Definition

Explore 58 quotes of the following type: Definition

Grief is a species of idleness.

Samuel Johnson

More information about this quote

Topic

Grief Mourning

Author

Samuel Johnson

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1773 1770s 18th century

Era

Age of Enlightenment

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Johnson, Samuel. Letter to Mrs. Thrale. 17 Mar. 1773.

Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.

Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

More information about this quote

Topic

Imperialism Capitalism Political theory

Author

Vladimir Lenin

Source

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Genre

Political literature

Statement Type

Definition

Language

Russian

Time

1917 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Lenin, Vladimir. Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма [Imperialism, the Newest Stage of Capitalism]. Petrograd: Zhizn i Znaniye Publishers, 1917, pt. 7.

Current Citation

Lenin, Vladimir. "Imperialism, the Highest State of Capitalism." Essential Works of Lenin, edited by Henry M. Christman. Dover Publications, 1987, pt. 7.

True piety is this:
to believe in God, and the Last Day,
the angels, the Book, and the Prophets,
to give of one's substance, however cherished,
to kinsmen, and orphans,
the needy, the traveler, beggars,
and to ransom the slave,
to perform the prayer, to pay the alms.

Muhammad

The Quran

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Read this surah The Quran at al-quran.info

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Topic

Piety Islam

Speaker

Muhammad

Source

The Quran

Medium

Scripture

Genre

Religious literature

Statement Type

Definition

Language

Arabic

Time

632 630s 7th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

The Quran. c. 630, 2:177.

Current Citation

The Quran, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. Oxford University Press, 2005, ch. 2.

Crime is naught but misdirected energy.

Emma Goldman

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Topic

Crime

Author

Emma Goldman

Source

Anarchism

Medium

Essay

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1910 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Goldman, Emma. "Anarchism: What It Really Stands For." Anarchism and Other Essays. Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1910.

A pistol let off at the ear, not a feather to tickle the intellect.

Charles Lamb

On puns.

More information about this quote

Topic

Jokes

Author

Charles Lamb

Medium

Essay

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1833 1830s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lamb, Charles [published as Elia]. "Popular Fallacies: IX, That the Worst Puns Are the Best." The London Magazine, 1826.

Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style-but a particular kind of style. It is the love of the exaggerated, the "off," of things-being-what-they-are-not... The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful.

Susan Sontag

Notes on Camp

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More information about this quote

Topic

Camp Taste

Author

Susan Sontag

Source

Notes on Camp Against Interpretation

Medium

Essay

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1964 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Sontag, Susan. "Notes on 'Camp.'" Partisan Review, Fall 1964.

Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.

Iris Murdoch

More information about this quote

Topic

Love Vulnerability

Author

Iris Murdoch

Source

Chicago Review

Medium

Magazine

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1959 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Murdoch, Iris. "The Sublime and the Good." Chicago Review, vol. 13, no. 3, autumn 1959.

Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Steve Allen

More information about this quote

Topic

Comedy Humor

Author

Steve Allen

Source

Cosmopolitan

Medium

Magazine

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Allen, Steve. "Steve Allen's Almanac." Cosmopolitan Magazine, Feb. 1957.

We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide.

Ramsay MacDonald

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of war War

Author

Ramsay MacDonald

Source

Observer

Medium

Newspaper

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1930 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

MacDonald, Ramsay. Observer. 4 May 1930.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

E.B. White

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of democracy Democracy

Author

E.B. White

Source

The New Yorker

Medium

Magazine

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1944 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

White, E. B. "The Meaning of Democracy." The New Yorker, 3 July 1943.

Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.

Ivan Turgenev

More information about this quote

Topic

Inevitability of death Nature of death Death

Author

Ivan Turgenev

Source

On the Eve

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Definition

Language

Russian

Time

1860 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Turgenev, Ivan. "Накануне [On the Eve]." The Russian Messenger, 1859.

Current Citation

Turgenev, Ivan. On the Eve, translated by Michael Pursglove. Alma Classics, 2017, ch. 35.

Diplomacy is to do and say
The nastiest thing in the nicest way.

Isaac Goldberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Diplomacy Foreign policy International politics

Author

Isaac Goldberg

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Goldberg, Isaac. The Reflex. Oct. 1927.

My definition of Man is, "a Cooking Animal." The beasts have memory, judgment, and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook... Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.

James Boswell

More information about this quote

Topic

Cooking Food Nature of man

Author

James Boswell

Source

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Medium

Personal journal

Genre

Travel writing

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1773 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Boswell, James. Journal entry. 15 Aug. 1773.

Current Citation

Boswell, James. "The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides." A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, edited by Jack Lynch and Celia Barnes. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they can not be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

Sydney Smith

More information about this quote

Topic

Marriage

Author

Sydney Smith

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1845 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Smith, Sydney. Quoted in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by Saba Holland. Vol. 1, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855, ch. 11.

Conversation... Is the art of never appearing a bore, of knowing how to say everything interestingly, to entertain with no matter what, to be charming with nothing at all.

Guy de Maupassant

More information about this quote

Topic

Conversation

Author

Guy de Maupassant

Source

On the Water

Medium

Short story

Statement Type

Definition

Language

French

Time

1876 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Maupassant, Guy De. Sur l'Eau [Afloat]. Paris: Libraire Ollendorff, 1888.

Current Citation

Maupassant, Guy De. Afloat, translated by Douglas Parmée. NYRB Classics, 2008.

Law: an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologicae

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More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of law

Author

St. Thomas Aquinas

Source

Summa Theologicae

Genre

Religious literature

Statement Type

Definition

Language

Latin

Time

1273 1270s 13th century

Era

Middle Ages

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Saint Thomas Aquinus. Summa Theologica. c. 1274, pt. 1-2.

Current Citation

Saint Thomas Aquinus. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Provinc. Christian Classics, 1981, pt. 1-2.

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.

Ernest Hemingway

More information about this quote

Topic

Cowardice

Author

Ernest Hemingway

Source

Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hemingway, Ernest. Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time. Crown Publishers, 1942, introduction.

By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.

James George Frazer

More information about this quote

Topic

Religion

Author

James George Frazer

Source

The Golden Bough

Genre

Religious literature

Statement Type

Definition

Language

English

Time

1922 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough. London: The Macmillan Company, 1922, ch. 4.

Current Citation

Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Oxford University Press, 1998, ch. 4.