I Am Defined By Quotes & Sayings

Maybe I don't want to be defined by what I do. Maybe I'd like to be defined by what I am. — Nicholas Sparks

I am not especially defined by my sex life, nor complete without it. — Paula Gunn Allen

I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by that. — Robert Griffin III

And there was something familiar about the cadence of the words. The language. It was him.
I wrote:
I know who you are. I recognize your voice. by kidzero
I felt a little dizzy after I sent it, maybe because I had been holding my breath. A new message pinged and the air rushed out of me like a deflated balloon.
you shouldn't be talking to strangers anyway. who am I? by anonymous
I didn't really know his name or anything about him, but I couldn't admit that now. I wanted to keep talking to him. I quickly typed:
You are the Unidentified. The Unidentified refuses to be typecast, target-marketed, corporate-identified, defined. by kidzero — Rae Mariz

Am always happiest when I am just attractive enough. Meaning: other people won't find me unattractive. Meaning: I make a positive impression. Meaning: my life is not defined by my attractiveness, because that brings its own perils as well as its own rewards. — David Levithan

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 ... — Jean-Paul Sartre

With my veil I put my faith on display - rather than my beauty. My value as a human is defined by my relationship with God, not by my looks. I cover the irrelevant. And when you look at me, you don't see a body. You view me only for what I am: a servant of my Creator.
You see, as a Muslim woman, I've been liberated from a silent kind of bondage. I don't answer to the slaves of God on earth. I answer to their King. — Yasmin Mogahed

What I am suggesting is that faith in Jesus risen from the dead transcends but includes what we call history and what we call science. Faith of this sort is not blind belief that rejects all history and science. Nor is it simply - which would be much safer! - a belief that inhabits a totally different sphere, discontinuous from either, in a separate watertight compartment. Rather, this kind of faith, which is like all modes of knowledge defined by the nature of its object, is faith in the creator God, the God who has promised to put all things to rights at the end, the God who (as the sharp point where those two come together) has raised Jesus from the dead within history, leaving as I said evidence that demands an explanation from the scientist as well as anybody else. — N. T. Wright

Slipping into bad attitudes and habits is like a beautiful queen growing older and uglier compared to the defined mission and personal standards. Time and again everyone who is serious about making their success more deliberate needs to stop by the mirror in their own mind and ask, "Mirror, mirror in my mind, am I still on course to succeed in life? — Archibald Marwizi

I have learned to accept myself and rest in the fact that I am not defined by a scale or by someone else's expectations or by my past (and future) failures. Instead, I am defined by my loving heavenly Father, who declares me perfect in His sight and reminds me daily that I am limited only by my own perceptions. So I just need to stop giving so much attention and power to my fears and, instead, simply agree with what He already sees. — Michelle Aguilar

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

I am far from an "old" person in human terms, however I've spent over half my life immersed in the punk rock and hardcore community. I am not wholly defined by that as a person, but it is something that has been part of me for a long time. — Jacob Bannon

Distance does not define your destination; it is defined by your thoughts. — Debasish Mridha

Out here we speak Malspeak, a mangle of English and old languages like Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian. Dialects from a time when the land was defined by many borders. Now there's only one that matters. And I am on the wrong side of it. — Georgia Clark

I am afraid of sex as sex is defined by the dominant culture, as practiced all around me, and projected onto magazine pages, billboards, and movie screens. I am afraid of sex because I am afraid of domination, cruelty, violence, and death. I am afraid of sex because sex has hurt me and hurt lots of people I know, and because I have hurt others with sex in the past. I know that there are people out there who have been hurt by sex in ways that are beyond words, who have experienced a depth of pain that I will never fully understand. And I know there are people who are dead because of sex. Yes, I am afraid of sex. How could I not be? — Robert Jensen

I'm a migrant worker picking frozen peas,
and a clodhopper hiding behind a white sheet.
I'm a shootout at Ruby Ridge,
and a freefall of flames.
I am closed for the winter,
and crawling in my playpen.
I am cold,
and quick chatter and beautiful smiles.
I am a man missing a limb,
and lettuce and tomatoes.
I am a palace,
and fresh milk and goat cheese.
I'm the great emptiness among Cubans,
and a job that requires the auditing of truth and lies.
I'm a confounding calm that will shatter fear and complacency,
and a town full of self-defined renegades and recluses.
I'm a public execution,
and a lanky husband waiting by the checkout. — Brian D'Ambrosio

