a Curt Cobain quote. He was quoting them !!!!! ~ Victoria Danann

Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def

It's really a pity that there are observers who view political events like comic strips. There has to be a Zorro, there has to be a star. No, the problem of Upper Volta is more serious than that. It was a grave mistake to have looked for a man, a star, at all costs, to the point of creating one, that is, to the point of attributing the ownership of the event to captain Sankara, who must have been the brains, etc. ~ Thomas Sankara

I got my first exposure to Islam when I was 13. ~ Mos Def

Hi-def is merely the latest in a string of evolutional leaps that have transformed the way we sit slumped in front of a box wishing we were dead. ~ Charlie Brooker

It wouldn't be fair to cast aspersions on an entire cultural movement based on the actions of a few. To quote my grandfather, 'One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.' ~ Mos Def

This thing called rhymin' is no different than coal minin';
We both on assignment to unearth the diamond. ~ Mos Def

Why are these historical observations interesting?...they suggest that we should be careful about attributing our distinction between philosophy and science to earlier thinkers…The examples I have given do raise an interesting question: Why is it that we tend to see such a radical break between philosophy and science, and, more important, should we? The question can be raised directly, without the need for history, as Quine has done. But history brings the point home in an especially clear way: It shows us an assumption we take for granted by pointing out that it is not an assumption everyone makes. ~ Daniel Garber

I have mad brims. ~ Mos Def