Defy Quotes

The press, or at least most of it, has lost the passion, the outrage, and the sense of mission that once drove reporters to defy authority and tell the truth. ~ Chris Hedges

He smiles. "You know- I feel everything when you touch me, love. I can feel your excitement. Your nervousness. Your pleasure. And I love it," he says quietly. "I love the way you respond to me. I love the way you want me. I feel it when you lose yourself, the way you trust me when we're together. And I feel your love for me," he whispers. "I feel it in my bones,"
~ Warner to Ella/Juliette ~ Tahareh Mafi

If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairy tale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairy tale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairy tale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Day and night, their fail and crippled ships defy the tempest. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Christian ethics demand that you should not take revenge. The paradox is, naturally, that Christians worship a God who is the greatest avenger of them all. Defy him and you burn in eternal hell, an act of revenge which is completely out of proportion to the crime ~ Jo Nesbo

That's the artist's role - to strike out always for something new, to break away, to defy, to ... grapple with the unfamiliar. ~ Brian Aldiss

Thou canst commit lift and defy gravity, but not indefinitely, lest the earth rise up and smite thee. ~ A.V. Roe

It is our nature to defy gravity, to transcend the limitations of the reasoning mind and connect with the realm of the mystical truth. ~ Caroline Myss

Art is fueled by rebellion: the need, in some amounting to obsessions, to resist what is, to defy one's elders, even to the point of ostracism; to define oneself, and by extension one's generation, as new, novel, ungovernable. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

We did not lack modesty - on the contrary - but something urgently drove us to defy modesty together as immodestly as possible. ~ Georges Bataille

In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history. ~ Anthony Doerr

It is impossible to stand upright when one plants his roots in the shifting sands of popular opinion and approval. Needed is the courage of a Daniel, an Abinadi, a Moroni, or a Joseph Smith in order for us to hold strong and fast to that which we know is right. They had the courage to do not that which was easy but that which was right.
We will all face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us
all of us
have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval. Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully but also as the determination to live decently. As we move forward, striving to live as we should, we will surely receive help from the Lord and can find comfort in His words ~ Thomas S. Monson

The tides of time should be able to imprint the passing of the years on an object. The physical decay or natural wear and tear of the materials used does not in the least detract from the visual appeal, rather it adds to it. It is the changes of texture and colour that provide the space for the imagination to enter and become more involved with the devolution of the piece. Whereas modern design often uses inorganic materials to defy the natural ageing effects of time, wabi sabi embraces them and seeks to use this transformation as an integral part of the whole. This is not limited to the process of decay, but can also be found at the moment of inception, when life is taking its first fragile steps toward becoming. ~ Andrew Juniper

He saw her as the passionate spirit of innocent youth, now beleaguered by the trick which is played on youth - the trick of treachery in the body, which turns flesh into green bones. Her stupid finery was not vulgar to him, but touching. The girl was still there, still appealing from behind the breaking barricade of rouge. She had made the brave protest: I will not be vanquished. Under the clumsy coquetry, the undignified clothes, there was the human cry for help. The young eyes were puzzled, saying: It is I, inside here - what have they done to me? I will not submit. Some part of her spirit knew that the powder was making a guy of her, and hated it, and tried to hold her lover with the eyes alone. They said: Don't look at all this. Look at me. I am still here, in the eyes. Look at me, here in the prison, and help me out. Another part said: I am not old, it is illusion. I am beautifully made-up. See, I will perform the movements of youth. I will defy the enormous army of age. ~ T.H. White

Aren't you afraid they'll arrest you? (Shahara)
I wasn't a convict, Dagan. I was an illegally purchased slave. My owner has no legal claim on me. And I'm no longer a kid learning my powers. I'm a full-grown man with an ax I want to bury in the forehead of anyone dumb enough to come at me. I defy the bastards to try something now. (Nero) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Defy the system by a gift to which it cannot respond except by its own death and its own collapse. ~ Politics Is Not A Banana

How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villa ~ William Shakespeare

