39 Definitions And Quotes

In a world overflowing with information, it's a breath of fresh air to find a collection that cuts through the noise and delivers something truly meaningful. Whether you're seeking wisdom for personal growth, inspiration for your daily life, or simply a deeper understanding of key concepts, our curated selection of the top 39 definitions and quotes has you covered. These thoughtfully chosen phrases and explanations not only enrich your vocabulary but also offer perspectives that can transform your mindset and elevate your conversations. Dive in and discover the power of precise language and timeless wisdom.

1. “Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.” - Abraham Lincoln

2. “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” - Mark Twain

3. “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” - H.G. Wells

4. “A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” - H.L. Mencken

5. “Wit is educated insolence.” - Aristotle

6. “Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.” - George Bernard Shaw

7. “An alcoholic is someone you don't like, who drinks as much as you do.” - Dylan Thomas

8. “Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.” - Stephen King

9. “Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.” - Ambrose Bierce

10. “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” - H.L. Mencken

11. “Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.” - Ambrose Bierce

12. “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” - H.L. Mencken

13. “One's 'thing'--(1) A point of personal interest; a hobby, sport, or avocation that succinctly defines a person. (2) A brief coupling of words used to evoke someone's personality in a small-talk setting: Billy's thing used to be soccer; now it's masterbation. (3) A laconic summation of one's character and interests used for the purpose of categorization and judgement. See also 'What do you do?” - Joshua Braff

14. “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.” - Ronald Reagan

15. “A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.” - Ronald Reagan

16. “Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.” - Oscar Wilde

17. “Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.” - H.L. Mencken

18. “Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?” - Margaret Thatcher

19. “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” - Socrates

20. “Avant-garde is French for bullshit” - John Lennon

21. “Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” - Ambrose Bierce

22. “Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.” - Ambrose Bierce

23. “Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections [....]Reticulated: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.” - Samuel Johnson

24. “A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.” - Gore Vidal

25. “Tears are words the heart can't express” - Gerard Way

26. “contiguous, adj.I felt silly for even mentioning it, but once I did, I knew I had to explain. "When I was a kid, "I had this puzzle with all fifty states on it--you know, the kind where you have to fit them all together. And one day I got it in my head that California and Nevada were in love. I told my mom, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I ran and got those two pieces and showed it to her--California and Nevada, completely in love. So a lot of the time when we're like this"--my ankles against the backs of your ankles, my knees fitting into the backs of your knees, my thighs on the backs of your legs, my stomach against your back, my chin folding into your neck--"I can't help but think about California and Nevada, and how we're a lot like them. If someone were drawing us from above as a map. that's what we'd look like; that's how we are." For a moment, you were quiet. And then you nestled in and whispered. "Contiguous." And I knew you understood.” - David Levithan

27. “An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.” - Madeleine L'Engle

28. “Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.” - Abraham Lincoln

29. “Childhood is both a chronological stage and a mental construct, an existential fact and a locus of desire, a mythological country continuously mapped by grownups in search of their subjectivity in another time and space.” - Elizabeth Goodenough

30. “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own.” - Harold Coffin, Ed. Syrett

31. “Duty is what one expects from others.” - Oscar Wilde

32. “Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities” - Oscar Wilde

33. “Every one has experienced how learning an appropriate name for what was dim and vague cleared up and crystallized the whole matter. Some meaning seems distinct almost within reach, but is elusive; it refuses to condense into definite form; the attaching of a word somehow (just how, it is almost impossible to say) puts limits around the meaning, draws it out from the void, makes it stand out as an entity on its own account.” - John Dewey

34. “Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.” - Ambrose Bierce

35. “definitions belong to the definer, not the defined, & I no longer wished to have my life & death foretold by others. I had endured too much to be reduced to an idea. Onto that pyre I threw so many, many words - that entire untrue literature of the past which had shackled & subjugated my as surely as the spiked iron collars & leg locks & jagged basils & balls & chains & headshaving - that had so long denied me my free voice & the stories I needed to tell. I no longer wished to read lies as to who & why I was. I knew who I was” - Richard Flanagan

36. “burro, burrow: A /burro/ is an ass. A /burrow/ is a hole in the ground. As a journalist you are expected to know the difference.” - United Press International

37. “Once she exclaimed, "But I always thought that sorceresses were evil!""What do you mean 'evil'?"Lynet has never considered the question. "You know," she said, after a moment, "unfriendly to people.""People!" repeated Morgana derisively. "As if humans were all that mattered. Just once I'd like to see people judged by how friendly they are to sorceresses.” - Gerald Morris

38. “I'm going to use them to track him down and thwart him." "Thwart?" Sarissa asked."Thwart." I said. "To prevent someone from accomplishing something by means of visiting gratuitous violence upon his smarmy person.""I'm pretty sure that isn't the definition," Sarissa said."It is today.” - Jim Butcher

39. “All concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition; only that which has no history is definable.” - Friedrich Nietzsche