Defends Quotes & Sayings

He dumped me again!' She narrows her eyes on Tom accusingly. I drop my bag by my desk and watch as Victoria fires all sorts of accusations at a very guilty looking Tom. 'Don't ask me to come out with you ever again,' she spits, pointing her pen at him. 'Friday, you cleared off with the scientist, and last night you didn't even have the decency to go home with the same man!'

'Tom!' I gasp sarcastically. 'I thought the scientist was your soul mate?'

'He still might be,' Tom defends himself in a high pitched voice. 'I'm just sampling what's on offer before I decide on what to invest in. — Jodi Ellen Malpas

Your brand is your personal lawyer ... It defends and speaks for you even in your absence. Keep calm and maintain a good brand! — Israelmore Ayivor

Then he said, Let me tell you a story from our tradition, a story about King Solomon. King Solomon gave a teaching once about the snake and the bee. The snake, King Solomon said, defends itself by killing. But the bee defends itself by dying. You know how a bee dies after a sting? Like that. It dies to defend. So, each creature has a method that is suitable to its strength. — Teju Cole

Cleverly assorted scraps of spurious science are inculcated upon the children to prove necessity of law; obedience to the law is made a religion; moral goodness and the law of the masters are fused into one and the same divinity. The historical hero of the schoolroom is the man who obeys the law, and defends it against rebels. — Peter Kropotkin

Ecuador is a country which defends the right to life. — Rafael Correa

In 2012, the Liberal Party affirmed overwhelmingly at the policy convention that we are a pro-choice party. It means that we are a party that defends women's rights, and therefore, it would be inconsistent for any Liberal MP to be able to vote to take away women's rights. — Justin Trudeau

There is a determined though unseen bravery that defends itself foot by foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessity and dishonesty. Noble and mysterious triumphs that no eye sees, and no fame rewards, and no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes. — Victor Hugo

I didn't have a knee-jerk reaction like some people did to the language and the violence. My stepfather was a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas. So, I was already familiar with the N-word and the brutality of slavery. What I was drawn to was the love story between Django and Broomhilda and how he defends and gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just an amazing and courageous project. — Jamie Foxx

You must be fearless. It is the coward who fears and defends himself — Swami Vivekananda

Ignorance defends itself savagely, and illiteracy, as I well knew, can be shrewd. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The true democrat is he who with purely nonviolent means defends his liberty and, therefore, his country's and ultimately that of the whole of mankind. — Mahatma Gandhi

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status — Laurence J. Peter

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read. — Winston Churchill

The essential mark of the agitator is the high value he places on the emotional response of the public. Whether he attacks or defends social institutions is a secondary matter. — Harold Lasswell

True evil - conscious, calculating evil - does not seek to destroy life, but rather encourage it. True evil - malicious in every action - cheers life on. True evil - defiled in every pursuit - is not, as Max Andrews proposes, maximally selfish, rather full of restraint and accommodating in every way to the needs of men, mice, mushrooms, and microbes. True evil - debased in every motion - promotes, defends, and even admires life in its struggle to persist and self-adorn. True evil - known only to itself - urges life to grow more complex, more bold, more adventurous and more expressive, for only then is it at its most vulnerable, and when it is at its most vulnerable it is pregnant with possibility. Nothing, after all, can be truly lost or truly broken before it is first acquired, held to the bosom, adored, and cherished. — John Zande

The wall defends itself. — George R R Martin

A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals. — Pope Francis

Man only honors what he conquers or defends. — Joseph Goebbels

Gentleness brings victory to him who attacks, and safety to him who defends. Those whom Heaven would save, it fences round with gentleness. — Laozi

Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? — Anonymous

You must not let yourself be misled, in your solitude, by the fact that there is something in you which wants to escape from it. This very wish will, if you use it quietly and preeminently and like a tool, help to spread your solitude over wide country. People have (with the help of convention) found the solution of everything in ease and the easiest side of easy; but it is clear that we must hold to the difficult; everything living holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself according to its own character and is an individual in its own right, strives to be so at any cost and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to the difficult is a certainty that will not leave us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; the fact that a thing is difficult must be one more reason for our doing it. — Rainer Maria Rilke

When the veil of fiction was rent, man shuddered before "Nature, red in tooth and claw." Nature had always been that and always will be, and the hands of man, even when he fashions and defends the noblest civilization, must forever be bloody hands, for this is a world in which only the strong and resolute nations survive, while the weak, especially the morally weak, who babble about brotherhood and peace, are biologically degenerate and doomed to extinction. — Revilo P. Oliver

