Defines You Quotes & Sayings

The biggest challenge you have is to challenge your own self doubt and your laziness. It is your self doubt and your laziness that defines and limit who you are. — Robert Kiyosaki

In a broader context, all rounds of golf are of no consequence, whether score is kept or not. But you are the center of your own universe. You are free to create meaning for yourself. When you attempt to capture the highlights without burdening yourself with the tedium, the highlights lose the foundation that elevates them to the status of "highlight." Analogies abound because a focused attitude defines the quality of all that we do. In playing a game, dieting, or hiking the AT, you benefit most when you commit yourself to it, embrace it. — David Miller

Gender preference does not define you. Your spirit defines you. — P.C. Cast

What you love, you pursue. What you pursue defines you. — Unknown

After you're dead and buried and floating around whatever place we go to, what's going to be your best memory of earth? What one moment for you defines what it's like to be alive on this planet. What's your takeaway? Fake yuppie experiences that you had to spend money on, like white water rafting or elephant rides in Thailand don't count. I want to hear some small moment from your life that proves you're really alive. — Douglas Coupland

It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention. — Conan O'Brien

To me, it's all about saying "thank you" before you open the gift box. At times, the gift wrap is so beautiful, all I want to do is admire the craftsmanship before very carefully pulling back the tape to see what's inside. I think that pretty much defines how I see people in general. — Jes Fuhrmann

Your death defines my life. I want to find the love we never had and explicate it in your name.
I want to take your secrets public. I want to burn down the distance between us.
I want to give you breath. — James Ellroy

One Choice
One Choice, decided your friends.
One Choice, defines your beliefs.
One Choice, determines your loyalties - Forever.
ONCE CHOICE CAN TRANSFORM YOU — Veronica Roth

Life experience is what defines our character, even if it means getting your heart broken or being lied to. You know, you need the downs to appreciate the ups. Going on the adventure or taking that risk is important. — Nev Schulman

Memory is identity ... You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are; when you forget your life you cease to be, even before your death. — Julian Barnes

It's okay to make mistakes. It's how you fix them that defines you. — Ava Harrison

When I was making these damned pictures, I never knew about film noir. If you had asked me about it then, I probably would have pointed to something like Bill Wellman's The Ox Bow Incident, the best Western I ever saw and very much in the style of film noir I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross that defines what kind of drama it is. — Samuel Fuller

People from pre-sexual revolution and even from the 60s and the birth of the gay movement still define gay as two men or two women having sex. Our generation defines it from a more emotional standpoint. To be gay means you are drawn to the same sex. But it's a part of who you are, an identity, not an act. — Dustin Lance Black

As I've said, I've never believed in God, which technically makes me an atheist (since the prefix "a" means "not" or "without"). But I have problems with the word "atheism." It defines what someone is not rather than what someone is. It would be like calling me an a-instrumentalist for Bad Religion rather than the band's singer. Defining yourself as against something says very little about what you are for. — Greg Graffin

There are responses which originate from joy. Intuition can also mean an instant recognition of a truth, sensing that you are doing the right thing in making a choice or decision even if it is not the immediately obvious option, or an experience of knowing the probable outcome just as it is beginning to unfold. The dictionary defines it as immediate unreasoned perception. — Sylvia Clare

In a way, whoever you know in a certain place defines that place for you. — Gabrielle Zevin

You are you because you love the way the world looks through your camera. You are you because of the way you love your friends and family. Not because some scar is on your body. That's a part of your history and what helps form what you believe in. not what defines you. — A.M. Willard

Think of yourself as a brand. You need to be remembered. What will they remember you for? What defines you? If you have it in you, do something that defines you. Invent something, develop a unique skill, get noticed for something - it creates a talking point. — Chris Arnold

Knowing your purpose simplifies your life. It defines what you do and what you don't do. Your purpose becomes the standard you use to evaluate which activities are essential and which aren't. You simply ask, "Does this activity help me fulfill one of God's purposes for my life? — Rick Warren

When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world - profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence. — Ingmar Bergman

