Do Not Define Me- Quotes & Sayings

Let me say that I consider myself a deep believer in the reality of God. I might define God quite differently from the way some people in the Christian faith would do so, but I do not doubt the reality of that experience. — John Shelby Spong

I do not define my job in any rigid terms but in terms of having the flexibility to what seems to me to be in the best interests of the company at any times. — Henry Earl Singleton

Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God. The atheist does not say that there is no God, but he says 'I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God. The word God to me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it for me. — Charles Bradlaugh

Make life easier for those around you, not harder.
Every person you know is fighting their own great battle. Few of us ever know what those battles entail, and so often we say and do things that push others deeper and harder into the front lines of those battles. I know such has been the relentless lifelong reality for me.
Love a person for the person that they are.
Or dislike them for the person that they are.
But don't love or dislike them for the sole reason that they see people differently than you do. Don't love or dislike them because they experience the world differently than you do.
And please don't eternally and wholly define them with sexual labels just because they were among those who finally found the courage to acknowledge their truth. — Dan Pearce

One of the most important lessons the Lord has taught me is that you are not your gift. That is, you are not defined by what you do or create. Jesus is a wonderful example of this. He would not allow the crowd to define Him by His considerable gifts, even though they tried to do so. Jesus always points away from Himself and His gifts and thereby wins praise for the Father. We are not our gifts. We are called to give more. Like Jesus, we are called to give ourselves. That is the real purpose behind our gifts; they are vehicles for giving the self. — Michael Card

Here's to everyone who has survived something devastating
something that shattered your self-confidence and distorted your world in one blow. Whether you were fierce in the face of it or fell to pieces or shoved it out of sight for years
I don't care how you got here. Every day you are stronger. Every day you are healing. Every day that you survive, you are telling that event, that person, that illness, that memory: YOU DO NOT DEFINE ME. Keep on.
Acknowledgements — Tammara Webber

Define self-awareness and tell me what it is about it that requires something more than a material explanation. I do not accept the burden of explaining all phenomena, real or imagined. If you think more than matter is required for this thing you call self-awareness, which you have not defined, then you have the burden of showing why. — Victor J. Stenger

Like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experience. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me. — Satya Nadella

His introduction throws me. The only time I can envision "Hi, I'm a surgeon" as a fitting introduction is if I were on a gurney in a stark white room and a man wielding a scalpel was standing over me. Plus, it's been a while since we've talked careers with anyone. Jobs are rarely a topic of conversation anymore--they exist in a place and time too far away to seem interesting. "What do you do?" is not a question asked to define someone, because out here we're all working the same jobs: yachties, mechanics, navigators, weather-readers, fishermen, adventure travelers, storytellers. — Torre DeRoche

I think it's better to be comfortable in your skin than to be miserable being who you are. Sure, the meth is horrible. It ruins people from the inside out. It's a waiting game
it's not a matter of if it destroys you, but rather a matter of when it will. I've made it this far. I'm not sending a message that it's "cool" to be on drugs and tell everyone about it. I don't sum myself up as a drug addict and a hooker. That's not what I am. Those are juts things I do, they don't define me. Jobs and addictions do not make us who we are. — Ashly Lorenzana

Do not define me by my gender or my socio-economic status, Noah Willis. Do not tell me who I am and do not tell me who society thinks I am and then put me in that box and expect me to stay there. Because, I swear to God, I will climb the hell out of that box and I will take that box you've just put me in and I will use that box to smash your face in until you're nothing more than a freckly, bloodied pulp. You got that, sweet cheeks? — Megan Jacobson

With that said, don't be trifling about being a feminist. It really infuriates me when high-profile people in your position self-identity as feminists just because it's trendy at the moment and then don't do any of the, you know, actual work of trying to make things equal for everybody. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in order to create a society that takes women as seriously as the men. The type that encourages us to not define ourselves by who we go to bed with at night, but by who and what we see reflected back at us in the mirror in the morning. The type that recognizes that women are not a monolith and that they have wildly different experiences informed by their race and/or sexuality. Be that beacon of light that we can look toward. Be the feminist who will help normalize the idea of Feminism for society. Be the feminist everyone needs. No presh. 3C. — Phoebe Robinson

How do I define success? Let me tell you, money's pretty nice. But having a lot of money does not automatically make you a successful person. What you want is money and meaning. You want your work to be meaningful, because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life. — Oprah Winfrey

There is nothing out here...
it is all inside;
it is all in my head.
The things that happen do not exist
unless I give them meaning.
To be able to define everything
is where my greatest weakness lies.
To be able to feel
is the madness I need to make sense
of the things that strike me.
People strike me,
love strikes me
and everything else moves me
in such a way
that I could barely understand.
I feel,
and everything I feel is nothing;
nothing but an extension
of the mind
and
of the heart I was born with. — Robert M. Drake

I wouldn't know what to do if I weren't next to you. That's who I am."
"You can't rely on someone else to define you. Especially not me. — Lauren Kate

