Quotes About Defiance

The times spat at me. I spit back at the times.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms, - never! never! never!

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!

Better that we should die fighting than be outraged and dishonored. Better to die than to live in slavery.

The best mask for demoralization is daring.

A man is a lion in his own cause.

It never pays to deal with the flyweights of the world. They take far too much pleasure in thwarting you at every turn.

I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth whenever I please.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd To its idolatries a patient knee.

The joy of the young is to disobey - but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

So don't ask me how to catch Jes Grew. Ask Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, your poets, your painters, your musicians, ask them how to catch it. Ask those people who be shaking their tambourines impervious of the ridicule they receive from Black and White Atonists, Europe the ghost rattling its chains down the deserted halls of their brains.

Hope is an act of desperate defiance against monstrous odds.

Doing something wrong meant that I had not pleased the person or people in charge. It also meant that what I thought, what I felt, and what I needed or desired was of little or no consequence. As I grew older, more creative, and increasingly independent, there were many situations when I acted out in unmistakable defiance of the authority figures in my life. In each and every instance when I attempted to assert my thoughts or my voice, I was corrected, punished, or both.

If we cannot win, we can at least deprive them of the victory.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world 'No, You Move'.

Blow me, Grim Reaper!

Fine, you do that, and you tell them that at the very first opportunity, I'm coming down there and killing all of them. Mass murder. And after they're all dead, I'm going to kick the bodies around, dance on top of them, and sing a happy song. No jury will convict me.

Hold on a minute. She leaned out the window, shouted at the messenger who'd nearly sideswiped her vehicle with his jet-board. Police property, asshole. If I had time I'd hunt you down and use that board to beat your balls black. Darling Eve, you know how that kind of talk thrills and excites me. How can I keep my mind off sex now?

I'd rather lie bare-assed naked on the sidewalk and be trampled by tourists from South Dakota than be an accountant.

She didn't want the medi-techs. She wanted a fucking candy bar. [...] She reached down [...] and chose a Galaxy bar [...] I'm going home. You didn't pay for that, Francois shouted after her. Fuck you, Frank, she shouted back and kept going.

He was heading over the line when he strutted in here thinking he could rattle his federal balls at me.

Stupid son of a bitch His droopy eyes went huge. What did you say to me? You heard me. You're too tight-assed. To stubborn, too stupid to put your feelings aside. I can't afford to lose a key member at this stage of the investigation. You know that, so don't come in here and tell me I've got cause to boot you. You're the one who's going to get a boot, right straight up your ass. You couldn't take me ten years ago, she shot back, you sure as hell can't take me now. Want to test that out, kid?

I can't be in your place as I don't have a fat, knocked-up ass to sit on. Yeah, you asked me for a major, and if you want to come through on it, you'll sit down, shut up, and let me work. Bitch.