By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers! but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord. ~ William Shakespeare

The criminals who, in the face of contumely, hatred or violence, have led the world to a higher standard and brought humanity to a diviner order, have so loved truth and righteousness as to defy the law, and in every age these men have met the life of outcasts, and the death of felons. Whatever may be said of the necessity of government to protect itself, no one can believe that any human being merits punishment for following his own highest ideal. Punishment can only be in any wise defended upon the theory that the individual is untrue to himself, that his heart is bad. But all schemes of human punishment seem specially contrived to exempt this class of men. Those who are untrue to themselves find no difficulty in obeying the state, or at least in seeming to be subservient to its laws. The cunning man without strong convictions of right and wrong can always find ample room to operate his trade inside the dead line the law lays down. Even Blackstone wrote that a man who governed his conduct solely by the law was neither an honest man nor a good citizen. The penal code cannot pretend to cover all the vicious acts of men. If there is a distinction between vicious acts and righteous acts, each are so numerous that even to catalogue them would be beyond the power of the state. ~ Clarence Darrow

When I'm not the Tiger Mom, I'm a professor at Yale Law School, and if one thing is clear to me from years of teaching, it's that there are many ways to produce fabulous kids. I have amazing students; some of them have strict parents, others have lenient parents, and many come from family situations that defy easy description. ~ Amy Chua

Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. ~ Anne Frank

If the existence of bullshit jobs seems to defy the logic of capitalism, one possible reason for their proliferation might be that the existing system isn't capitalism...In many ways, it resembles classic medieval feudalism, displaying the same tendency to create endless hierarchies of lords, vassals, and retainers. ~ David Graeber

May those who follow their fate be granted happiness; may those who defy it be granted glory ~ Mizuo Shinonome

Even post true death memories carried on the waves of universal energy will defy the faux perception of finality. ~ Truth Devour

It will happen instantly, by the way, when you see the years on her and reach for her hand anyway, in a kinetic moment that preludes and rationality whatsoever. You will be afraid of how she interprets this, and you will worry, and the two of you will talk through it, and there will be more moments that defy rationality, more moments than you can imagine, moments that build an entire castle upon an entire world that precludes the very act of thinking. ~ Trevor Dodge

We cannot stem linguistic change, but we can drag our feet. If each of us were to defy Alexander Pope and be the last to lay the old aside, it might not be a better world, but it would be a lovelier language. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine

A basic theme for the anarch is how man, left to his own devices, can defy superior forces – whether state, society, or the elements – by making use of their rules without submitting to them.

'It is strange,' Sir William Parry wrote when describing the igloos on Winter Island, 'it is strange to think that all these measure are taken against the cold – and in houses of ice. ~ Ernst Junger

There is nothing like wine for conjuring up feelings of contentment and goodwill. It is less of a drink than an experience, an evocation, a spirit. It produces sensations that defy description. ~ Thomas Conklin

Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. I warn my younger readers only to treat them as a game. The metaphysicians will have the last word and defy you to disprove their absurd propositions. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Those who survive are those who do not defy the gravity of others. And those who desire even a moment of freedom, find themselves hurled into space, doomed to crash with some unknown force. I no longer desire that freedom. I move, just move. Without meaning. ~ Mahesh Dattani

When you play by the rules, defy mental demons, overcome every challenge, and enjoy a walk in the country at the same time - that's being alive. ~ Arnold Palmer

Can't help but see the wariness, the effort, the impatience. I can't help but see two people together out of a sense of genetic duty, doomed already to bewilder and disappoint each other, each honor-bound to defy the other. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I love people that willfully defy what you're supposed to be and create their own definition of their selves. ~ Spike Jonze

I know my maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgement - I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion- I defy it ~ Charlotte Bronte

I don't write political plays in the sense that I'm writing essays that are kind of disguised as plays. I would really defy anyone to watch any of my plays and say 'Well, here's the point.' ~ Tony Kushner

We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." To which Tyndale passionately responded: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost! ~ William Tyndale