Haven't you ever heard the saying that our pasts do not define us?" I countered, growing frustrated. "I screwed up, Hayden. I admitted that. Why can't you let it go?"
"Let it go?" He sneered. "You are the reason my sister is a Program. Please, tell me how I'm supposed to let something like that go? Because I'd love to know."
Footsteps sounded from outside of the holding cell, essentially ending our conversation. I still had much to say to him, but for now, I welcomed the silence.
The silence was much more comforting than the truth. — Nicole Sobon

I never put myself in that box of you're an Oscar winner so you can only do this or that. That's one award, one night, and it does not define my career or it does not define me as an artist. I never wanted to get put in that Oscar box because that's a lonely place to be. — Halle Berry

And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe
A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips
No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees — Nick Cave

Larson had been putting up a front like he wasn't listening, but hearing that last statement from Owen made him speak up. "It's not about that," he asserted.
"It has to be," Owen disagreed. "How else am I supposed to define myself?"
"Why do you have to have a definition? A label isn't gonna make you feel any better about yourself or this situation. Stop trying to put yourself in one group or the other. It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me!" Owen challenged. "My whole world has been flipped upside down thanks to you! Am I just supposed to sit back and accept that?"
Larson was beginning to boil over with repugnance. "Yes! Because that's what happens!" He was trying as hard a he could not to scream. "Things change and sometimes there's nothing we can do about it. Life sucks. Deal with it! That's what I'm doing. I'm not doing it in the best way, but I'm doing it. I'm dealing with that fact that you left me. — Megan Duke

Women, men, children, old, young, straight, gay ... violence is not picky when it comes to its victims. And it's distressing, thinking of these other people, faceless yet dear to me. We are part of a group no sane person wants to join, and yet we are members anyway. We come from every walk of life, of every race and religion. There is no way to exit the group once we've joined; all we can do is try not to let it define us. — Heather Lyons

One mistake does not define you, Julian. Do you understand me? You must simply act better next time. — R.J. Palacio

Is that we can fix our mistakes sometimes. We learn from them. We get better. I never made a mistake like the one I made with Tourteau again, not with anyone in my life. And I have had a very, very long life. You will learn from your mistake, too. You must promise yourself that you will never behave like that with anyone else again. One mistake does not define you, Julian. Do you understand me? You must simply act better next time. I nodded, but I still cried for a long, long time after that. — R.J. Palacio

The most important rule is to play great defense, not great offense. Everyday I assume every position I have is wrong. I know where my stop risk points are going to be. I do that so I can define my maximum drawdown. Hopefully, I spend the rest of the day enjoying positions that are going in my direction. If they are going against me, then I have a game plan for getting out. — Paul Tudor Jones

It's up to you how you react to things. It's up to me how I handle situations. It's up to us how we deal with each other. Each couple is defined by themselves, not by society or any other outside factor ... unless they let them define them. And once they do, then they no longer have control over their own relationship. — Shelly Crane

I was able to look at football as something that God was allowing me to do, not something that should define me. I couldn't take my identity from this sport. — Tony Dungy

I do not let other people define me. I am who I am, and that is an intelligent and gracious human being. And as such, I do not drop to the level of bullies and trade insult for insult. — Wen Spencer

Women have to work much harder to make it in this world. It really pisses me off that women don't get the same opportunities as men do, or money for that matter. Because lets face it, money gives men the power to run the show. It gives men the power to define our values and to define what's sexy and what's feminine and that's bullshit. At the end of the day, it's not about equal rights, it's about how we think. We have to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. — Beyonce Knowles

Casting back her head, Arya gazed up at the twinkling sky, her long neck gold with firelight, her face pale with the radiance of the heavenx. "Do you ask out of friendly concern or your own self-interest?" She gave an abrupt, choked laugh, the sound of water falling over cold rocks. "Never mind. The night air has addled me. It has undone my sense of courtesy and left me free to say the most spiteful things that occur to me."
"No matter."
"It does matter, because I regret it, and I shall not tolerate it. Did I love Faolin? How would you define love? For over twenty years, we traveled together, the only immortals to walk among the short-lived races. We were companions ... and friends. — Christopher Paolini

Most people define themselves by what they do - 'I'm a musician.' Then one day it occurred to me that I'm only a musician when I'm playing music - or writing music, or talking about music. I don't do that 24 hours a day. I'm also a father, a son, a husband, a citizen - I mean, when I go to vote, I'm not thinking of myself as 'a musician.' — Herbie Hancock

No one - not a conservative or liberal or whatever - can stand back and 'define' what marriage means. Other people's marriages have nothing to do with mine; whether my neighbors are divorced or gay or widowed will not lead me to change anything about how my wife and I deal with each other or how we raise our children. — Kurt Eichenwald

Your fears are not you. Do you hear me? They don't define who you are. — S.L. Jennings

Some would define a servant like this: 'A servant is one who finds out what his master wants him to do, and then he does it.' The human concept of a servant is that a servant goes to the master and says, 'Master, what do you want me to do?' The master tells him, and the servant goes off BY HIMSELF and does it. That is not the biblical concept of a servant of God. Being a servant of God is different from being a servant of a human master. A servant of a human master works FOR his master. God, however, works THROUGH His servants. — Henry T. Blackaby