Fear not death, nor Satan's thrusts, God defends whom in Him trusts; — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And a noble life is one ordered by, and oriented to, a transcendent moral code, not just one's own concept of existence and meaning and truth ... if we want a society that reveres life, that defends the family, and that discourages delinquency and promotes decency, we cannot force a privatization of religion; we must allow the truth-claims of religious faith to be uttered aloud in the public square. — Rick Santorum

Vila the White,
Built a City up height,
Not in the Heavens, not on the ground,
But on the edge of a Cloud,
Vila the White,
Put defenses the bright:
Gold defends the heights, Sun defends the gate,
Moon defends the City when it's late,
Vila the White,
Stood with Sun at sight,
Watching what comes from the bay,
And saw Lightning and Thunder play,
Vila the White,
Wed her son on Moon at night,
And gave her daughter to Gold, as bride,
They have couple brothers, she's their brother's wife. — Stanislaw Sielicki

Your reason is your friend. It defends the island of your awareness. But you don't want your reason to rule everything. — Frederick Lenz

A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom. — Anonymous

The pessimism that protests and defends itself cannot be truly said to be pessimism. — Miguel De Unamuno

We naturally like what we have been accustomed to, and are attracted towards it. [ ... ] The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views. — Maimonides

Passionate expression and vehement assertion are no arguments, unless it be of the weakness of the cause that is defended by them, or of the man that defends it. — William Chillingworth

Thus ressentiment becomes the constituent principle of want of character, which from utter wretchedness tries to sneak itself a position, all the time safeguarding itself by conceding that it is less than nothing. The ressentiment which results from want of character can never understand that eminent distinction really is distinction. Neither does it understand itself by recognizing distinction negatively (as in the case of ostracism) but wants to drag it down, wants to belittle it so that it really ceases to be distinguished. And ressentiment not only defends itself against all existing forms of distinction but against that which is still to come.
The ressentiment which is establishing itself is the process of levelling. — Soren Kierkegaard

Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man. — Herbert Spencer

Thought is a disease of the brain. The mind defends itself against the degenerative process of creativity; it begins to jell; notions solidify into inalterable systems. — Thomas M. Disch

The American servicemen and women of the Guard and Reserve leave their jobs, their spouses and their children to wear the uniform that defends our country. This selfless commitment should be honored by businesses across Massachusetts as we work to ensure they are treated fairly while they balance their employment responsibilities and obligations to the armed services. No business should ever put the bottom line ahead of America's front line. — Mitt Romney

Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends. — Robert South

Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus, somewhat as every wild child. It is, perhaps, a prince in disguise. What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate; and only the most persistent and strongest genius defends itself and prevails, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth. Poets and philosophers and statesmen thus spring up in the country pastures, and outlast the hosts of unoriginal men. — Henry David Thoreau

In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem. — Ben Horowitz

If one defends the bourgeois, philistine virtues, one does not defend them merely from the demonism or bohemianism of the artist but from the present bourgeoisie itself. — Lionel Trilling

This is the picture of a woman cast in the role of a learner, a pupil, even a rabbinic student. Quite obviously this is a prohibited role for women in those days and in that culture. Yet Jesus affirms Mary in that role. Martha, however, rebukes her. Martha demands that Jesus order Mary to abandon the pupil role for the more acceptable domestic role of assisting with the dinner preparations. Jesus supports Mary and defends her consciousness-raising act by stating that she has elected a higher choice. — John Shelby Spong

Dickens defends what he has written in terms of its truth. This is not the last time that the 'true' and the 'real' were to be opposed unfruitfully. The same terminological mismatch was to feature throughout the rest of the century in debate about the nature of literary realism and the moral function of realist art. — Charles Dickens

He examined everything freely, I hesitated in front of many things. He destroyed but did not build, saying what was not, but not what was. And denial is convincing; it sets neither boundaries nor goals for itself. It strives toward nothing; it defends nothing. It is harder to defend something than to attack it, because everything that is made reality constantly wears down, constantly deviates from the initial idea. — Mesa Selimovic

It is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. — Rainer Maria Rilke

While I regard the Nakba as an ongoing crime that needs to be prosecuted and reversed ... Shavit defends its necessity and lectures Palestinians trapped in squalid refugee camps to just get over it. — Max Blumenthal

A true friend, freely advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably." - William Penn — Shaun Gold

So let me get this straight." ... "He threw the note at Tommy and then told him to fuck off? Or do I have it backwards?"
"I'm detecting some sarcasm."
"And then got himself sent the principal's office because he was ready to defend your honor?"
"Quinn."
"Her friend waved a hand. "No, I think you might be on to something. This is clearly an elaborate plot to screw with you. He asks you out, he defends you from that meathead - what next?" Quinn's eyes flashed wide in mock surprise. "Crap, Bex, do you think he will do something truly horrible like buy you flowers? — Brigid Kemmerer

No science ever defends its first principles. — Aristotle.

