Personal Definitions Quotes

I asked her if she believed you could ever truly understand another culture. I told her the longer I stayed, the more asinine the attempt seemed, and that what I'd become more interested in is how we believed we could be objective in any way at all, we who each came in with our own personal definitions of kindness, strength, masculinity, femininity, God, civilisation, right and wrong. ~ Lily King

Now his response was merely to detach himself from personal contact. Looking back, she could not remember a conversation veering on the intimate from which he had not withdrawn immediately. He had had of course, in the past, more than enough of being devoured alive by the consuming interest of his admirers. A boy called Will Scott, back in Scotland. An Archer, they said, called Robin Stewart. Jerott, perhaps, long ago. Small wonder that Francis Crawford today took routine precautions to repel invaders.

And of course, that was it. Standing there, her eyes blank in the fog, Philippa saw plainly so much which had escaped her. The dismissals she had suffered; the exchanges he had broken off; the measures he took, when he remembered, to dampen the ardour of any impressionable fool who might dream of clinging to him.

Such as herself. She remembered the ringed, picturesque hands on which she had fixed her eyes, and their abrupt withdrawal. It was not only in the eyes of the world that her pursuit of Lymond was being put down to a blossoming schoolgirl devotion. Warily, Lymond himself had considered it time to start taking precautions. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

developing resilience is by necessity a very personal journey. ~ Marquita Herald

I support voluntary personal retirement accounts for Social Security. It should be people's free choice. ~ Sharron Angle

You occasionally hear it said that spiritual aspirants should drop everything and set off for the woods, or go to India and wander about on the slopes of the Himalayas. But only through daily contact with people--not trees or brooks or deer--can we train ourselves to be selfless in personal relationships. ~ Eknath Easwaran

Leadership, in short, is power governed by principle, directed toward raising people to their highest levels of personal motive and social morality, ~ James MacGregor Burns

You cannot slay the illusion of the victim until you face it and call it truth ~ Deborah Brodie

The essence of Christian obedience is not do's and don'ts but personal allegiance to Jesus. ~ Timothy Keller

True joy comes from knowing Christ personally and from depending on His strength rather than your own. ~ Jim George

I'm bad without personal benefit, and good only when I'm irresponsible. Sort of a sinful angel, an immoral virgin, an honest criminal. ~ Mesa Selimovic

Kutesosh gajair'is." It was a bare whisper.

"Such simple phrases. I destroy the enemy. I protect life. And my personal favorite - "

"Kun-kabynalti osu fuir'is."

"None shall die while I watch over them. The irony is so beautiful." Elkinsair wiped at his eyes. ~ Patrick Weekes

Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. ~ George W. Bush

I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song. ~ Melissa Etheridge

Most people avoid and evade the powerful life experiences that helps transform, and mold, them to be able to use more of their fullest potential. ~ Tony Dovale

Should I anticipate all future conversations with you to take this bent?" Lynley enquired. "Frankly, I've always thought your appeal lay in your complete indifference to personal grooming."
"Those days are past, sir. What c'n I do for you? I reckon this isn't a personal call, made to see if I'm keeping my legs shaved. ~ Elizabeth George

Sometimes, instructing children in the old days, he had been asked by some black lozenge-eyed Indian child, What is God like? and he would answer facilely with references to the father and the mother, or perhaps more ambitiously he would include brother and sister and try to give some idea of all loves and relationships combined in an immense and yet personal passion....But at the centre of his own faith there always stood the convincing mystery - that we were made in God's image. God was the parent, but He was also the policeman, the criminal, the priest, the maniac, and the judge. Something resembling God dangled from the gibbet or went into odd attitudes before bullets in a prison yard or contorted itself like a camel in the attitude of sex. He would sit in the confessional and hear the complicated dirty ingenuities which God's image had thought out, and God's image shook now, up and down on the mule's back, with the yellow teeth sticking out over the lower lip, and god's image did its despairing act of rebellion with Maria in the hut among the rats. He said, Do you feel better now? Not so cold, eh? Or so hot? and pressed his hand with a kind of driven tenderness upon the shoulders of God's image.

Such a lot of beauty. Saints talk about the beauty of suffering. Well, we are not saints, you and I. Suffering to us is just ugly. Stench and crowding and pain. That is beautiful in that corner - to them. It needs a lot of learning to see things with a saint's eye: a s ~ Graham Greene

When you start putting pen to paper, you see a side of your personal truth that doesn't otherwise reveal itself in conversation or thought. ~ Anthony Kiedis

Our all-volunteer force continues to prove itself with a great level of professionalism, personal commitment and a technical competence that is quite remarkable. ~ Geoff Davis

In order to have different things we must become someone different. ~ Matthew Donnelly

Do everything in your power to make customers go confidently in the direction of their purchase intention. ~ Laura Busche

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals. ~ Albert Schweitzer

You don't need personal fabrication in the home to buy what you can buy because you can buy it. You need it for what makes you unique, just like personalization. ~ Neil Gershenfeld

Many of us have the false idea that a relationship's purpose is to somehow fulfill our needs and desires. We look to see what we can get out of the relationship instead of what we can put in. Looked at like this, relationships are often little more than a needs exchange. We need this (safety, love, intimacy); a man needs that (security, companionship, sex). When we come across a good fit, both parties tacitly agree to do a trade and call it love. This transaction-based relationship model is why so many relationships feel empty and dead. They are completely devoid of anything real and intimate. After the initial rush of excitement is over, they're more like business contracts than sacred unions.
Let's face it. We've all been conditioned to use relationships for the wrong reasons: to end loneliness, relieve depression, recover from a previous breakup, or find security. The problem is that this is not what relationships are for.
Relationships are a spiritual opportunity for personal evolution. There is no greater arena for discovering your capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion, personal greatness, and full self-expression. Nowhere else will you meet the grandest and smallest parts of yourself. Nowhere else will you confront your self-imposed limits to intimacy. Nowhere else can you forgive so deeply or love so purely.
This is relationship's real purpose: to serve the mutual growth and soulful expression of each individual. It's a chance to share your enthusia ~ Marie Forleo

