Defying Quotes - Page 2

• It can only truly be Texas red if it walks the thin line just this side of indigestibility: Damning the mouth that eats it and defying the stomach to digest it, the ingredients are hardly willing to lie in the same pot together.

  John Thorne

  Lying, Texas, Together

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• The history of science is the saga of nature defying common sense.

  Kedar Joshi

  Nature, Science, Common Sense

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• Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family. What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation. I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada.

  Nicolas Sarkozy

  People, Canada, France

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• The president is under 50 percent approval ratings in all the battleground states. So, you could say that President Obama is defying gravity by still being in a dead heat with Mitt Romney. And one of the reasons that he is, is because the changing face of the electorate are giving him a small boost.

  Mara Liasson

  Approval Rating, Giving, President

  "Jobs Back At Political Forefront". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with David Greene, www.npr.org. July 8, 2012.

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• It is indeed my opinion now that evil is never “radical,” that it is only extreme, and that it possess neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like fungus on the surface. It is “thought-defying,” as I said, because thought tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing. That is its “banality.” Only the good has depth and can be radical.

  Hannah Arendt

  Roots, Evil, Frustrated

  Hannah Arendt (2000). “The Portable Hannah Arendt”, Penguin Group USA

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• Surprise comes from defying expectations.

  Seth Godin

  Expectations, Surprise

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• I don't know whom or what he was defying. [...] [M]aybe the God he had never believed in.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Knows

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• The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air. It spins higher and higher, defying gravity and logic, stretching for something just out of reach. It shall have to fall, of course. Eventually. But for now, I hold my breath, willing it to keep going, taking comfort in its struggle.

  Libba Bray

  Struggle, Fall, Blow

  Libba Bray (2010). “Rebel Angels”, p.376, Simon and Schuster

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• Capote, of course, addressed very similar themes to Good Night and Good Luck. Both films are about determined journalists defying obstacles in a relentless pursuit of the truth. Needless to say, both are period pieces.

  Jon Stewart

  Good Night, Good Luck, Pieces

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• The rest of the story from Acts 1:8 explains that Christ-followers have a mission while here on earth. They are to be Christ’s witnesses all over this planet. It’s as if Christ said, “Think you’re missing the book smarts, the street smarts, the looks, the talent, or the speaking ability to accomplish this mission? Don’t be concerned with those things, because you have my mountain-moving, life-transforming, death-defying power on your side.”

  Bill Hybels

  Smart, Moving, Book

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• Sin cannot dethrone God. That is what sin aims to do, but it misses its mark. Sin brings guilt to a man, but it does not bring him one ounce of sovereignty. God rules even when men imagine they are defying Him.

  Tom Wells

  Men, Missing, Guilt

  Tom Wells (1985). “A vision for missions”, Banner of Truth

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• There are men whose language is strong and defying enough, yet their eyes and their actions ask leave of other men to live.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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• In Jewish tradition, death-defying devotion to scholarship was the stuff of saintliness.

  Israel Shenker

  Jewish Tradition, Stuff, Devotion

  Israel Shenker (1985). “Coat of Many Colors: Pages from Jewish Life”, Doubleday Books

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• The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method-more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records-of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason.

  Nicholas Murray Butler

  Philosophy, Tools, Records

  NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER (1898). “THE MEANING OF EDUCATION AND OTHERS ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES”

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• Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspiration, Reading, Home

  "Hitch-22". Book by Christopher Hitchens, www.theguardian.com. 2010.

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• I read the books and I really, really wanted to play the part. I started kundalini yoga, kickboxing and running, and completely changed my diet. I felt I wanted to undergo what was necessary for the part. I love a challenge. And I love defying limitation, gender stereotypes and people’s expectations of me as an actress.

  Gwendoline Christie

  Running, Yoga, Book

  "Game of Thrones' Gwendoline Christie shreds Brienne of Tarth for super-seductive photo shoot" by Claire Rutter, www.mirror.co.uk. November 13, 2014.

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• Before men ever wrote in clay they cast their words in verse and line, rythymbound in poets' minds, defying time and age.

  Dave Beard

  Men, Poetry, Mind

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• Wild rivers are earth's renegades, defying gravity, dancing to their own tunes, resisting the authority of humans, always chipping away, and eventually always winning.

  Richard Bangs

  Winning, Rivers, Dancing

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• Like psychoanalysis, constitutional jurisprudence has become a game without rules. By defying the plain meaning of words, ignoring context and history, and using a little ingenuity, you can make the Constitution mean anything you like.

  Joseph Sobran

  Mean, Games, Jurisprudence

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• If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me... but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?

  Suzanne Collins

  Giving, Rebel, Way

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• All the unhallowed beauty I have found; All free - discordant shrills and form-defying wonders above ground, like writhen trees with draggled foliage struggling along the courses of wayback creeks; scarlet - and - green sky - streaking parrot - fires with parrot shrieks echo - shattering the shoulders of the hills; and desert - sunset - rage Rage for my mind, be clamant, do not cease you are my holiest habitat of peace.

  Rex Ingamells

  Beauty, Struggle, Sunset

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• Yes, everyone in the districts will be watching me to see how I handle this death sentence, this final act of President Snow’s dominance. They will be looking for some sign that their battles have not been in vain. If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me…but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?

  Suzanne Collins

  President Snow, Giving, Battle

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• If you look at US internal documents, they explain very clearly what the threat of Cuba was. So, back in the early 1960s the State Department described the threat of Cuba as Castro's successful defiance of US policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine established the US claim to dominate the Western hemisphere and Castro was successfully defying that. That's not tolerable. It is like somebody saying "let's have democracy in Greece," and we just can't tolerate that so we have to destroy the threat at its roots.

  Noam Chomsky

  Successful, Roots, Democracy

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

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• How I grew to believe Black hair has power, genius, and magic in it, defying gravity and limitation. I mean, look at how marvelous it is: Black hair grows up and out.

  Michaela Angela Davis

  Growing Up, Believe, Mean

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• Family was even a bigger word than I imagined, wide and without limitations, if you allowed it, defying easy definition. You had family that was supposed to be family and wasn't, family that wasn't family but was, halves becoming whole, wholes splitting into two; it was possible to lack whole, honest love and connection from family in lead roles, yet to be filled to abundance by the unexpected supporting players.

  Deb Caletti

  Player, Two, Becoming

  Deb Caletti (2010). “The Secret Life of Prince Charming”, p.303, Simon and Schuster

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