Defy Quotes - page 8
Legislation is introduced by Parliament, but we should remember that all our advances, freedom and liberties are due to men and women who, when their conscience compelled them, have been prepared to defy the law. If legislation is introduced which erodes our basic freedom and democracy or threatens our right to combine, we should oppose it with the same vigour and determination of our forefathers. I believe it will be necessary to use all measures, including industrial action, to defy Tebbit's law and defend our movement.
Arthur Scargill
We need action not words. For the first time we are facing the prospect of seeing legislation introduced which denies the right of trade unionists to come to the assistance of other unionists and denies the right of trade unionists to seek the support of others in their disputes. There is only one response. Faced with this legislation we should say we will defy the law. It is the only action we can take and it is the only response this movement can give. If there is an attempt to use this legislation then you defy it not as an individual union but as a movement.
Arthur Scargill
Are we aware of our obligations to a mob It is the mob that labor in your fields and serve in your houses -- that man your navy, and recruit your army -- that have enabled you to defy the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.
Lord Byron
And though love has brought me down
Love is still around
Finding all its ways to those whose hearts are brave enough to try
Coz love is always ready to defy,
All unwilling things that this life may bring.
Though at times may seem to lose its faith
And die when things turn wrong
But love is still my reason to go on.
Sophia Montecarlo
As I scrape the bottom of the soul for some ingredients the only way I can explain to myself, about what it all is, is to believe that in some past life (if there is one), I belonged to the rainforests. The mantra there, for survival, is to submit to the natural forces, bow before it, respect its ways, learn and grow. You cannot defy it or go against it. In the rainforests there are labyrinthine darknesses weaving around you but there is always light in streaks, in a glow, in a stream, sunlight...all of which brings hope. You don't bathe in it all the time but it seeks you out. Man is but a speck. The human race, still a speck, in this mighty universe rich with millions of secrets.
Manav Gupta
Man is a free agent, not in many things but in all things, subject, of course, to the requirements of the Natural and the Moral Law. In fact, Man is so free that he can even defy and disobey his Creator. Man's freedom is however conditioned by rules of safety, morality etc., which counsel him that he may not do certain things. This is not however, a negation of Freedom.
Peter de Noronha
I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic Party, in regard to slavery.
Abraham Lincoln
It is a dogma of the Roman Church that the existence of God can be proved by natural reason. Now this dogma would make it impossible for me to be a Roman Catholic. If I thought of God as another being like myself, outside myself, only infinitely more powerful, then I would regard it as my duty to defy him.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Donald Trump, the man who defied every political rule and prevailed to win his party's nomination, last week took on perhaps the most sacred political rule of all: Never attack a Gold Star family. Not just because it alienates a vital constituency but because it reveals a shocking absence of elementary decency and of natural empathy for the most profound of human sorrows - parental grief.
Why did Trump do it? It wasn't a mistake. It was a revelation. It's that he can't help himself. His governing rule in life is to strike back when attacked, disrespected or even slighted. To understand Trump, you have to grasp the General Theory: He judges every action, every pronouncement, every person by a single criterion - whether or not it/he is "nice” to Trump.
Charles Krauthammer
In the outset, I must deny the charge made personally against myself, and against the Government to which I belong, of an identification with the interests of other nations...I am satisfied that the interest of England is the Polar star-the guiding principle of the conduct of the Government; and I defy any man to show, by any act of mine, that any other principle has directed my conduct, or that I have had any other object in view than the interests of the country to which I belong.
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
It always seems to me absurd to speak of a complete proof of a theorem being rigorously demonstrated. An incomplete proof is no proof and a mathematical truth not rigorously demonstrated is not demonstrated at all. I do not mean to deny that there are mathematical truths, morally certain, which defy and will probably to the end of time to defy proof, as, e.g. that every indecomposable integer polynomial function must represent an infinitude of primes. I have sometimes thought that the profound mystery which envelops our conceptions relative to prime numbers depends upon the limitation of our faculties in regard to time, which like space may be in its essence poly-dimensional, and that this and such sort of truths would become self-evident to a being whose mode of perception is according to superficially as distinguished from our own limitation to linearly extended time.
James Joseph Sylvester
I knew years before the Pentagon Papers came out that the Americans were being lied in to an essentially hopeless war. I'm not proud of the fact that it didn't occur to me that my oath of office, which was to support the Constitution, called on me to put that information out and say, ‘64, when the war might have been avoided. But I certainly am glad that I finally came aware of what my real responsibilities were there. And I did put it out years later. At times, at that time, which published it, the "Times,” and the 18 other newspapers, which defied President Nixon's injunctions and did put it out, were in the position of Julian Assange is in now.
Julian Assange
Thou comest to me with a sword, and with A spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. [...] And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with the sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands.
David
His superiority was, indeed, real and incontestable; he was the classical ornament of the anti-slavery party; their pride in him was unbounded, and their admiration outspoken.The boy Henry worshipped him, and if he ever regarded any older man as a personal friend, it was Mr. Sumner. The relation of Mr. Sumner in the household was far closer than any relation of blood. None of the uncles approached such intimacy. Sumner was the boy's ideal of greatness; the highest product of nature and art. The only fault of such a model was its superiority which defied imitation. To the twelve-year-old boy, his father, Dr. Palfrey, Mr. Dana, were men, more or less like what he himself might become; but Mr. Sumner was a different order - heroic.
Henry Adams
Does anybody now believe in the story of the serpent? I pity any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, believes in that childish fable. Why did Adam and Eve disobey? Why, they were tempted. By whom? The devil. Who made the devil? God. What did God make him for? Why did he not tell Adam and Eve about this serpent? Why did he not watch the devil, instead of watching Adam and Eve? Instead of turning them out, why did he not keep him from getting in? Why did he not have his flood first, and drown the devil, before he made a man and woman. And yet, people who call themselves intelligent-professors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions-teach children and young men that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute historical fact. I defy any man to think of a more childish thing. This God, waiting around Eden-knowing all the while what would happen-having made them on purpose so that it would happen, then does what? Holds all of us responsible, and we were not there.
Robert G. Ingersoll