... People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet — Alice Walker

When a new writer defends his "style," the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn't an artifice. Real style - voice - arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer's character. When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation - an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example. — Bill Roorbach

Everyone defends his treasure, and will do so automatically.The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these questions and to bring them into all your actions, you will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. The means are available whenever you ask. You can, however, save time if you do not protract this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably. — Helen Schucman

ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting. — Ambrose Bierce

Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Whether the woman shares the man's passion or not, whether she is willing or unwilling to satisfy it, she always repulses him and defends herself, though not always with the same vigour, and therefore not always with the same success. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That idea would be embarrassing because there is something excessive about it, it would take to much energy to defend (while the best possible progressive idea, so to speak, defends itself)... — Milan Kundera

Whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all. — Ayn Rand

What an ornament and safeguard is humor! Far better than wit for a poet and writer. It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities. — Walter Scott

Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality. — William Sloane Coffin

In libertarianism the aim isn't judging better from best, it's making sure that there is freedom for the perpetual revolution of ideas. It too opposes custom, tradition, the authority of winnowed wisdom, and our moral heritage that is our inheritance and defends only that which serves its purpose; utility and efficiency are its trumps and those cannot be conserved but rather only aimed at. Libertarianism is thereby tolerant of all behavior that seems not to damage others because its strongest belief is that no truth but freedom itself has been settled. — Darrin Moore

A true teacher defends his students against his own personal influences. — Amos Bronson Alcott

Republicans constantly claim to be the party that defends the Constitution. We have no legitimate right to that claim until we get right on gay rights. — Mark McKinnon

Any state that justifies and defends the use of torture claims for itself special rights over any other consideration. — Stephen Alford

We breathe, Lily defends our relationship. My brows rise. Let's not kid ourselves. We struggle with our codependency on a daily basis. — Krista Ritchie

The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are Tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves. — James Madison

Somatize: how the body defends itself against too much stress, manifesting psychological distress as physical symptoms in the stomach or nerves or uterus or vagina ... women who had suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse tended to somatize more. It turns out that somatization is related to hysteria, which stems from the Greek cognate of uterus ... Uterus = hysteria. Hysteria
a word to make women feel insane for knowing what they know. Hysteria is caused by suffering from a huge traume where there is an underlying conflict. — Eve Ensler

For example, computer defends well, but for humans its is harder to defend than attack, particularly with the modern time control. — Boris Spassky

I sense in you a true heart. A faithful heart. And by your wounds and scars, I can tell that you are fearless. So I shall call you Caleb, the faithful, fearless warrior who defends what he believes with everything he has. That is what I see when I look upon you. Not a demon. An ever-courageous, noble warrior. One day, I suspect, you shall look into a mirror and see the same noble man I do. Lilliana — Sherrilyn Kenyon

True liberty acknowledges and defends the equal rights of all men, and all nations. — Gerrit Smith

How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the North-East of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old. — Richard Dawkins

Clothed in the majesty of the law one may get away with murder, but lacking the law's prestige one defends himself at the risk of life and liberty. — J. Sidna Allen

To defend something is always to discredit it. Let a man have a warehouse full of gold, let him be willing to give away a ducat to every one of the poor - but let him also be stupid enough to begin this charitable undertaking of his with a defence in which he offers three good reasons in justification; and it will almost come to the point of people finding it doubtful whether indeed he is doing something good. But now for Christianity. Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor. — Soren Kierkegaard

'Mediocre' tends to mean 'undistinguished', while snobs enjoy their distinguishing hallmarks of style - how they wear clothes, use words, where they go and gather and gossip ... Whatever the circumstances the genius has put you into, the fact of individuality defends the soul against all class-action claims. No soul is mediocre, whatever your personal taste for conventionality, whatever your personal record of middling achievements. — James Hillman

Our Party's Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People's Army. — Kim Jong Il

A neurosis defends itself by coming up with rationalizations to explain away bizarre behavior. — David Brin

The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

Suspicion is one of the morbid reactions by which an organism defends itself and seeks another equilibrium. — Nathalie Sarraute

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks. — Salman Rushdie

A man with a rifle or a club can only be stopped by a person who defends himself with a rifle or a club. That's equality. If the United States government doesn't want you and me to have rifles, then take the rifles away from those racists.
If they don't want you and me to use clubs, take the clubs away from the racists. If they don't want you and me to get violent, then stop the racists from being violent. Don't teach us non-violence!!! — Malcolm X

