Definition
The term does not relate to the belief that the mind is more powerful than the body. Specifically, mind over matter refers to controlling pain that one may or may not be experiencing, such as holding one's hand under extremely hot water and feeling no pain. Also, "self-help" personalities such as Tony Robbins claim that, through the power of concentration and "positive thinking", people can walk on hot coals without getting burned. This claim is made despite the fact that there are solid, scientific explanations for firewalking. "Mind over matter" was also Mao Zedong's idea that rural peasants could be "proletarianized" so they could lead the revolution and China could move from feudalism to socialism. It departs from Leninism in that the revolutionaries are peasants, instead of the urban proletariat.
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Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“... if, as women, we accept a philosophy of history that asserts that women are by definition assimilated into the male universal, that we can understand our past through a male lens—if we are unaware that women even have a history—we live our lives similarly unanchored, drifting in response to a veering wind of myth and bias.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man’s fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“One definition of man is “an intelligence served by organs.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)