Quotes About Defiance

Nothing surprises me now, I tell him. I am stoic. I am Joan of Arc, with liver damage and an unused penis.

Freedom was what we had. Nobody told us when to go to bed. Nobody told us to do our homework. Nobody told us we couldn't drink two six-packs of Budweiser and then throw up in the Maytag.

You know, American alcoholics are pretty fucking hard to insult.

And I won 'em back fair and square. So what are you going to do about it? Want to fight? Who wants the first bloody nose?

Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way , when and if you are an architect?" "Yes." "My dear fellow, who will let you?" "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?

I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.

It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much.

My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?

She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought- and never worried about it again.

There's something I want you to know,' said Cherryl, her voice taut and harsh, 'so that there won't be any pretending about it. I'm not going to put on the sweet relative act. I know what you've done to Jim and how you've made him miserable all his life. I'm going to protect him against you. I'll put you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm the woman in this family now.' 'That's quite all right,' said Dagny. 'I'm the man.

I understand that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him. ~Equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), pg 98

It's not a question of who will allow me to do it, it's a question of who will stop me.

But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.

Get the hell out of my way! Said by John Galt as the leaders of the country tried to make him become their dictator.

The crowd had stared at him and given up angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio.

Reason is not automatic, those who deny it cannot be conquered by it

The statue was of a young man with a tall, gaunt body and an angular face. He held his head as if he faced a challenge and found joy in his capacity to meet it.

A battle? What battle? I hold the whip hand. I don't fight the disarmed. Are they? They have a weapon against you. It's their only weapon, but it's a terrible one. Ask yourself what it is, some time. Where do you see any evidence of it? In the unforgivable fact that you're as unhappy as you are.

Like any oppressed people, they defined themselves by what offended them, which

At a time of shuddering devastation, they stepped in as the dragon-slayers.

In this world," he reminded a French friend, "it is not faith that saves us, but defiance.

I will stand alone. I will oppose tyranny at the threshold, though the fabric of liberty fall and I perish in its ruins.

To dream a garden and then to plant it is an act of independence and even defiance to the greater world.

This is not a time for heroes because nobody will let that happen.