But what defines insanity , really !? Is it your mind or the mind of the person making the judgment !? Because all of us , no matter who you are , can go insane sometimes ! There are times when we either know too little or too much. The unknown can be scary place , but the known can be even more frightening — Weyhey_harry

your judgement judges you and defines you — Jean-Paul Sartre

Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh new school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body - how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! If only you knew what Dorian Gray is to me! — Oscar Wilde

It's not what you take but what you leave behind that defines greatness. — Edward Gardner

What defines you as a person is not the life you were born in to, but what you made of it. — Shahid Kapoor

[Monty] talks about Fritz Perls and the Gestalt theory. The here and now is the only time that exists. And being yourself. Not accepting yourself, not taking yourself for granted. Being yourself. Your self. Monty defines 'normality' as a contententment with who you are. — Antony Sher

The danger with playing a part that defines you is that it swallows up everything else. — Tom Hollander

Megan looked to the table. 'We're agreed then? We go through?'
'Because you said so?'
'I think you'll find that's how Megan defines agreement, father,' said Eleanor. — Gary Meehan

Our family makes us who we are, defines us totally. When you go to a therapist or have analysis, whatever reason you go in for, they will always bring you back to your family. We're strong or weak according to what family we have. You might have left them long ago, might not even talk to them, but something lingers; we have no choice. — Sandrine Bonnaire

Every life has a beginning, a middle, and an end; dissect history and you'll see the word that defines it as a tale, a narrative. — Jodi Picoult

And the reason Luke is thinking about time and free will is because he believes that money is the closest human beings have ever come to crystallizing time and free will into a compact physical form. Cash. Cash is a time crystal. Cash allows you to multiply your will, and it allows you to speed up time. Cash is what defines us as a species. Nothing else in the universe has money. — Douglas Coupland

'Iron' Mike Tyson is the last boxer who was truly embraced by the media. They followed him around. You didn't know what he was going to do next: bite you, cut you, fight you. When you think about it, that defines him - it was an exciting adventure. — George Foreman

It's up to each of us to get very still and say, 'This is who I am.' No one else defines your life. Only you do. — Oprah Winfrey

Remember: it is not about what happens to you, but what you choose to DO WITH what happens to you that truly defines who you are. — Alexandra Silber

The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them. — Max Barry

What matters to you defines your mattering. — John Green

Being a geek is a great thing. I think we're all geeks. Being a geek means you're passionate about something and that defines your uniqueness. I would rather be passionate about something than be apathetic about everything. — Masi Oka

Rose said: 'Some people would be needing their spare glasses, or that blue cardigan. You need a book. Of course.'
'A deficiency?'said Charlotte meekly.
'Not at all. The need defines you, that's all. — Penelope Lively

But you were a goody-goody, you said.' 'Even goody-goodies think about such things. In fact, I would say that's what defines us. We're always thinking about the things we don't dare do, figuring out where the lines are drawn, so we can go right up to the edge of things, then plead innocence on the ground of a technicality. — Laura Lippman

I have now been married to my third husband for more than 20 years. But when you've had children with someone you're divorced from, divorce defines everything; it's the lurking fact, a slice of anger in the pie of your brain. — Nora Ephron

You can never run from your past; it defines who you are today. But, use your Awo given intelligence and enjoy the future ... because THAT only comes once.' VAALBARA The Land of Shadows — Michelle Horst

I can disagree with your opinion, it turns out, but I can't disagree with your experience. And once I have a sense of your experience, you and I are in relationship, acknowledging the complexity in each other's position, listening less guardedly. The difference in our opinions will probably remain intact, but it no longer defines what is possible between us. — Krista Tippett

A vision is something you see and others don't. Some people would say that's a pocket definition of lunacy. But it also defines entrepreneurial spirit. — Anita Roddick

Everyone tells a story about who they are in their own head. That story defines you, dictating all your actions and all your mistakes. If your own story is filled with guilt and fear and self-hatred, life can look pretty miserable. But, if you're very lucky, you might have a person who tells you a better story, one that takes up residence in your soul, speaking louder than the woeful tale of which you've convinced yourself. If you let it speak loudly within your heart, it becomes your passion and your purpose. — Mia Sheridan

