Narrowly Defined Quotes & Sayings

Where once there seemed to be room to wonder, to speculate, to not know, there now seems to be increasing pressure for instant answers, immediate solutions, and narrowly defined results. — John Hunter

This book argues that the history of federal student loan policies is best understood as a series of messes in which attention became focused on some particular aspect of a larger problem and well-intentioned policies were devised to address each narrowly defined concern. — Joel Best

[The] dynamics of computational artifacts extend beyond the interface narrowly defined, to relations of people with each other and to the place of computing in their ongoing activities. System design, it follows, must include not only the design of innovative technologies, but their artful integration with the rest of the social and material world. — Lucy Suchman

If I could pick my own death, it would be on a roller coaster that jumps the tracks and careens into a packed crowd at a cotton candy stand at a state fair. — John Waters

Where ever you are at a secific time is where you are suposed to be! — Malachi Z. York

They all went out by a private door and found themselves in a smaller but gorgous room. The Prince tapped on the table and instantly two menials in red tunics appeared.
Bring three glasses of champaigne commanded the prince and some ices he added majestikally. The goods appeared as if by majic and the prince drew out a cigar case and passed it round.
One grows weary of Court Life he remarked.
Ah yes agreed the earl.
It upsets me said the prince lapping up his strawberry ice all I want is peace and quiut and a little fun and here I am tied down to this life he said taking off his crown being royal has many painfull drawbacks. — Daisy Ashford

Written in 1895, Alfred Nobel's will endowed prizes for scientific research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. At that time, these fields were narrowly defined, and researchers were often classically trained in only one discipline. In the late 19th century, knowledge of science was not a requisite for success in other walks of life. — Peter Agre

Believe that some kids who are in the middle to more high-functioning range of the autism continuum, like me, do not receive the proper stimulation and end up turning inward to such an extent that they can't function in society, even though they may be incredibly brilliant in some narrowly defined field, like abstract mathematics. — John Elder Robison

We all have a stake in the truth. Society functions based on an assumption that people will abide by their word - that truth prevails over mendacity. For the most part, it does. If it didn't, relationships would have a short shelf life, commerce would cease, and trust between parents and children would be destroyed. All of us depend on honesty, because when truth is lacking we suffer, and society suffers. When Adolf Hitler lied to Neville Chamberlain, there was not peace in our time, and over fifty million people paid the price with their lives. When Richard Nixon lied to the nation, it destroyed the respect many had for the office of the president. When Enron executives lied to their employees, thousands of lives were ruined overnight. We count on our government and commercial institutions to be honest and truthful. We need and expect our friends and family to be truthful. Truth is essential for all relations be they personal, professional, or civic. — Joe Navarro

Unfortunately, the trading of political influence for money has come back in a big way in American politics, this time in a form that is perfectly legal and much harder to eradicate. Criminalized bribery is narrowly defined in American law as a transaction in which a politician and a private party explicitly agree upon a specific quid pro quo exchange. What is not covered by the law is what biologists call reciprocal altruism, or what an anthropologist might label a gift exchange. In a relationship of reciprocal altruism, one person confers a benefit on another with no explicit expectation that it will immediately buy a return favor, unlike an impersonal market transaction. — Francis Fukuyama

She outpaced Severn. Whole years of her life had been narrowly defined by the fact that she couldn't even keep up. — Michelle Sagara

Moreover, environmental health at the local level has become narrowly focused, very much defined around regulations and the attendant regulatory debates. — Samuel Wilson

When we've defined femininity for their generation so narrowly, in such a sexualized, commercialized, heteroeroticized way, where is the space, the vision, the celebration of other ways to be a girl? — Peggy Orenstein

More often than not, I find identity politics to be defined narrowly in progressive circles. This can limit our work to build coalitions and solidarity across communities and movements because this leads us to simply replicate all that we want to eradicate in the world. — Daisy Hernandez

Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering were not real evils.--They were the school of God, in which He trains the children of grace for glory--the medicines which are needful to purify our corrupt wills--the furnace which must burn away our dross--the knife which must cut the ties that bind us to the world. — J.C. Ryle

The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviors. What they call 'free choice' is, in fact, the result of a narrowly obstructed set of options that have been chosen for them. They don't realize, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of nonhuman life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species' preference for survival. — Melanie Joy

In his first year as president he received 1,881 letters, not including internal correspondence from his cabinet, and sent out 677 letters of his own. This — Joseph J. Ellis

Science would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify the rules of competition by withdrawing entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines. — Benoit Mandelbrot

I think marriage is one of those things that writers draw on, one of those emotional reservoirs that go way back. — Raymond Carver

Even then, Vanderbilt was the premiere place for clinical pharmacology. — Alastair Wood

Understand that it is unlikely that you will change the size of the playing field to suit your needs. Playing your game at the edge can help to stretch the boundaries, but if it's too narrowly defined for you, start looking for a bigger field. — Lois P Frankel

The fastest way to succeed is to double your rate of failure. — Thomas Watson

Oh - and you need to work on making my opinion more important than Josh's, too. I know it's a stretch - he's your most intimate relationship to date, but when you're balls deep in my ass, I'd prefer you not be wondering if it counts as a workout. — Amy Lane

Fracking exemplifies the technological wager, by which I mean a gamble or even a faith that we can transform the world in the pursuit of narrowly defined goals and successfully manage the broader unintended consequences that result. In many ways, we are gambling on present innovations. I think that if we are to live with high technology we cannot avoid this wager. The question is whether we can establish conditions to make it a fair and reasonable bet. In the case of fracking, I will argue, these conditions are largely not in place (3). — Adam Briggle

No wonder the word 'feminism' was feared. It had been much too narrowly defined. I define a feminist as a self-empowering woman who wishes the same for her sisters. I do not think the term implies a certain sexual orientation, a certain style of dress or membership in a certain political party. A feminist is merely a woman who refuses to accept the notion that women's power must come through men. — Erica Jong

There is a morally flawed understanding of 'peace.' In much of the world (again, thanks to the left), peace has been so narrowly defined as to be morally irrelevant. It essentially means not having troops fighting in a foreign country. Thus, because the United States has troops fighting in Afghanistan and recently had troops fighting in Iraq, it is considered a 'threat to peace.' But Iran, with no troops on foreign soil, is not considered a threat to peace, even though it sustains terror movements, murders its own people, seeks to annihilate Israel, props up the mass murdering Syrian regime and is rapidly developing a nuclear weapon. — Dennis Prager

Our fraught way of life gives each of us a narrowly defined role, creating conditions conducive to developing only those elements in our psyche which allow us to grow within the confines of that role. The other areas of our psyche waste away. Hence lack of contact. Here psychological and social factors combine, and produce fear, distrust, moral baseness and the death of hope. — Andrei Tarkovsky

The doctor lifted the bottle. "Thank you," said Felix. "I never drink spirits."
"You will," said the doctor. — Djuna Barnes