Best Description Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 8

“Schizophrenia --its nature, etiology, and the kind of therapy to use for it--remains one of the most puzzling of the mental illnesses. The theory of schizophrenia presented here is based on communications analysis, and specifically on the Theory of Logical Types. From this theory and from observations of schizophrenic patients is derived a description, and the necessary conditions for, a situation called the "double bind"--a situation in which no matter what a person does, he "can't win." It is hypothesized that a person caught in the double bind may develop schizophrenic symptoms”

Source: Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology

“The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstracts away its essence.”

Essentials Essence Property Abstract Complexity Description Software Entity

Author:Fred Brooks

“The generation of Isaiah did not require the detailed description; his account, "I saw the Lord," &c., sufficed. The generation of the Babylonian exile wanted to learn all the details. ...Isaiah was so familiar with it that he did not consider it necessary to communicate it to others as a new thing, especially as it was well known to the intelligent.”

Wells Wanted Known Lord Saws Generations Accounts Intelligent Details Communicate Familiar Description New Things Well Known Exile

Author:Maimonides

“On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as they are... culminating in Courbet at his mightiest (The Studio, The Funeral at Ornans and a portrait of a trout that has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion).”

Whole Left Social Meditation Century Tradition Criticism Studios Radical Impulse Description Funeral Portraits 19th Century Realist Crucifixion Trout Rubens

Author:Gustave Courbet

“The Sage of Toronto... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a "global village" instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle's present vulgarity.”

Enough Towns Decades Boredom Isolation Description Gossip Village Precise Sage Petty Surveillance Toronto Vulgarity Repetitive Malicious Global Village Marveling Malicious Gossip

Author:Guy Debord

“Whether sociology can ever become a full-fledged "science" (a description of a class of events predictable on the basis of deductions from a constant rationale) depends on whether the terms which sociologists employ to describe events can be analyzed into quantifiable observables.”

Term Class Events Depends Bases Constant Description Sociology Predictable Deductions Sociologists

Author:Anatol Rapoport

“What is the elephant in all our rooms? It is the global triumph of capitalism. Democracy is fiercely disputed. Freedom is under threat even in old-established democracies such as Britain. Western supremacy is on the skids. But everyone does capitalism. Americans and Europeans do it. Indians do it. Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes do it. Even Chinese communists do it... Karl Marx would be turning in his grave. Or perhaps not, since some of his writings eerily foreshadowed our era of globalised capitalism. His prescription failed but his description was prescient.”

Writing Doe Would Be Rooms Democracy Capitalism Threat Western Graves Eras Chinese Triumph Britain Description Communist Elephants Prescriptions Saudis Supremacy

Author:Timothy Garton Ash

“Bliss defies description, obviously, since it annihilates you, since you're not there to experience it. You get the lead-up and the come-down, never the zenith.”

Bliss Description Zenith

Book:The Last Werewolf

Source: The Last Werewolf

“I hope for an America where neither fundamentalist nor humanist will be a dirty word, but a fair description of the different ways in which people of good will look at life and into their own souls.”

People Way Looks Different Soul America Fairs Dirty Different Ways Description Humanist Good Will Fundamentalist Dirty Words

Author:Edward Kennedy

“I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description.”

Regret Description I Regret

Author:Winslow Homer

“Selfish hedonism is not a pejorative. It is a description - an exactly accurate description of what is involved in homosexual relations.”

Involved Relation Selfish Description Accurate Homosexual Hedonism

Author:Alan Keyes

“It is hard to see how one could begin to develop a quantum-theoretical description of brain action when one might well have to regard the brain as "observing itself" all the time!”

Wells Hard Might Action Brain Regard Description Quantum Observing Theoretical

Book:The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

Source: The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics

“First of all, principles should be general. That is, it must be possible to formulate them without use of what would be intuitively recognized as proper names, or rigged definite descriptions.”

Should Firsts Use Would Be Names Principles Description Definite Rigged

Book:A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice

“If, while observing the boundless universe, the writer is able to scrutinise his own self as well as others, the resulting incisiveness of his observations will far surpass objective descriptions of reality.”

Ifs Writing Wells Self Reality Able Universe Objectives Observation Description Observing Boundless

Author:Gao Xingjian

“Man tends to think that he is a creator, that he is like God. This is especially true of intellectuals, and in the last century, intellectuals tended to forget that they were like everyone else. Writing this book was a description of man going from a state of God back to a state of man, back to being a normal person.”

