It is defiantöthe desperate act of men too profoundly convinced of the rottenness of our civilization to want to save a shred of its respectability.

-Read, Sir Herbert Edward
  Catalogue of the International Surrealist Exhibition, New Burlington Galleries, London, Jun/Jul, introduction.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!

-Whitman,Walt(er)
  Leaves of Grass,'Broad-Axe Song', later 'Song of theBroad- Axe' (from1867).