I have always enjoyed watching women dress. The appeal isn't sexual. Most girls' first glimpse of private female life is watching their mothers dress and put makeup on. It makes sense that we'd find it comforting. Childhood fascinations often crystallize this way. Isn't beauty forever defined, in a sense, by the first things we found beautiful? Surely part of my pleasure results from the inundation of images that we all experience. But I also love ritual, and it is a mesmerizing one. I enjoy the ritual of dressing myself, too. It is a form of basking in a kind of femininity that I am opposed to as an ideal, but for better or worse, I think we all fetishize the female body, and intellectualization doesn't spare anyone the obsession. — Melissa Febos

I don't have a system." "Theology is a system." "Not my theology." "Then what is it?" "What is it? It's the overwhelming combination of all that I've seen, felt, and cannot explain, that has stayed with me and refused to depart, that drives me again and again to a faith of which I am not sure, that is alluring because it will not stoop to be defined by so inadequate a creature as man. Unlike Marxism, it is ineffable, and it cannot be explained in words. — Mark Helprin

I strongly believe that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman. I am troubled by activist judges who are defining marriage. I have watched carefully what's happened in San Francisco, where licenses were being issued even though the law states otherwise. I have consistently stated that if-I'll support law to protect marriage between a man and a woman. And obviously these events are influencing my decision. — George W. Bush

I am defined by my will to survive, not by intelligence or cunning or money or good looks. The Creator didn't see her way clear to give me those things, instead she gave me a strong will. — Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

I am fascinated by the evolution of language, and how local versions diverge to become dialects like Cornish English and Geordie and then imperceptibly diverge further to become mutually unintelligible but obviously related languages like German and Dutch. The analogy to genetic evolution is close enough to be illuminating and misleading at the same time. When populations diverge to become species, the time of separation is defined as the moment when they can no longer interbreed. I suggest that two dialects should be deemed to reach the status of separate languages when they have diverged to an analogously critical point: the point where, if a native speaker of one attempts to speak the other it is taken as a compliment rather than as an insult. — Richard Dawkins

Even today, I am in total awe of the following wondrous chain of ideas and interconnections. Guided throughout by principles of symmetry, Einstein first showed that acceleration and gravity are really two sides of the same coin. He then expanded the concept to demonstrate that gravity merely reflects the geometry of spacetime. The instruments he used to develop the theory were Riemann's non-Euclidean geometries-precisely the same geometries used by Felix Klein to show that geometry is in fact a manifestation of group theory (because every geometry is defined by its symmetries-the objects it leaves unchanged). Isn't this amazing? — Mario Livio

I ask myself what making it really means. I know I want to make my living solely as a musician, but I also want to be recognized as someone unique, defined by my voice, by my abilities as a songwriter, to have the world know my songs and my melodies just as they had known and acknowledged the songs of the Beatles. I want to do this on my own terms, I want to be singular, and if that means being marginalized, then so be it. I will become stronger, and even if no one else knows who I am, I shall know myself. — Sting

Everyday that passes I am pulled from youth as how it has been defined by that culture into something else. — Jacob Bannon

For me surfing is just something that I love to do. I grew up surfing, is sort of like a family requirement. I can't imagine my life without it. But I am not defined by it, nor is my music. They are very separate. — Tristan Prettyman

I am whole just as I am. I am defined not by my life experiences but by how I let them affect me and how I handle myself in each situation. — Lily Collins

I can't speak for everybody, I think, for me, I will not be defined by the lyrics of my song. I am a man who does music. It's like clothes don't make the man, the man makes the clothes. It's, it's like that song don't make me, I make the song. — Teddy Pendergrass

Men are made in God's image, or so I am told. Likewise that we differ from the animals in having reason. Reason, therefore, must plainly be a characteristic of the Almighty, quod erat demonstrandum. Is it reasonable, then, to create men whose very nature - clearly constructed and defined by yourself - is inimical to your own laws and must lead inevitably to destruction? Whatever would be the point of that? Does it not strike you as a most capricious notion - to say nothing of being wasteful? — Diana Gabaldon

