The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.
Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.
I bring out the worst in my enemies and that's how I get them to defeat themselves.
Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
May the United Nations ever be vigilant and potent to defeat the swallowing up of any nation, at any time, by any means-by armies with banners, by force or by fraud, by tricks or by midnight treachery.
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.
You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