Who are you, Hockenberry, to thwart Fate and defy the Will of the Gods?
I am me, Thomas Hockenberry. I am fed up with these power-addled thugs who call themselves gods. ~ Dan Simmons

My argument has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive. ~ Camille Paglia

Laughter is a powerful weapon for it carries the light. To laugh is to defy the darkness. ~ Isobelle Carmody

I am proud that I defy your categories. I am proud that I don't fit easily into any box. I am proud of all the things I am and all the things i can be. Question yourself every time you think you only see one thing in me. ~ David Levithan

About as close you can get to the perfect cerebral thriller: searingly smart, ridiculously funny, and fast as hell ... I defy anybody to read the first page and not keep going to the last. ~ Lev Grossman

The way we can allow ourselves to do what we need to, no matter what others may say or do, is to choose love and defy fear. ~ Martha Beck

The last time I told one of your would-be paramours nay on your behalf, she damn near unmanned me. This time I wish protection when I deliver the news. 'Tis not amusing. You think what you do is dangerous? I defy you to be in my boots for one moment when I face the great Ovarian Horde in your stead. (Kit) ~ Kinley MacGregor

But the conceit of one's self and the conceit of one's hobby are hardly more prolific of eccentricity than the conceit of one's money. Avarice, the most hateful and wolfish of all the hard, cool, callous dispositions of selfishness, has its own peculiar caprices and crotchets. The ingenuities of its meanness defy all the calculations of reason, and reach the miraculous in subtlety. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

May your dreams defy the laws of gravity. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It is dangerous for a woman to defy the gods;
To taunt them with the tongue's thin tip,
Or strut in the weakness of mere humanity,
Or draw a line daring them to cross. ~ Anne Spencer

Obviously, it's a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time. ~ Gerald R. Ford

I don't think I understand that," Meg insisted. "How can you lust yourself into oblivion. "
"Oh, easily," Ekaterina answered. "The lust is for things, possessions. The weapon turns on the nature of possessions, the fact that every possession you own consumes a part of you. Tools, instruments, if they are more than conceits, these things do not defy the rule but they are exceptional enough they don't activate the weapon.
Consequently, the mission of these alleged scientists is to create generalized lust, a frenzied lust for things unconnected to any sense of utility. ~ Robert Stikmanz

It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any otherplace. ~ Herodotus

If they think they can stop me, I defy them to bring the best they have and I shall roast them over a pit of their own arrogant stupidity.
Maxis ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

iridium is one of the three heaviest (densest) elements on the Table - two cubic feet of it weighs as much as a Buick, which makes iridium one of the world's best paperweights, able to defy all known office fans. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only one that really counted. ~ L.M. Montgomery

It's a fact that a dancer's career is not forever. Eventually, if you dance hard and you dance often, your body is going to rebel. I do dance hard and often, but I don't think about that. I know there may come a point where I won't be able to do what I do now. I know a lot of pros who retire in their thirties. I've seen it and wondered, What if…? But I keep it way, way in the back of my mind. Instead, I look for ways to defy age and keep my body strong and limber. I learn as much as I can about nutrition and exercise and I keep moving forward. Life is truly a series of transitions, from one season to another, from one phase to another. ~ Derek Hough

Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dess? I though that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. OKay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on dying. A scar means, I survivied. ~ Chris Cleave

Those whose conscience demands that they defy authority in some ways that involve great consequences must be willing to accept some penalty. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us kinship where all is represented as separation.
(Defy the Space That Separates, The Nation, October 7, 1996) ~ Adrienne Rich

It is the artists of the world, the feelers and the thinkers who will ultimately save us; who can articulate, educate, defy, insist, sing and shout the big dreams. ~ Leonard Bernstein

I defy anyone to think of the name Dean Martin and not smile.
Now, that's amore. ~ Deana Martin

For a Christian to defy adversities is to "despise" chastisement. Instead of hardening himself to endure stoically, there should be a melting of the heart. ~ Arthur W. Pink