It was a book [George Packer written on our presence in Nigeria] that was killed by the response of other people. Which sounds quite cowardly, perhaps, but it was the first manifestation of what is currently a really big issue: how political correctness defines the limits of what you can do. In that sense, it was super-exciting and maybe the most magical project we did, but at the same time fraught with mixed feelings. — Rem Koolhaas

It is easier to accept your limits if you have a biblical view of success. The world defines success in terms of what a person possesses, controls, or accomplishes. God defines success in terms of faithful obedience to his will. The world asks, 'What results have your achieved?' God asks, 'Were you faithful to my ways? — Ken Sande

I don't think sexuality defines a person. It's one small part of who you are, in my view. You are many things, and I never felt that people were defined by their sexuality solely. — William Friedkin

There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person. You think you know yourself when you know what you are. But you never know who you are. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that. There is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance without investigation. Suffering is a call for enquiry, all pain needs investigation. Don't be too lazy to think. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

The novelist defines the story with the following example: If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you were told that the king died and then the queen died of grief, that is a story that he was interested. — E. M. Forster

To me, what defines a New Yorker is the edge that one develops from having actually lived here. Once you have it, it doesn't go away, and everywhere else in the world feels like it is in slow motion. — Donald Trump Jr.

When you die, you know, you hear the insistent pounding that defines all things, whether of matter or energy, since there is nothing in the universe, really, but proportion. — Mark Helprin

It's not who you are underneath, its what you do that defines you. — David S.Goyer

A patent, or invention, is any assemblage of technologies or ideas that you can put together that nobody put together that way before. That's how the patent office defines it. That's an invention. — Dean Kamen

A text makes the word more specific. It really kind of defines it within the context in which it is being used. If it is just taken out of a context and presented as a sort of object, which is what - you know, which is a contemporary art idea, you know. It is like an old surrealist idea or an old cubist idea to take something out of context and put it in a completely different context. And it sort of gives it a different meaning and creates another world, another kind of world in which we enter. — Robert Barry

The dictionary defines pride as "pleasure or satisfaction in one's work or achievement." According to that definition a person needs to do something before you can be proud of them. You could not be proud of them simply for who they are. I'm not sure I know what pride in another person feels like. — Francisco X Stork

A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison. — Simone De Beauvoir

By now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago. — Jodi Picoult

There's never been a safer time to go for a ride. Sadly, though, there's a problem. You see, cycling is seen now not as something that might be exhilarating or even useful but as a frontline propaganda weapon in the war on capitalism, banking, freedom, McDonald's, injustice, Swiss drug companies, rape and progress. Every morning London is chock-full of little individually wrapped Twiglets, their wizened faces contorted with hatred for all that they see. Fat people. Cars. Chain stores. It's all fascism. Fascism, d'you hear? From what they see as the moral high ground, they sneer at pedestrians, howl at buses, bang on cars, scream at taxi drivers and charge through every convention that defines society with their walnutty bottoms in the air and their stupid legs going nineteen to the dozen. — Jeremy Clarkson

No, I don't party; no, I don't dress in black leather and chains; that's not my style. That's how I was raised. I worry about getting good grades and I go to church and I watch sci-fi movies and I generally follow the rules. Most people would call me a geek or a nerd. You've called me that many times. But that isn't everything that defines me. I mean, look at me, sitting here in a rainstorm under a tree that's probably going to kill us when the lightning hits it, holding the hand of a pretty cool girl who really is the opposite of me, a girl that I happen to be in love with. A girl I couldn't have imagined would want to be with me. But here she is, letting me hold her hand, trying to tell me why she isn't good enough for me. That's crazy. — Cindy C. Bennett

I've always had a philosophy that position doesn't define power. Impact defines power. What impact are you making on people? What impact are you making on business? — Mindy Grossman

The price one pays when choosing exile is the loss of all that defines you as an individual. The only thing that makes this immense loss tolerable is the discovery of a self you did not know existed - of a true independence. That is the real gift of America, not its fabled wealth and prosperity. — Azar Nafisi

