Rumi
Poet, Philosopher
"What comes, will go. What is found, will be lost again. But what you are is beyond coming and going and beyond description."
Description quotes
Description
100 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Henri Nouwen
Theologian, Author
"My hope is that the description of God's love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover... God's love in yours."
Christopher Lee
Actor
"Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique'."
George Washington
Military Leader, Politician
"It is incumbent upon every person of every description to contribute to his country's welfare."
Winslow Homer
Artist
"I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description."
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Topics related to Description
Browse quotes that often appear alongside description — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Description quotes (page 1 of 5)
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"My job description is... being enthusiastic."
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"All descriptions of reality are temporary hypotheses."
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"Repentance is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like."
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"Damn description, it is always disgusting."
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"Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description."
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"The description and explanation is the best part of music reviewing. There is such a thing, and you know it too, as a gift for judgment. If you have it, you can say anything you like. If you haven't got it, you don't know you haven't got it."
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"Line is so versatile - you can do a fine, tight, closely observed description or simply put a line around an idea - like a cartoonist."
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"Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for to those who have enacted them the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone."
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"We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place."
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"One who is caught in thought loses one's original nature. All he knows are words and descriptions. When he sees the actual thing, he fails to perceive it."
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"Society is infested by persons who, seeing that the sentiments please, counterfeit the expression of them. These we call sentimentalists - talkers who mistake the description for the thing, saying for having."
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"What is always left out of descriptions of the psychedelic state, the deep psychedelic state, is how weird it is."
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"The description is not the described."
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"Trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of any goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principal, comes within the jurisdiction of society."
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"The job description for a queen changes with the times."
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"The camera is simply not the supple and powerful instrument of description that the pen is."
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"It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description."
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"Description is what makes the reader a sensory participant in the story."
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"Thus the theory of description matters most. It is the theory of the word for those For whom the word is the making of the world, The buzzing world and lisping firmament."
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"J.P. Donleavy - now he's one writer I am consistent with. He's written books that I can definitely connect with. He has amazing insights which other people missed out on. Even with his descriptions of Northern Ireland."
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