We're becoming slaves; the war scatters us in all directions, takes away everything we own, snatches the bread from out of our mouths; let me at least retain the right to decide my own destiny, to laugh at it, defy it, escape it if I can. A slave? Better to be a slave than a dog who thinks he's free as he trots along behind his master. She listened to the sound of men and horses passing by. They don't even realise they're slaves, she said to herself, and I, I would be just like them if a sense of pity, solidarity, the "spirit of the hive" forced me to refuse to be happy. ~ Irene Nemirovsky

May the States be so bound to each other as forever to defy European politics. Upon that union, their consequence, their happiness, will depend. This is the first wish of a heart more truly American than words can express. ~ Marquis De Lafayette

Your optimism continues to defy reality ~ Aimee Carter

The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner? ~ Alexander Berkman

To exist is to defy all that threatens you. To be a rebel is not to accumulate a library of subversive books or to dream of fantastic conspiracies or of taking to the hills. It is to make yourself your own law. To find in yourself what counts. To make sure that you're never "cured" of your youth. To prefer to put everyone up against the wall rather than to remain supine. To pillage whatever can be converted to your law, without concern for appearance. ~ Dominique Venner

Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.' ~ Salman Rushdie

I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them ... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I will never let you go, and I will never leave you. I would defy creatures, and Gods, and terrible, brutal queens to keep you safe and by my side. I would move Mount Olympus itself to hold you in my arms and feel your heart beat against mine. You are my soul, and yes, I will fight for you and protect you until my dying breath. ~ Amanda Bouchet

Is there any reason why you should not have faith in God? Has God ever broken one of His promises? I defy any infidel or unbeliever to place a finger on a single promise of God ever made and failed to fulfill. ~ Dwight L. Moody

Disobey. Defy. Take your own time. Fly. ~ Anne Clark

Chronic stress in infancy and early childhood has been identified as a major contributor to adult health problems. In 2009, Jack Shonkoff and colleagues published a major review in the Journal of the American Medical Association that stated that "adult disease prevention begins with reducing early toxic stress." Considering the state of American's health, this is something we should take quite seriously. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine (2013) noted the following:

"For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other high-income countries. This disadvantage has been getting worse for three decades, especially among women. Not only are their lives shorter, but Americans also have a longstanding pattern of poorer health that is strikingly consistent and pervasive over the life course."

One way we can improve the health of the next generation is to challenge the hegemony of the cry-it-out advocates. We need to stand by the others we serve as they make the decision to defy cultural norms and respond to their babies. The health of the next generation depends on it. ~ Kathleen Kendall-Tackett

But I would defy anyone to go back over the years and tell me anyone whose career I've ruined, anyone whom I've driven out of the service, anyone I've fired from a job. ~ Norman Schwarzkopf

How dare you give the poor woman trouble over those nasty biscuits! If you made biscuits worth eating, sir, perhaps she wouldn't throw them to the fish!"
He blinked his eyes in astonishment. "Biscuits worth eating? I'll have you know, madam, that I bake the best biscuit on the high seas!"
"That's not saying much, considering that ship's biscuits are notoriously awful!"
"It's alright, Louisa, you needn't defend me - " Sara began.
Louisa just ignored her. "Those biscuits were so hard, I could scarcely choke them down. As for that stew - "
"Look here, you disrespectful harpy," the cook said, punctuating his words with loud taps of his cane. "There ain't nothin' wrong with Silas Drummond's stew, and I defy any man - or woman - to make a better one! ~ Sabrina Jeffries

I sold my soul for a few years with my mother, and now, after everything, I don't even know if it'll be worth it.