What you do with your time alive defines you, Reader, but hear me, I beg you, when I say that you are not done being defined. — Daniel Kraus

The thing about sports, at least for guys, is that nobody ever defines the rules, not even in gym class. Asking what a penalty means is like asking who Jesus was. It's one of those things you're just supposed to know, and if you don't, there's something seriously wrong with you. — David Sedaris

In the last analysis, be always of whatever truth you would live.
For fire flames but in the heart of a colder fire.
All voice is but echo caught from a soundless voice.
Height is not deprivation of valley, nor defect of desire,
But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in which all joys should rejoice. — Robert Penn Warren

What you do defines you. — Debasish Mridha

One thing is certain: your essence in my life is essential. It has been from the beginning. Even when I was a kid, it was as if I were waiting for you to enter the picture. Starting over in a new country, adjusting to the strange calm that takes hold when you've left everything that defines you, I had the feeling of weightless suspension. It stayed with me until the day I met you. — Louisa Hall

It is more than twenty years since we left the city. This is a serious chunk of time, longer than the years we spent living there. Yet we still think of Jerusalem as our home. Not home in the sense of the place that you conduct your daily life or constantly return to. In fact, Jerusalem is our home almost against our wills. It is our home because it defines us, whether we like it or not. — Yotam Ottolenghi

If you can't test it, it's not theorics
it's metatheorics. A branch of philosophy. So, if you want to think of it this way, our test equipment is what defines the boundary separating theorics from philosophy. — Neal Stephenson

Recognizing that God has called you to function as his agent defines your task as a parent. Our culture has reduced parenting to providing care. Parents often see the task in these narrow terms. The child must have food, clothes, a bed, and some quality time.
In sharp contrast to such a weak view, God has called you to a more profound task than being only a care-provider. You shepherd your child in God's behalf. The task God has given you is not one that can be conveniently scheduled. It is a pervasive task. Training and shepherding are going on whenever you are with your children. Whether waking, walking, talking or resting, you must be involved in helping your child to understand life, himself, and his needs from a biblical perspective (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). — Tedd Tripp

Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart. In — Phil Knight

You must achieve the confidence of knowing that you possess absolute, unbending, unimpeachable integrity. Everyone must know that. Above all else, it is integrity that defines your character. — Dave Calhoun

The demon bowed his head. "There are many kinds of Hunts. It is what defines us, renews us. It is the same for you, Hunter. We are born in blood, and we will die in blood, but in the interim, we must put fire to our veins and find new paths to tread upon." Tendrils of hair tapped his head. "Paths, up here. — Marjorie M. Liu

I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his "Symposium" - both kinds of love serve a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For such love there can be no tragedy. "Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good bye," and that's the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there everything is clear and pure. — Leo Tolstoy

Do one heroic thing today; big or small doesn't matter because it defines who you are and what you really believe — Bob Goff

Why am I so interested in politics? But if I were to answer you very simply, I would say this: why shouldn't I be interested? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject to our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.
So I can't answer the question of why I should be interested; I could only answer it by asking why shouldn't I be interested? — Michel Foucault

My best life lessons and education didn't come from a classroom - they've come from the wild. How you act in the big moments, the ones that challenge you, scare you, tempt you, and force you to make the right decisions, is what defines you. — Bear Grylls

I can't promise you an ordinary experience, Kate. I wish I could transform myself into a normal man and be there for you, always, without the trauma that defines my life as "the walking dead." Since that isn't possible, I can only reassure you that I will do everything in my power to make it up to you. To give you more than a normal boyfriend could.
I have no idea what that will mean, exactly, but I'm looking forward to finding out. With you. — Amy Plum

Human ... I don't know what that word means ... Tell me what defines it. What sets it apart? Are you going to tell me its love? A crocodile will defend her brood to the death. Hope? A lion will stalk its prey for days. Faith? Who is to say what gods populate an orangutan's imagination. We build? So do termites. We dream? House cats do that on the windowsill ... We live in a shabby edifice ... hastily erected over a span of ten thousand years, and we draw he flimsy curtains to hide the truth from ourselves. — Rick Yancey

