Definition of Defiance

Defiance

The act of defying, putting in opposition, or provoking to combat; a challenge; a provocation; a summons to combat.

A state of opposition; willingness to flight; disposition to resist; contempt of opposition.

A casting aside; renunciation; rejection.

Related Definitions:

Act, Aside, Casting, Challenge, Combat, Contempt, Defying, Disposition, Flight, In, Of, Opposition, Or, Provocation, Provoking, Putting, Rejection, Renunciation, Resist, State, Summons, The, To, Willingness

Defiance Quotations

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.
Walt Whitman

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The defiance of established authority, religious and secular, social and political, as a world-wide phenomenon may well one day be accounted the outstanding event of the last decade.
Hannah Arendt

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.
Norman Mailer

It has been, after all, 11 years, more than a decade now, of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War, so that he would not be a threat to peace and security, he has ignored and flaunted.
Condoleezza Rice

Well, there's been plenty of ultimatums, and one thing that we better be very clear is that we can't continue to have the kind of defiance of the United Nations, the defiance of the international community that we've had.
Condoleezza Rice

I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say: September 11th we are all Americans - in grief, as in defiance.
Benjamin Netanyahu

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

The bold defiance of a woman is the certain sign of her shame, - when she has once ceased to blush, it is because she has too much to blush for.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve.
Dick Cheney

We know that if gold, if fraud, if force can defeat us, they will all be used. And we have resolved that they shall not defeat us. We shall arm. We shall meet fraud and falsehood with defiance, and force with force, if need be.
Denis Kearney

Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country.
Kendrick Meek

Serious art has been the work of individual artists whose art has had nothing to do with style because they were not in the least connected with the style or the needs of the masses. Their work arose rather in defiance of their times.
Franz Marc

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
Siegfried Sassoon

Comedy is defiance. It's a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it's the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.
Will Durst

Wearing a bow tie is a statement. Almost an act of defiance.
Rick Kaplan

More Defiance Quotations

Defiance Translations

defiance in Dutch is trots
defiance in German is Herausforderung, Trotz
defiance in Norwegian is trass
defiance in Swedish is utmaning, trots

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