In sports you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke winning it twice proves you are the best.

The humanities need to be defended today against the encroachments of physical science as they once needed to be against the encroachment of theology.

I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.

My parents did not have a perfect marriage. It was pretty good but it was not perfect. My marriage is not perfect. My wife is but I happen to be imperfect. However that does not discount the fact that the definition of marriage must be defended and protected.

History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America's servicemen and women.

Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended.

Abortion is defended today as a means of ensuring the equality and independence of women and as a solution to the problems of single parenting child abuse and the feminization of poverty.

I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation he defended her right to tell her story.

I know that throughout their history the people of the United States defended their freedom their liberty their justice and their rights - if need be - with their lives. I think their courage is so admirable.

In the end the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning rather than protesting that like some poor relation they don't cost much to be housed.