Vacuously Define Quotes

Chris Claremont once said of Alan Moore, "if he could plot, we'd all have to get together and kill him." Which utterly misses the most compelling part of Alan's writing, the way he develops and expresses ideas and character. Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships are unfolded. ~ Warren Ellis

I would think a sense of the absurd is more important for a political cartoonist, because that could define things like a sense of hypocrisy or a sense of the things one has to be skeptical about. ~ Jonathan Shapiro

Roles lack two essential ingredients: flexibility and honesty. In trying to define natural femininity, it's really important that we don't make it a role; it must be about something we are, not merely what we act like. ~ Jonalyn Fincher

To define is to limit, to set boundaries, to compare and to contrast, and for this reason, the universe, the all, seems to defy definition ... Just as no one in his senses would look for the morning news in a dictionary, no one should use speaking and thinking to find out what cannot be spoken or thought. ~ Alan Watts

Today when a man gets married he gets a home, a housekeeper, a cook, a cheering squad and another paycheck. When a woman marries, she gets a boarder. To define it rudely but not ineptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion. ~ Duke Of Wellington

It is so important that we as spiritual people should not define ourselves only by our profession ~ Sunday Adelaja

This situation, where men rally to the defense of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science. ~ W. R. Thompson

What you deny to others will be denied to you, for the plain reason that you are always legislating for yourself; all your words and actions define the world you want to live in. ~ Thaddeus Golas

Gnosticism has always been difficult to define, largely because it is a system of thought based upon and frequently amended by experiences of nonordinary states of consciousness, and thus it is resistant to theological rigidity. ~ Stephan A. Hoeller

You must define yourself, for no one else has the wisdom to do it for you. ~ Raymond E. Feist

A man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar
situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I
must first of all say: T am a woman ~ Simone De Beauvoir

Love is a landscape the long mountains
define but don't
shut off from the
unseeable distance. ~ Denise Levertov

We dream. We aspire. We hope. Sure, we can get down too. But it's not about that. It's not those moments that define us. It's those times when we're looking forward, seeing that brighter future, and acting on it. ~ Zechariah Barrett

In addition to the gremlins, another thing that gets in the way of meaningful work is the struggle to define who we are and what we do in an honest way. In a world that values the primacy of work, the most common question that we ask and get asked is, "What do you do?" I used to wince every time someone asked me this question. I felt like my choices were to reduce myself to an easily digestible sound bite or to confuse the hell out of people. Now my answer to "What do you do?" is, "How much time do you have?" Most of us have complicated answers to this question. For example, I'm a mom, partner, researcher, writer, storyteller, sister, friend, daughter, and teacher. All of these things make up who I am, so I never know how to answer that question. ~ Brene Brown

You are the author of your own life ... Don't let others define it for you. Real power comes by doing what you are meant to be doing, and doing it well. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Others will always seek to define you based on what they think you represent or who they think you are. But you have to be the one to control what you do and what you say and how you present yourself. ~ Loretta Lynch

Where You Hail From Isn't As Important As Who You Are and What You Do ... Your Doings Define and Describe You. ~ Jaachynma N.E. Agu

Man plan his course but the Maker define his path. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

But I still feel like I lost.
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 the 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 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 first time you really, really want to love someo ~ Chuck Klosterman

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad. It was the fault & responsibility of the adult. I was - and am - innocent. The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis ~ Ellen Bass

Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don't embrace the status quo. Find new ways to see. Never expect a silver bullet. Get your hands dirty. Listen with empathy and overcommunicate with transparency. Tell your story, refusing to let others define you. Use authentic experiences to inspire. Stick to your values, they are your foundation. Hold people accountable, but give them the tools to succeed. Make the tough choices; it's how you execute that counts. Be decisive in times of crisis. Be nimble. Find truth in trials and lessons in mistakes. Be responsible for what you see, hear, and do. Believe. ~ Howard Schultz

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music. ~ Mickey Hart

The word purebred is something we can define by counting generations back in dog-sex land. But it is not an indication of species or anything special, really. ~ Bill Nye

Conflict of interest and lack of transparency, though they are global features as we saw post-Iraq, almost define Indian cricket. ~ Harsha Bhogle

Your actions may not directly define the kind of person you are but the words that come out your mouth surely will. ~ Val Irvin Mabayo

If you listen to soul music, or R&B music, or Blues music, a lot of that came from church music and spiritual music, and music has always been a really really powerful tool that people have used to get them closer to God - whatever they define God as. And for me that's always been part of what drew me to it and keeps me coming back for more. ~ Joan Osborne

Your limitations, don't define you. ~ Veronica Roth

Knowledge is your treasure. How well you spend and invest it will define your wisdom. ~ Debasish Mridha

It would be easy to define terrorism as attacks against human rights and international humanitarian law forbids attacks against innocent non-combatants which is often the definition used for terrorism. ~ Joichi Ito

Life will throw different character tests at you that are designed to see how well you do. The key to passing these tests is having the right values in place that you've developed over time and that now define your character. ~ Idowu Koyenikan

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. ~ Cynthia Ozick

Early in a career that began in 1912 when he was 19 years old, Romain de Tirtoff, the Russian-born artists who called himself Erté after the french pronunciation of his initials, was regarded as a 'miraculous magician,' whose spectacular fashions transformed the ordinary into the outstanding, whose period costumes made the present vanish mystically into the past, and whose décors converted bare stages into sparkling wonderlands of fun and fancy. When his career ended with his death in 1990, Erté was considered as 'one of the twentieth-century's single most important influences on fashion,' 'a mirror of fashion for 75 years,' and the unchallenged 'prince of the music hall,' who had been accorded the most significant international honors in the field of design and whose work was represented in major museums and private collections throughout the world.

It is not surprising that Erté's imaginative designs for fashion, theater, opera, ballet, music hall, film and commerce achieved such renown, for they are as crisp and innovative in their color and design as they are elegant and extravagant in character, and redolent of the romance of the pre- and post-Great War era, the period when Erté's hand became mature, fully developed and representative of its time. Art historians and scholars define Ertés unique style as transitional Art Deco, because it bridges the visual gab between fin-de-siècle schools of Symbolism, with its ethereal quality, Art Nouveau, with its high orn ~ Jean Tibbetts

Every human being is capable of terrible transgressions, and exquisite goodness, and that neither has to define a person. ~ Angela Hoke

What is love? No one knows what love is, exactly. No one can define it. No one can prove it. ~ Sophie Kinsella

This disaster did not force us to abandon our ideal; on the contrary, from the very first months of the conflict, it led us to define precisely the conditions for its realization. ~ Leon Jouhaux

What you did to me doesn't define who I am. I am beautiful. I am at peace. You no longer have permission to steal my joy. My joy belongs to me and me only. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

My job does not define me. ~ Meg Wolitzer

The magic of the desert is hard to define. Why does the sight of a landscape of empty sand, rocks, slab and rubble stir the spirits more than a view of lush green fields and woods? Why does the lifeless play of light, colour and distance have such an invigorating, fascinating and elating effect? Perhaps because no limitations are imposed by other forms of life; perhaps because the mind of the beholder is presented with a fata morgana of unlimited freedom. And on such far horizons the outline of a mountain draws the eye like an island in the endless ocean. ~ Henno Martin