- Warner ~ Tahereh Mafi

I defy anyone who retains the least spark of honour to spit on the real, essential love of one human being for another. ~ Alfred Bruce Douglas

Blanche stared at Emmeline's door for a few moments, bristling with the desire to knock and trying to conquer her natural inclination to defy the voice of authority. It was one of the reasons she had not lasted in the waitressing, telephone sales, clerking, and typing jobs she'd tried over the years. ~ Barbara Neely

Successful businesspeople retain a quality most others not only lack but often fail to comprehend, and that's the unrelenting drive to convert a vision into reality. They are driven to realize this goal in a manner that appears to defy logic among others who lack this drive. ~ Robert Herjavec

I parked in front of the Field Museum under a NO PARKING sign. There were a couple of actual spots I could have used, but the drive was even closer. Besides, I found it aesthetically satisfying to defy municipal code. ~ Jim Butcher

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. ~ Frederick Douglass

Let your heart defy your logic. ~ Gaby

Everything I have done or attempted to do for Scotland has always been for her benefit, never my own and I defy anyone to prove otherwise. ~ Sean Connery

Magic speaks to the child in all of us. No matter how sophisticated we become, there's still a part of us who wants to believe in an alternative reality, where we can defy the laws of nature. ~ Criss Angel

Our combined IQs wouldn't even be humanly possible," she cuts him off. "Exactly. We defy the impossible," he says with a smartass grin. ~ Krista Ritchie

One thing you need to realize about this lifestyle - the sensual lifestyle, that is - is that it defies all mediocrity. In fact, it was meant to be a container for you to live your most unlimited life; you actually become who you came here to be. ~ Lebo Grand

They're all about forty, I'd guess, but they could pass for thirty in that way that handsome gay men can seemingly defy the basic rules of nature. ~ Matthew Norman

It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it. ~ Amelia Barr

I defy my honored opponents to give me the name of a single man imprisoned in the United States, Great Britain, or West Germany for being an atheist. But in former communist countries, millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in faith have passed through jails or been killed. Who has fought for freedom and obtained it - atheists or Christians? ~ Richard Wurmbrand

Marry me,' he whispers.
I stare at him, disbelief and joy colliding. And it's the look in his eyes - the hopeful, terrified look in his eyes - that nearly kills me. I'm suddenly crying.
I clasp my hands over my face. A sob escapes my mouth. Gently, he pries my hands away from my face.
'Ella?' he says, his words barely a whisper.
I'm still crying when I throw my arms around his neck, still crying when he says, a little nervously -
'Sweetheart, I really need to know if this means yes or no - '
'Yes,' I cry, slightly hysterical. 'Yes, yes to everything with you. Yes to forever with you. Yes. ~ Tahereh Mafi

But the secret of intellectual excellence is the spirit of criticism ; it is intellectual independence. And this leads to difficulties which must prove insurmountable for any kind of authoritarianism. The authoritarian will in general select those who obey, who believe, who respond to his influence. But in doing so, he is bound to select mediocrities. For he excludes those who revolt, who doubt, who dare to resist his influence. Never can an authority admit that the intellectually courageous, i.e. those who dare to defy his authority, may be the most valuable type. Of course, the authorities will always remain convinced of their ability to detect initiative. But what they mean by this is only a quick grasp of their intentions, and they will remain for ever incapable of seeing the difference. ~ Karl Popper

Love is a bastard born of rape,raised in bondage and let loose on a naive society to destroy convention and defy the commandments,to be cited in court as the reason why we have to have rules and sanctions. It has a certain beauty,a tangible desirability tainted with the knowledge, like that of a teenage whore, it will ruin your reputation and steal your wallet and when all is lost,the memory of love is all youre left with ~ Chris Haslam

It continues to defy explanation why liberals who theoretically love liberty, equality, tolerance and moderation, should find so much to despise in their own country, which represents the fullest expression of those virtues anywhere on the globe. ~ Mona Charen

To defy the God of Progress is often to marry the Goddess of Poverty. ~ David James Duncan

The aggregate appearance is of dignity and dissoluteness. The aggregate voice is a defiant prayer. But the spirit of the whole is processional. The power, that has said to all these things that they are damned, is dogmatic science. But they'll march! The little harlots will caper and the freaks will distract the attention and the clowns will break the rhythm of the whole with their buffooneries. But the solidity of the procession as a whole, the solidity of things which pass and pass and pass, and keep on and keep on coming, the irresistibleness of things that neither threaten, nor jeer, nor defy, but arrange themselves in mass formations that pass and pass and keep on passing. So, by the damned, I mean the excluded. ~ Charles Fort

There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusative. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one's own soul, that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage alone a foul, tortured path – made foul and tortured by our own indifference – is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come.