Thinking Men Writing Persons Book States Lasts Forget Century Normal Creator Description

Author:Gao Xingjian

“Faith is the physical description of God. That's what He is. It's the only word we have in our language to accurately describe His physical form.”

Form Language Description

Author:Jim Rowe

“Conceptual art is entirely word-bound. It is, in fact, the kind of art that is exhausted in its verbal description.”

Kind Art Facts Art Is Bounds Description Exhausted Modernism Conceptual Art

Author:Alexander Stoddart

“The most exciting part of finding out who we are is discovering our own uniqueness, who we are outside the box, beyond the categories in a Psychology 101 textbook. In our inimitable singularity, there is an infinite range of possibility that cannot be tied to any one description of what it means to be human or healthy.”

“Obama was willing to compromise and Republicans were not. That's not a biased statement. One of my problems with the limitations of journalism is that straightforward descriptions of reality are seen as being biased.”

Problem Reality Willing Republican Statements Compromise Journalism Limitation Description Straightforward Biased

Author:Jonathan Alter

“Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.”

Wells Matter Stories Use Seems Clear Information Essentials Come Up Details Description Slow Down Vivid Momentum Slowing

Author:Kelly Link

“The cookbook gives a detailed description of ingredients and procedures but no proofs for its prescriptions or reasons for its recipes; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. ... Mathematics cannot be tested in exactly the same manner as a pudding; if all sorts of reasoning are debarred, a course of calculus may easily become an incoherent inventory of indigestible information.”

Ifs Giving May Reason Courses Information Eating Mathematics Proof Reasoning Description Ingredients Recipes Tested Procedures Prescriptions Calculus Cookbook Inventory Pudding

Author:George Polya

“We depend on our words... Our task is to communicate experience and ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend the scope of our description, but in such a way that our messages do not thereby lose their objective or unambiguous character... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly.”

Way Ideas Character Use Reality Language Loses Depends Messages Tasks Strive Communicate Objectives Description Scope Discernment Our Words Suspended

Author:Niels Bohr

“I had vainly been seeking a description of consciousness within science; instead, what I and others have to look for is a description of science within consciousness. We must develop a science compatible with consciousness, our primary experience.”

Looks Consciousness Unity Seeking Primaries Description Compatible

Book:The Self-Aware Universe

Source: The Self-Aware Universe

“Textbooks describe DNA as a blueprint for a body. It's better seen as a recipe for making a body, because it is irreversible. But today I want to present it as something different again, and even more intriguing. The DNA in you is a coded description of ancient worlds in which your ancestors lived. DNA is the wisdom out of the old days, and I mean very old days indeed.”

World Want Mean Different Wisdom Body Today Ancient Description Ancestor Recipes Dna Old Days Intriguing Textbooks Blueprints Irreversible Ancient World

Author:Richard Dawkins

“The most beautiful conception of immortality of which I know, and certainly one that by contrast shows the utter vulgarity of Christian ideas, is set forth in Pindar's second Olympian: after three or six lives in which a man has lived with strict justice and perfect integrity, he passes beyond the tower of Cronus to the fair realm that cannot be reached by land or sea, where gentle breezes from a placid ocean blow forever on the fields of asphodel. For a description, see Pindar. If the beauty of great poetry can commend a religion, here you have it.”

“There is a strong current in contemporary culture advocating ' holistic ' views as some sort of cure-all... Reductionism implies attention to a lower level while holistic implies attention to higher level. These are intertwined in any satisfactory description: and each entails some loss relative to our cognitive preferences, as well as some gain... there is no whole system without an interconnection of its parts and there is no whole system without an environment.”

“How can you run for president if you dont know the job description?”

Ifs Knows Running Jobs President Description

Author:Mohamed ElBaradei

“Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.”

Has Beens Language Understanding Degrees Description Physicist Criteria Plain Language

Book:Physics and philosophy: the revolution in modern science

Source: Physics and philosophy: the revolution in modern science

“They presented a description of the world to all of us which was very limited and narrow.”

World Description Rama

Author:Frederick Lenz

“I had been pretty well made a prisoner by school, by society. I had been given this description of the world that I couldn't accept.”

World Wells Made School Given Accepting Description Prisoner Rama

Author:Frederick Lenz

“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.”