All that I am. All that I will be is defined by this moment. — Truth Devour

I am my clients. I am defined by who I do business with. — Tom Peters

And, I think: I am but one more drop in the great sea of matter, defined, with the ability to realize my existence. Of the millions, I, too, was potentially everything at birth. I, too, was stunted, narrowed, warped, by my environment, my outcroppings of heredity. I, too, will find a set of beliefs, of standards to live by, yet the very satisfaction of finding them will be marred by the fact that I have reached the ultimate in shallow, two-dimensional living - a set of values. — Sylvia Plath

I am often tempted to think of success in terms that are defined by others: records sold, popularity gained, album reviews, etc. These are impossible demands, however, and they can never be satisfied. Letting finite others define our worth is a horrible way to live. Only the Infinite Other [God] has the authority to do this. — Jon Foreman

To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand. — Charles Taylor

To bring myself back to a perspective of all that I am in Christ - not according to the world. I need it to remind myself that the world doesn't define me. I am defined by my relationship with Jesus Christ. — Tony Dungy

True success is not defined by how much money do I make, how well do I speak, how well do I deal with the subjects I deal with," he says. "But how great of a father I am. — Shane Snow

We didn't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in the past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.
- John, I Am Number Four — Pittacus Lore

I am 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. — Ashwin Sanghi

I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life. — Chris Brown

To you, differences are quite unimportant; to me, they are what matters most. I am a scholar by nature; science is my vocation. And science is, to quote your words, nothing but the 'determination to establish differences.' Its essence couldn't be defined more accurately. For us, the men of science, nothing is as important as the establishment of differences; science is the art of differentiation. Discovering in every man that which distinguishes him from others is to know him. — Hermann Hesse

My generation grew up with an imposed myth: the myth of happily ever after
(and makes you do the same). Whether we wrote this myth or its opposite
there is no prince, and ever if there is, he never comes, and even if he comes, he never makes you come
we were still seeing our lives in terms of this myth. Pro-prince or anti-prince, the terms of the debate were defined
and not by us. We tried to write other myths
some day my princess will come or I am my own princess so there
but they were all derivative. The armature of plot was the same. We were reacting, not creating. We had not expanded the terms in which we saw our lives. — Erica Jong

I have spent my whole life preparing to be William Wallace's wife. The choices I make are defined by the person I am.
I am Mrs. William Victor Wallace. I am married to a federal felon whom I love unconditionally.
I hold my head high, I take pride in my life and I walk this world without regret.
I will be the perfect wife and my husband deserves nothing less. — Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

I am not defined by my body or what has happened to it. I am not defined by beatings or an arching whip or a dangerous man, or by the wreckage of prostitution. I am not defined by my age. I am not defined by what others think of me. I am defined by myself. I will define myself to me. I will live, I will laugh, I will love. I will not be silenced. I will not be invisible. I will be me until the very end. And I will look beautiful. — Cathy Lamb

Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix. — John Mayer

It's a beautiful thing to be that committed to something that you get so much joy from, but it is like a sick addiction, because sometimes it's incredibly volatile, incredibly painful, and very frustrating. A man shouldn't be defined by his work, but I am. — Scott Weiland

If you are reading this book and you feel that way too then you are not alone. I understand how you feel. I think that anyone who has suffered from even mild depression understands how it feels. Yet we forget that others understand our suffering. We withdraw, isolate or shut down completely. We lose ourselves in our selves, and in the illness.
It doesn't have to be that way. If we connect with even one other human being who understands, we take one step out of the illness. Life is about connection. There is nothing else. Depression is the opposite; it is an illness defined by alienation. So I offer this book by way of connection. I offer it, too, as a source of hope. I hope that by sharing what I was like, what happened and what I am like now, that it may bring someone else comfort. — Sally Brampton

Am I defined by what I've seen, or do I define the world by what I've witnessed? O, what beautiful or terrible thing waits around the next corner? Who isn't in love with this mystery? — Sherman Alexie

You ... were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around ... Living unloved is like clipping a bird's wing and removing its ability to fly ... A bird is not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are defined not by their limitations, but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image. Love is NOT the limitation; love is the flying. I AM love. — Wm. Paul Young