I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us – each of us, my friends – to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness, the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing – all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve. ~ Steven Erikson

Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her. ~ Samuel Adams

When you make a mistake with metal, you can melt things down and start afresh. It is irritating, and it costs in time and soot and sweat, but it can be done. There is a comfort in iron, knowing that a fresh start is always possible.

But a city is not a sword. It is a living thing, and living things defy simple fixing. Roots cannot be reforged. They scar, and broken branches must be cut and sealed with tar, and this makes me angry, as it always has, and my anger has no place to go.

It was easier when I was young. I could use my anger like a hammer against the world. I was so sure of myself and my friends and my rightness. I would hammer at the world, and breaking felt like making to me, and I was good at it. And while I was not wrong, neither was I entirely right.

Nothing is simple. I do not work in wood. I am not brave enough for that. There is a comfort in iron, a promise of safety, a second chance if mistakes are made. But a city is more a forest than a sword. No, it needs more tending than that. Perhaps a city is like a garden, then.

So these days, it seems I have become a gardener. I dig foundations in the earth. I sow rows of houses. I plan and plant. I watch the skies for rain and ruin. I cannot help but think that you would be better at this, but circumstance has put both of us in our own odd place. You are forced to be a hammer in the world, and my ungentle hands are learning how to tend a plot of land.

We must d ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Dominance. Control. These things the unjust seek most of all. And so it is the duty of the just to defy dominance and to challenge control. ~ Robert Fanney

My belief is that, morally, God and Satan are vaguely on the same page. According to the common understanding of Satan's origins, 'holiness' is, metaphorically, frozen stiff in his veins: and at that a corrupted formula - i.e. legalism. The vital difference is that God is willing to offer grace for our sins; he delights in grace. God is the one and only holy and just punisher of sin, yes, but that is partly so because punishment for the sake of punishment is not something he loves. Whereas Satan, as the accuser, and as it is written, actually seeks God's permission to punish; he, being a seasoned legalist, delights in finding wrongs and will defy his own morality just to expose immorality. This is why both the anti-religious soul and the violently religious soul are, whether consciously or unconsciously, and sadly enough, glorifying their biggest hater: Satan is not only a lawless lover of punishing lawlessness, but also the sharpest theologian of us all. He loves wickedness, but only because he loves punishing wickedness. ~ Criss Jami

And yet the king and his people did not love McAllister. In truth, they hated him horribly, and, to my knowledge, the whole population, with the priests at the head, tried vainly for three months to pray him to death. The devil-devils they sent after him were awe-inspiring, but since McAllister did not believe in devil-devils, they were without power over him. With drunken Scotchmen all signs fail. They gathered up scraps of food which had touched his lips, an empty whiskey bottle, a cocoanut from which he had drunk, and even his spittle, and performed all kinds of deviltries over them. But McAllister lived on. His health was superb. He never caught fever; nor coughs nor colds; dysentery passed him by; and the malignant ulcers and vile skin diseases that attack blacks and whites alike in that climate never fastened upon him. He must have been so saturated with alcohol as to defy the lodgment of germs. I used to imagine them falling to the ground in showers of microscopic cinders as fast as they entered his whiskey-sodden aura. No one loved him, not even germs, while he loved only whiskey, and still he lived. ~ Jack London

I don't think you should treat me like this, like I'm some idiot nothing, just because I don't know how to be a douchebag.
- Kenji ~ Tahereh Mafi

Worshiping God even amid despair is a way to defy the Adversary and declare our valuing of the good-the best-in life: the Lord! ~ Jack W. Hayford