obstinacy

1. The state or quality of being stubborn or refractory.
2. The act or an instance of being stubborn or refractory.

noun

1. The quality or state of being stubbornly unyielding: bullheadedness, doggedness, hardheadedness, mulishness, obstinateness, pertinaciousness, pertinacity, perverseness, perversity, pigheadedness, tenaciousness, tenacity, willfulness. See resist/yield.
2. The quality or condition of being unruly: disorderliness, fractiousness, indocility, intractability, intractableness, obstinateness, obstreperousness, recalcitrance, recalcitrancy, refractoriness, uncontrollability, uncontrollableness, ungovernableness, unmanageability, unruliness, untowardness, wildness. See control/uncontrol, order/disorder, peace/conflict, resist/yield.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the trait of being difficult to handle or overcome
  Synonyms: stubbornness, obstinance, mulishness

Meaning #2: resolute adherence to your own ideas or desires
  Synonyms: stubbornness, bullheadedness, obstinance, pigheadedness, self-will

Quotes:

"Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good." - Sir Thomas Browne

"They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance." - Edmund Burke

"Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we're so fond of it." - George Eliot

"Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind." - W. Somerset Maugham

"He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes." - Herman Melville

"Who is so deaf or so blind as he that willfully will neither hear nor see?" - English Proverb

See more famous quotes about Obstinacy