Matter
Matter is generally considered to be a substance (often a particle) that has rest mass and (usually) also volume. The volume is determined by the three-dimensional space it occupies, while the mass is defined by the usual ways that mass is measured (see the article on mass). Matter is also a general term for the substance of which all observable physical objects consist.
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Famous quotes containing the word matter:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“What matter though numb nightmare ride on top
And blood and mire the sensitive body stain?
What matter? Heave no sigh, let no tear drop,
A greater, a more gracious time has gone....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“This book was written in good faith, reader. It warns you from the outset that in it I have set myself no goal but a domestic and private one.... I am myself the matter of my book.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)