One of the main coaching points I've heard throughout my entire life is, 'How you respond to difficult situations defines your character,' and I think it's a good saying. I also think it applies to more than just the players. — Chris Kluwe

I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present. — Stephen King

One word defines the essence of surfing better for me than any other - stoke . One of the best things about stoke is that you can pass it along to someone who has never heard the expression. — Shaun Tomson

When someone criticizes you, it defines who they are, not who you are. — Marie Forleo

This is the truth: We are a nation accustomed to being afraid. If I'm being honest, not just with you but with myself, it's not just the nation, and it's not just something we've grown used to. It's the world, and it's an addiction. People crave fear. Fear justifies everything. Fear makes it okay to have surrendered freedom after freedom, until our every move is tracked and recorded in a dozen databases the average man will never have access to. Fear creates, defines, and shapes our world, and without it, most of us would have no idea what to do with ourselves. Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could. — Mira Grant

I've had great success and I've had catastrophic failure. It's really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think. — Peter Berg

When embarking on a social project that concerns other people, how do you decide what your actions will be? Do you choose what is most rewarding to you personally? Do you try to find out what the objects of your help actually want? How do you accomplish that? What do you do if you find out that you cannot realistically provide what they desire? Or if you don't like it? In other words, who defines social projects? — Laura Maria Agustin

There will never be another woman who owns the look, the personality, and the experience that you do. Those ingredients make up the recipe that defines who you are, and it's your gift from the Lord - own it. — Candace Cameron

Who do you love?
It's a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one's days. Simple, elegant encompassing.
Who do you love? — Lisa Gardner

You define beauty for yourself, society doesn't define your beauty. Your spirit and your faith defines your beauty. — Lady Gaga

HIV is not what defines me. You get that? It is not what defines me. I am not my disease. I am a human being. A guy — J.H. Trumble

When you are caught in the mind, your past defines you. When you are present, you are beyond definition. — Leonard Jacobson

The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. Because it is the least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the frontal cortext from genes. — Robert M. Sapolsky

Look at a guy like Ian McKellen, who is eighty or whatever, and he's just loving his work, and you can see that in the work. That defines what type of actor you are. And what kind of people want to work with you. And whether you can do this job for a long, long time. — Jason Clarke

When a defining moment comes along, you define the moment, or the moment defines you. — Kevin Costner

My parents always put more of an emphasis on who I was as opposed to what I achieved. They were never like, "You won that! You did this!" It was all about, "You've got a good heart. You're a good friend. You're a good daughter." So that other stuff in no way defines my sense of self. — Emma Stone

You have a filter, a characteristic way of responding to the world around you. We all do. Your filter tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore; which to love and which to hate. It creates your innate motivations - are you competitive, altruistic, or ego driven? It defines how you think - are you disciplined or laissez-faire, practical or strategic? It forges your prevailing attitudes - are you optimistic or cynical, calm or anxious, empathetic or cold? It creates in you all of your distinct patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. In effect, your filter is the source of your talents. — Marcus Buckingham

What defines greatness is when you hold all the records and what you mean to your fans, on and off the field, because that is who ranks you as the greatest receiver of all-time. The guy that holds all the records, the guy that has set the stage for all of us, you have to give it to Jerry Rice. — Donald Driver

Because if you take something you're a thief.' She nursed the silence a moment. Downed the balance of her drink and silently signaled for another. 'Sounds simple, but you'd be amazed how many people don't get it. They steal but they call themselves honest. They cheat on their spouses and lovers but they think they're good people. They lie but they'd never call themselves liars. Well, let me tell you something, Todd ... She pointed toward him with her right hand, with her lit cigarette. He leaned away slightly. She looked into the mirror of his eyes and saw herself going too far. 'You are what you do. That's what I'm trying to tell you. What we do defines us. However we behave, conduct our lives ... that's real. The rest is just a story for publication. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Your work speaks for you. Your art defines you. — Oprah Winfrey

When you judge a woman by her appearance, it doesn't define her, it defines you. Ladies, never allow yourself to be defined by someone's inability to appreciate your unique beauty. — Steve Maraboli