If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you're on the right track. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes
It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. — Robert Walpole
Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don't let them take you ALIVE. — Sid Vicious
Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. — Oscar Wilde
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. — Thomas Jefferson
Memorial Day will be celebrated ... by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments. — Howard Zinn
Back in those early days when I began my apprenticeship as a poet, I also tried to voice our anger, spirit of defiance and resistance in a Jamaican poetic idiom. — Linton Kwesi Johnson
"Laws and conditions that tend to debase human personality - a God-given force - be they brought about by the State or other individuals, must be relentlessly opposed in the spirit of defiance shown by St. Peter when he said to the rulers of his day: "Shall we obey God or man?" — Albert Lutuli
Comedy is defiance. It's a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it's the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale. — Will Durst
It has been, after all, 11 years, more than a decade now, of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War, so that he would not be a threat to peace and security, he has ignored and flaunted. — Condoleezza Rice
We know that if gold, if fraud, if force can defeat us, they will all be used. And we have resolved that they shall not defeat us. We shall arm. We shall meet fraud and falsehood with defiance, and force with force, if need be. — Denis Kearney
Much of human progress has been in defiance of religion or of the apparent natural order. The defiance of religious and secular authority has led to democracy, human rights, and the protection of the environment. Humanists make no apologies for this. Humanists twist no biblical doctrine to justify such actions. — Fred Edwords
We are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power. — H. H. Asquith
There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance. — Walt Whitman
To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give a miracle a chance to happen. — Jerome Groopman
Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life. — Kent Nerburn
The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change. — Howard Zinn
After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble. — Richard Russo
With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance. — Norman Mailer
You all have learned reliance
On the sacred teachings of Science,
So I hope, through life, you will never decline
In spite of philistine Defiance
To do what all good scientists do.
Experiment.
Make it your motto day and night.
Experiment.
And it will lead you to the light. — Cole Porter
The Masonic fraternity tramples upon our rights, defeats the administration of justice, and bids defiance to every government which it cannot control. — Millard Fillmore
For there have risen many who have given to the plain words of Holy Writ some arbitrary interpretation of their own, instead of its true and only sense, and this in defiance of the clear meaning of words. Heresy lies in the sense assigned, not in the word written; the guilt is that of the expositor, not of the text. — Hilary of Poitiers
There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve. — Dick Cheney
I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance. — Jamaica Kincaid
There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will. — Hannah Arendt
Read about a few men who wear (or wore) bow ties as an act of defiance, and check out a tie that makes a strong statement. Bow ties are cool. — Matt Smith
In other words, "speaking truth" as a social movement may move you forward in some ways, but to really lock in and have real enduring change, it takes both a movement on the ground and an independent political party that is itself the defiance of that two-party corporate big-money control of politics. — Jill Stein
Every day people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in midthought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it. — Gavin de Becker
I voted against Gerald Nabarro in my first general election, but my defiance made no difference. If you had put a Conservative rosette on a mustachioed hamster, it would have been elected. — Jeremy Paxman
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. — Thomas Jefferson
Ever since I was a small child, Ive had this feeling - its in my nature, and so its not even pretentious - that if everyones going one way, I will go the other, just by some kind of spirit of defiance. — Charlotte Rampling
But the safety of the world, in some sense, depends on your saying no to inhumane ideas. Standing up for one's own integrity makes you no friends. It is costly. Yet defiance of the mob, in the service of that which is right, is one of the highest expressions of courage I know. — Gabrielle Giffords
The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy. — Nelson Mandela
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Сrown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter. — William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Food made by hand is an act of defiance and runs contrary to everything in our modernity. Find it; eat it; it will go. It has been around for millennia. Now it is evanescent, like a season. — Bill Buford
Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering. — Seneca
What is the explanation of the seemingly insane drive of man to be painter and poet if it is not an act of defiance against mans fall and an assertion that he return to the Garden of Eden? For the artists are the first men. — Barnett Newman
In Conclusion
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