Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.

There are millions of people, refugees, who have experienced the same conflicts and struggles I did. They have the same potential to defy the odds and achieve great things.

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.

China is attempting the death-defying feat, which no one has attempted in the history of the world, which is to move a billion people out of poverty. When I speak to Chinese policy-makers, the thing that annoys them the most about Western policy-makers is that they're not given any credit for anything.

I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?

It's easier for China to assert its maritime power by creating artificial islands in the South China Sea than by defying the U.S. Pacific Fleet with an aircraft carrier.

Many black youths are defying stereotypes, achieving good academic results, finding employment and contributing to their communities. But helping those who fall behind is not an exercise in political correctness, it is a precisely what a compassionate - and sensible - state should concern itself with.

I admire many actors, though I don't think there's anyone whose career I would want to mirror sort of by the beats. What I'm really looking to do is constantly defy expectations. I'm very curious to see if you can actually have a character actor and a movie star's career combined.

It was the Michael Jordan/Nike phenomenon that really let people see that athletes were OK, and black athletes were OK. Defying a previous wisdom - not only that black athletes wouldn't sell in white America, but that the NBA as a predominantly black sport could not sell in white America.

Our nation is being led astray by ungodly judges, mayors and governors, who are given to change, defying the Constitution and substituting their own wicked agendas.

We need more courageous individuals who will defy the structures of power, whether political, economic, or intimate, but we also need it to be safe for people to feel their power and to be able to express their ideas and imagine without fear.

I defy anyone to get a decision that quickly these days.

The perfect pop song is a 20th-century creation; it's not a sonnet, it's not an opera, it's something short - three and a half minutes by nature - and has this ability to travel and to defy class and economic structures.

Orson Welles was one of these people who was defying everything the doctors told him he wasn't supposed to be doing. He was really enjoying himself when he was eating what he wanted to eat.

When I did 'Frankenstein,' the record company said, 'Now you can do 'Dracula' and 'Wolf Man' and we'll call the whole thing Monster Rock!' and I said, 'No, that's not going to happen, I'm not going to do that.' I kind of enjoy defying categorization. I love music in and of itself. I love the beauty of harmony and rhythm.

The primary way that we know about what lives in the ocean is we go out and drag nets behind ships. And I defy you to name any other branch of science that still depends on hundreds-of-year-old technology. The other primary way is we go down with submersibles and remote- operated vehicles. I've made hundreds of dives in submersibles.

I defy you to find any real will, any reasoning force, outside of life. And everything is there; there is, in the world, no other will than this force which impels everything to life, a life even broader and higher.

It's one thing to decry and defy political correctness in the name of efficiently achieving clarity or revealing an honest truth. But it's quite another thing entirely to support name-calling and nastiness.

Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters.

Defying genre conventions is instantly a risky move.

I've been through the first cap, the 50th, and the 100th, and I defy any player who has ever gone past all those milestones to look at each of them and say that first cap isn't the one that makes him tingle the most.

I have seen my father defying societal norms and investing his time and energy on us. He was ridiculed and criticised by the community for asking girls to seek a career in wrestling. But he had vision and was least worried when elders warned him his daughters would not find grooms. I had to wrestle for him and that motivated me tremendously.

The CGI landscape is another world. It has its own physical laws; it can defy gravity. But surely the wonder of cinematic space is that it is wedded to reality?

I could program a 'fabulous, I love it' kind of hit season right now. I'm more interested in breaking boundaries, telling a story, defying a truth that has been accepted.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

I think there's a sort of satisfaction in defying people's expectations.

It is remarkable that this people, though unarmed, dares attack an armed foe; the infantry defy the cavalry, and by their activity and courage generally prove victors.

As a jumper, I try to defy gravity as long as I can. But no matter how far I jump, I'll always hit the earth eventually.

I love a challenge. And I love defying limitation, gender stereotypes, and people's expectations of me as an actress.

Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.

After engaging in acts of war against another nation, there exists a degree of uncertainty in terms of the enemy's reactions. War inspires an unpredictable psychology and evokes strong emotions that defy systems analysis quantification.