We may see how miraculously God defends our people, and makes us hope that, in spite of the malice of our enemies, He will bring our cause to a good and happy end, to the advancement of His glory and the deliverance of so many Christians from unjust oppression. — William The Silent

I am where God wills me to be, and so I have found rest and security. His wisdom governs me, His power defends me, His grace sanctifies me, His mercy encompasses me, His joy sustains me and all will go well with me. — Rose Philippine Duchesne

This doctrine (justification) is the head and the cornerstone. It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour. — Martin Luther

Every time I step onto the field, whether people like it or not, I'm not trying to play dirty - I'm just playing tough. And I'm trying to earn my spot on the team. I'm trying to earn a starting spot. I'm trying to become a complete midfielder who attacks, who defends. So that's the mindset. — Carli Lloyd

I cannot remember much, I cannot feel much. Maybe erasure is necessary. Maybe the human spirit defends itself as the body does, attacking infection, enveloping and destroying those malignancies that would otherwise consume us. — Tim O'Brien

He who defends with love will be secure; Heaven will save him, and protect him with love. — Lao-Tzu

He who defends everything, defends nothing. — Frederick The Great

The Sacrament of the Body of the Lord puts the demons to flight, defends us against the incentives to vice and to concupiscence, cleanses the soul from sin, quiets the anger of God, enlightens the understanding to know God, inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, confirms the entire man in good, frees us from eternal death, multiplies the merits of a good life, leads us to our everlasting home, and re-animates the body to eternal life — Thomas Aquinas

Following Christ, the Church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority opinion. She listens to conscience and not to power, and in this way she defends the poor and the downtrodden. — Pope John Paul II

I've never seen her defend herself the way she defends other people. It's like she thinks she doesn't deserve it, or maybe she thinks she doesn't need it. — Cheryl Rainfield

Thought reflexes get conditioned very strongly, and they are very hard to change. And the also interfere. A reflex may connect to the endorphins and produce an impulse to hold that whole pattern forther. In other words, it produces a defensive reflex. Not merely is it stuck because it's chemically so well built up, but also there is a defensive reflex which defends against evidence which might weaken it. Thus it all happens, one reflex after another after another. It's just a vast system of reflexes. And they form a 'structure' as they get more rigid. — David Bohm

One defends when his strength is inadequate, he attacks when it is abundant. — Sun Tzu

Muslim women, and critics, male and female, of Western models of sex and sexuality, are silenced. The price of speech for a Muslim woman in the West is the disavowal of Islam. Books condemning Islam are picked by publishers and featured on talk shows. Their authors are commended for their courage. Speech in defense of Islam is read as the speech of subjection. Islam oppresses women. Any woman speaking in its favor must be deluded or forced to speak against her will. If she defends the hijab or speaks in defense of polygamy, she cannot be believed. No woman in her right mind could defend these. Any woman who does must be deluded or coerced. The more Muslim women object to Western efforts to "help" them, the more need there is to liberate them. — Anne Norton

The GEnder Defender is someone who actively, or by knowing inaction, defends the status quo of the existing gender system, and thus perpetuates the violence of male privilege and all its social extensions. The gender defender, or gender terrorist, is someone for whom gender forms a cornerstone of their view of the world. Shake gender up for one of these folks, and you're in trouble. — Kate Bornstein

No matter what cause one defends, it will suffer permanent disgrace if one resorts to blind attacks on crowds of innocent people. — Albert Camus

The scientist rigorously defends his right to be ignorant of almost everything except his specialty. — Marshall McLuhan

God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we. — Timothy Keller

All official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Or they laughed at Indiana, because the people there proudly call themselves Hoosiers even though they have no idea what Hoosier means. Some historians believe it comes from the Shawnee expression "ho'o-sa'ars," or "people who cannot explain their nickname." - from Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland — Dave Barry

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve ... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay - No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic. — Frederic Bastiat

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. — Ann Dillard

The establishment defends itself by complicating everything to the point of incomprehensibility. — Fred Hoyle

Love is magic in our veins. Love the hand of the punisher stays. Love heals what justice flays. Love defends and mercy reigns. — Evangeline Denmark

Some souls think that the Holy Spirit is very far away, far, far, up above. Actually he is, we might say, the divine Person who is most closely present to the creature. He accompanies him everywhere. He penetrates him with himself. He calls him, he protects him. He makes of him his living temple. He defends him. He helps him. He guards him from all his enemies. He is closer to him than his own soul. All the good a soul accomplishes, it carries out under his inspiration, in his light, by his grace and his help. — Concepcion Cabrera De Armida