definition

The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.

I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.

In my lifetime I have witnessed far too many miracles to believe in impossibilities, and so I am officially modifying the defini

A novel is just a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.

Good communication is less about saying what you mean, and more about defining what you say.

Love is always by definition a choice

The Oracle pursued a logical course of confuting theism, and leaving 'a-theism' the negative result. It did not, in the absurd terms of common religious propaganda, 'deny the existence of God.' It affirmed that God was a term for an existence imagined by man in terms of his own personality and irreducible to any tenable definition. It did not even affirm that 'there are no Gods'; it insisted that the onus of proof as to any God lay with the theist, who could give none compatible with his definitions.

If you look up 'atheism' in the dictionary, you will probably find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly many people understand atheism in this way. Yet many atheists do not, and this is not what the term means if one considers it from the point of view of its Greek roots. In Greek 'a' means 'without' or 'not' and 'theos' means 'god.' From this standpoint an atheist would simply be someone without a belief in God, not necessarily someone who believes that God does not exist. According to its Greek roots, then, atheism is a negative view, characterized by the absence of belief in God.

Atheism ... goes back to the Ancient Greek (a _ a negative prefix, theos _ god), evidencing the antiquity of the outlook of those who saw no presence of God (or gods) in their everyday lives, or who even denied the very existence of God (or gods). There are different types of atheism, but atheism in one form or another has existed in every civilization.[T]he concept "atheist" partially coincides with such notions as "skeptic," "agnostic," and "rationalist" and it borders with such notions as "anticlerical," "God fighter" (theomachist), and "God abuser" (blasphemer).It is wrong to identify an atheist as one who denies God, though this is what opponents of atheism usually claim. If such people exist, it would probably be more correct to call them the "verbal" murderers of God, for the prefix a- means denying as elimination. ... I would like to stress that the prefix a- does not necessarily mean rejection. It can mean "absence of." For example, "apathy" means "absence of passion." Thus, the concept "atheist" does not necessarily mean nihilism.

Where would the end be? Will the idea__he definition__f perfection stay the same? No. Perfection is too fickle. It__ in our nature to never be satisfied. We always think we can do more.

Identity was just a box people liked to put themselves in, a mast to tether to in a storm, a security blanket.

What we define ourselves us can sometimes bring forth the best images of ourselves--or vice versa, will create some of the worst restrictions we place on our lives.

There__ a fascinating frailty of the human mind that psychologists know all about, called __rgument from ignorance._ This is how it goes. Remember what the ___ stands for in __FO_? You see lights flashing in the sky. You__e never seen anything like this before and don__ understand what it is. You say, __t__ a UFO!_ The ___ stands for __nidentified.__ut then you say, __ don__ know what it is; it must be aliens from outer space, visiting from another planet._ The issue here is that if you don__ know what something is, your interpretation of it should stop immediately. You don__ then say it must be X or Y or Z. That__ argument from ignorance. It__ common. I__ not blaming anybody; it may relate to our burning need to manufacture answers because we feel uncomfortable about being steeped in ignorance.

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.

Your ability to show discretion defines your likeliness to contribute to a wholesome performance.

The nature of atheism merits clarification on two further points which involve less common ideas about theism. The first involves the idea of 'God' which is metaphorical _ for example, a theist who believes in 'God' as a principle of conscience or morality. This 'God' exists in a person__ mind and it is not something which atheists will dispute. Atheists agree that gods exist as ideas in people__ minds; the disagreement lies over whether any gods actually exist independently of human beliefs. Those are the gods which atheists disbelieve in or deny.The second type of theism involves gods that exist as physical objects: stones, trees, rivers, or even the universe itself. Believers treat these objects are their gods, but do atheists reject their existence? Of course not _ but how do they then remain atheists? The point of disagreement here is whether the label 'god' communicates any information beyond the more common label of 'stone,' 'tree,' or 'universe.' If not, then as far as atheists are concerned, those objects don__ merit the extra label 'god' and they remain atheists.

Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man....

The most satisfactory definition of man from the scientific point of view is probably Man the Tool-maker.