We should wash our destiny the way we wash our body, and change life the way we change clothes – not to preserve life, as when we eat and sleep, but out of objective respect for ourselves, which is what personal hygiene is all about. ~ Fernando Pessoa

The truth is, for however much my stories come out of things that have happened to me, they're not darkly or as deeply personal as someone like Marc Maron or a lot of comedians, but they are essentially my life and my interpretation of it. ~ Eugene Mirman

The emotional transformation of engineering education isn't magical thinking. Nor is it a vague abstraction or a series of touchy-feely practices. It is based on a philosophy of education that is grounded in the real world and in the lives of the students we serve. It's available to everyone. It isn't expensive. It can't be accomplished in the old paradigm under the old assumptions about how education change happens, but in the right atmosphere, the change flows organically from the students themselves. That atmosphere requires systematic language change, culture change, and personal change by students, faculty, and all the stakeholders in education. ~ David Edward Goldberg

Have interesting failures ... If you need to have a personal crisis have it now. Don't wait until midlife, when it will take longer to resolve ... Don't pity yourselves. Lighten up. Seek people with a sense of humor. Avoid humorless people-and do not marry one, for God's sake. ~ Garrison Keillor

Claim ownership of your brand, your expertise, then defend it with deeds ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

It was in the defects that they [servants] invariably acquired that I learned of my own natural, invariable defects, and their character presented me with a sort of negative proof of my own. ~ Marcel Proust

I admire a contented mind. I revere enjoyment of the simple things. I can imagine that contentment has a high degree of truth. But the human tendency is to take good as normal, and one's natural right, and so no cause for satisfaction and pleasure. This is accompanied by the habit of regarding bad as abnormal and a personal outrage. ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

It's obsequious little nicety-nice girls like me who allow assholes to run the world: Miss Harlot O'Harlots, billionaire phony tree huggers, hypocrite drug-snorting, weed-puffing peace activists who fund the mass-murdering drug cartels and perpetuate crushing poverty in dirt-poor banana republics. It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

The stories circulating that Kanye West's laptop has been stolen are completely false. His laptop has never been out of his possession. Hence, the laptop has not been hacked, and there has been no leak of personal data such as unreleased music, photographs, designs, videos or any other personal files. The leak today of the unreleased track 'Awesome' was unrelated and completely coincidental. ~ Malik Yusef

One personal tip that my trainer gave me was, "Don't take things personally. People are calling on the worst days of their lives and you're their first point of contact. Be like a duck and let the water roll off your back." I live by those words when I'm at work. ~ Cameron West

Growth dwells not in standing one's ground, anyone can do that. Personal growth comes from reaching past insecurities with a sincere effort to acquire an understanding that does not mirror your own. ~ Carl Henegan

I like to dabble in different things, but music is my first love. It connects to me in a way my side projects don't because it's so personal. I write the words. Music is like my diary. It's my therapy. ~ Eve

Mr. Severin, may I ask something personal?"
"Of course."
"Why did you offer to be my oyster?" A hot blush climbed her face. "Is it because I'm pretty?"
His head lifted. "Partly," he admitted without a hint of shame. "But I also liked what you said- that you never nag or slam doors, and you're not looking for love. I'm not either." He paused, his vibrant gaze holding hers. "I think we would be a good match."
"I didn't mean I don't want love," Cassandra protested. "I only meant I'd be willing to let love grow in time. To be clear, I want a husband who could also love me back."
Mr. Severin took his time about replying. "What if you had a husband who, although not handsome, was not altogether bad-looking and happened to be very rich? What if he were kind and considerate, and gave you whatever you asked for- mansions, jewels, trips abroad, your own private yacht and luxury railway carriage? What if he were exceptionally good at..." He paused, appearing to think better of what he'd been about to say. "What if he were your protector and friend? Would it really matter so much if he couldn't love you?"
"Why couldn't he?" Cassandra asked, intrigued and perturbed. "Is he missing a heart altogether?"
"No, he has one, but it's never worked that way. ~ Lisa Kleypas

He (Lincoln) saw how intellectually and spiritually impoverished a person would be if he was limited to his own personal resources. The Bible, he recognized, vastly enlarged the area of experience on which an individual might depend. ~ Elton Trueblood

How many demons and people are enslaved here? (Jericho)
Define slavery. (Asmodeus)
Kept against their will. (Jericho)
Good definition. Counting me? (Asmodeus)
Why not? (Jericho)
Probably a couple of million ... you know it's really hard to count to a million, plus they're always dying and new ones are coming in. I tried to count once, but it got really depressing so I stopped. The constant adding and subtracting. Not my forte, really. (Asmodeus) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Love is you. Love is calling you. Life is awaiting you. Go forth and live fully. Be whomever you are. Define you. ~ Sereda Aleta Dailey

Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting. ~ Sydney J. Harris

Con-tu-ber-nal(noun). One who occupies
the same tent; a tent-fellow, comrade.
The thought of Percy Prewitt as my contubernal causes me to break out in hives.
-From the personal dictionary of
Caroline Trent ~ Julia Quinn