Every day I strive to get to a place where I'm not effected by the external world, and I don't use the external world to define or tell me who I am. I strive for a state of equanimity and calm and a state of grace, so I can be free of definitions. If you are free, then you can create beautiful things. It's really just shutting out the noise.
I was struck by the fact that none of the senators, basically, asked General [James] Mattis, "Well, General, how is it that we haven't won?" We haven't won anywhere, 'winning' in the sense of conclusively achieving our political objectives, however you might want to define those objectives.
You can define everything as being political and analyze it politically.
A state is absolute in the sense which I have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and Democrats.
If you were to ask me to define a photograph in a few words, I would say it is a fossil of light and time.
Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture.
We can in fact only define a weed, mutatis mutandis, in terms of the well-known definition of dirt - as matter out of place. What we call a weed is in fact merely a plant growing where we do not want it.
Once you’ve read too many trashy best-sellers, you begin to look for something with substance, something that attempts to define the universe.
Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
I define self-control, in the beginning of life, as the choice of achieving what I really want by doing things I really don't want to do. Once this becomes a habit, discipline becomes the choice of achieving what I really want by doing the very things I now want to do! I really believe that a disciplined life becomes a joy--but only after we have worked hard to practice it.
There are many more attempts to define happiness than unhappiness. It is because people know all too well what unhappiness is.
The way something is presented will define the way you react to it.
I don't know that I could really define love. I can't. . . again, it's like trying to define what this creative force is. It's beyond my ability to really define. If I can define it, then it's not it. We're right back to that thing again.
We avoid sensuousness, only by resorting to simple negation. We come at last to define spirit by saying that it is not matter.
In no way be bullied into silence. Hardly ever permit on your own to become made a sufferer. Acknowledge no one's definition of one's lifetime; define oneself
If we truly seek diversity in fiction, we have to let the needs of others come before our need to define ourselves as social justice allies.
Define yourself or be defined.
I do think there are very few extreme right-wing gay Republicans. Although it depends how you define "extreme right-wing. " They're making a political calculation.
We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.
There's nothing that says you have to succeed in the same way as someone else. In fact, there's nothing that says you must define success in the same way as someone else.