#defiance

What is it like to be so free - so trapped, but so free? What kind of bird sings only when caught? What kind of slave outshines and rises above her master? ↗

— Courtney M. Privett

#freedom #slavery #freedom

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#defiance #fearlessness #free-thinker #freedom #freedom-of-thought

I’d put a banana on my tray, too. That, at least, didn’t remind me of anything trying to kill me. Could you kill someone with a banana? It didn’t seem possible. Maybe a possessed banana. I’d seen possessed pets before, but not possessed fruit. But I’ll bet it’s out there somewhere. ↗

— Lili St. Crow

#humor #strange-angels #humor

I don't see why I should bow my head when I could hold it high, or place it in the hands of my enemies when I can defeat them. ↗

— José Rizal

#humor #humor

The human creature, humiliated and offended in ways that are inconceivable to the mind and heart, defies the blind and deaf divinity. ↗

— Françoise Mauriac

#divinity #god #human-nature #pain #nature

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. ↗

— Abraham Joshua Heschel

#defiance #despair #done #god #greatest

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#defiance #empowerment #independence #individuality #self-assurance

Be yourself, don't take anything from anyone, and never let them take you alive. ↗

— Gerard Way

#defiance #self-assuredness #self

Its better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. ↗

— Emiliano Zapata

#revolution #revolution

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

#control #defiance #dominance #rebellion #rebellion