“There were moments when I wondered at the gossamer veil that stops licence from being libel. I suspect that taking on the job of England manager puts you outside the protection of the courts. It must be part of the job description that you will be held hostage by media speculation and can have your character tortured, molested and finally executed at the public whim, in exchange for a lifetime's supply of money.”

Moments Character Jobs Media Football England Court Lifetime Protection Managers Soccer Description Suspects Veils Speculation Chairman Whim Hostage Libel

Author:A. A. Gill

“If my interlocutor desires to convince me that Jupiter has inhabitants, and that his description of them is accurate, it is for him to bring forward evidence in support of his contention. The burden of proof evidently lies on him; it is not for me to prove that no such beings exist before my non-belief is justified, but for him to prove that they do exist before my belief can be fairly claimed. Similarly, it is for the affirmer of God's existence to bring evidence in support of his affirmation; the burden of proof lies on him.”

Source: The Origins of Theosophy (Routledge Revivals): Annie Besant - The Atheist Years

“The description of the world that most people have is very limited. They are in the fog. Once in a while a genuine insight comes through.”

People World Insight Genuine Description Mysticism Fog

Author:Frederick Lenz

“When I see people talking on the internet about me or my work it's almost always more a description of themselves and so I never really think of myself as anything more than just who I always was.”

People Thinking Talking Internet Description Working It People Talking

Author:Chuck Palahniuk

“Jack London is a very generous description of my small hiking, bicycling, and canoeing habit. I myself feel like a weak urbanite a lot of the time, because lots of my friends are incredible outdoorsmen and women.”

Feels Habit Men And Women My Friends Weak Incredibles London Generous Description Hiking Canoeing Outdoorsman

Author:Nick Offerman

“The world we think we see is only a view, a collective description of the world that we create through our belief systems. Accepting this fact seems to be one of the most empowering things one can do.”

Thinking World Facts Seems Belief Can Do Views Accepting Empowering Description Collectives Belief Systems

Book:The Sunfood Diet Success System

Source: The Sunfood Diet Success System

“Of all the many memoirs by former Soviet officials, Palazchenko's is among the best written and also the most objective. Even his descriptions of U.S. policy are more accurate and judicious than those of some American scholars.”

Written Policy Memoir Objectives Former Officials Description Soviet Scholar Accurate American Scholar

Author:Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

“We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.”

Jobs Description Assignments Anthem

Book:A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master'

Source: A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master'

“We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most “intellectual” piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning?”

“The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace - the handcuff, the last - the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives - the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labor of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart - these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather that the exception, in the slave's experience.”

Source: Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839

“I have observed that as long as one lives and bestirs himself, he can always find food and raiment, though it may not be of the choicest description.”

May Long Description

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.”

Firsts Looks Two Lasts Past Law Party Fashion Fool Description Customs Novelty Clash Legislators Precedent

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“There are hopes, the bloom of whose beauty would be spoiled by the trammels of description; too lovely, too delicate, too sacred for words, they should only be known through the sympathy of hearts.”

Should Heart Would Be Hope Known Sacred Lovely Description Delicate Spoiled

Author:Charles Dickens

“There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being,--that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.”

Body Light Truth Truth Is Shadow Errors Definitions Supreme Description Falsehood Sublime Plato Contradictory Supreme Being Plato S

Book:Essays, Moral and Humorous. Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

Source: Essays, Moral and Humorous. Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

“No matter what the job description says, your real job is to make the boss look good.”

Looks Real Matter Jobs Work Office No Matter What Description Boss Real Jobs

Book:The Six-Figure Woman and How to Be One

Source: The Six-Figure Woman and How to Be One

“Never have I enjoyed youth so thoroughly as I have in my old age. In writing Dialogues in Limbo, The Last Puritan, and now all these descriptions of the friends of my youth and the young friends of my middle age, I have drunk the pleasure of life more pure, more joyful than it ever was when mingled with all the hidden anxieties and little annoyances of actual living. Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.”

“It is incumbent upon every person of every description to contribute to his country's welfare.”

Persons Country Welfare Description Incumbents

Author:George Washington

“Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for to those who have enacted them the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone.”

Ifs Seems Scene Genuine Description Simplest Indescribable

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated)

“The necessity of poetry has to be stated over and over, but only to those who have reason to fear its power, or those who still believe that language is 'only words' and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.”

World Trying Believe Stills Reason Enough Poetry Language Poet Description Good Enough Social Change

Book:On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

Source: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

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