Best Defensive Quotes & Sayings

A judgmental attitude helps neither ourselves nor others. Arguing or preaching rarely changes other people. Even if our opinions are justified, criticizing others usually makes them wary and defensive. And it takes our attention away from our own lives, which we can change. — Diane Dreher

You are recognized by your bat. If you are the best hitting shortstop out there, that's how you win a Gold Glove. That's the way it is. It shouldn't be-it's a defensive award. — Jimmy Rollins

Chess is a very positive way to exercise your mind. It makes you look at the whole picture ... what are your options and what is the best thing to do? In football, you are mostly reacting from a defensive point of view ... but you always want to be counterattacking ... a similarity with chess strategy. Chess and offensive football are quite similar; you sacrifice something now to get something back later. — Barney Chavous

At best, people are open to scrutinizing themselves and considering their blind spots; at worst, they become defensive and angry. — Sheryl Sandberg

Canzeroni is the only defensive catcher that can't catch. — Casey Stengel

Our words always paint two portraits when we describe our families to others. Outsiders cannot but see the small peeves and follies that wrinkle our relationships with our loved ones. The claims we make in defensive certainty
that we were the one wronged, that we were the one who wanted the best
cannot but fall on skeptical ears since everyone makes the same claimsof virtue and innocence. We are always more than we want to be in the eyes of others simply because we are blind to the bulk of what we are.
...
Mimara had wanted him to see her as a victim, as a long-suffering penitent, more captive than daughter, and not as someone embittered and petulant, someone who often held others accountable for her inability to feel safe, to feel anything unpolluted by the perpetual pang of shame ...
And he loved her the more for it. — R. Scott Bakker

I didn't say what I said to be controversial just because most people are picking the Patriots to win. I consider myself a pretty good judge of talent when it comes to defensive linemen and the Panthers' biggest strength is their defensive line. You win the battle of the trenches and that goes a long way to winning the game. — Warren Sapp

I was a defensive lineman coming out of high school who was considered amongst the top ... maybe the top six guys, top five guys, and wanted to prove to my team that I was going to be a top guy going into college. — Ndamukong Suh

In most of the European countries - France stands out in its resistance to this particular form of American cultural imperialism - the national film industries were forced onto the defensive after the war by such binding agreements. — Fredric Jameson

It is of course, entirely possible that men (or anyone who is relatively privileged) are most defensive, most obstinate and unseeing when they are worried about losing privileges ... In the reactions of husbands, I detect a haunting worry about what they will lose when true gender equality arrives. — Faye J Crosby

As for the boys ... vulnerable fathers turn to time-honored defensive responses to maintain the function that father knows best' Parents, especially fathers, teach their sons to obey authority no matter what. — Martha Stout

He wants to play major college football at a university far away, where nobody will know about his tragic family history. Then he wants to play in the NFL.

Every catch brings him closer to that reality. That's how he thinks of it, anyway. Every time he runs downfield, sees the ball in the air, and hears the defensive back laboring to catch up, whenever he feels that ball fall out of the sky and into his waiting hands, he inches closer to his goals. — Neil Hayes

The official strategy is defensive pessimism, always. — Veronica Roth

I used to feel defensive when people would say, 'Yes, but your books have happy endings', as if that made them worthless, or unrealistic. Some people do get happy endings, even if it's only for a while. I would rather never be published again than write a downbeat ending. — Marian Keyes

Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. — Benjamin Tucker

I loved them in the way one loves at any age - if it's real at all - obsessively, painfully, with wild exaltation, with guilt, with conflict; I wrote poems to and about them; I put them into novels (disguised of course); I brooded upon why they were as they were, so often maddening, don't you know? I wrote them ridiculous letters. I lived with their faces. I knew their every gesture by heart. I stalked them like wild animals. I studied them as if they were maps of the world - and in a way, I suppose they were." She had spoken rapidly, on the defensive ... if he thought she didn't know what she was talking about! "Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self. — May Sarton

I can write no other than this: unless we use the weapons of the spirit, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus, dying with Him and rising with Him, men will go on fighting, and often from the highest motives, believing that they are fighting defensive wars for justice and in self-defense against present or future aggression. — Dorothy Day

People always talk about going on offensive runs. But you can go on defensive runs too — Tom Thibodeau

But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work, taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject them for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up - unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out. — Mary Norris

This is something - we have to have the best defensive capabilities. We need to coordinate all of our efforts with the private sector. We need to give them liability relief so that we can do that. — Jeb Bush

Our whole philosophy was to intimidate the quarterback. We were able to do it. We were pioneers. People still recognize us as, maybe, the best defensive line of all time. — Merlin Olsen

With fandom, people are sensitive, and sometimes defensive, about their experiences. — Rainbow Rowell

Raff,' Katsa said, 'your problem is that your heart's not in it. We need to find something to strengthen your defensive resolve. What if you pretended he's trying to smash your favorite medicinal plant?'
'The rare blue safflower,' Bann suggested.
'Yes,' Katsa said gamely, 'pretend he's after your snaffler.'
'Bann would never come after my rare blue safflower,' Raffin said distinctly. 'The very notion is absurd.'
'Pretend he's not Bann. Pretend he's your father. — Kristin Cashore

If I didn't know better, I'd think I suffer from some sort of Tourette's-autism hybrid, but Dr. Pat insists I can control the impulse to say whatever pops into my head. That it's, like, a defensive mechanism, not a biological imperative. Therapists think everything is a defense mechanism. Just my thinking that in my head, right now, is a defense mechanism. — Corey Ann Haydu

I realized that for my own part, I was much more likely to take risks, reach out to others, and expose myself to rejection and failure when I felt happy. When I felt unhappy, I felt defensive, touchy, and self-conscious. — Gretchen Rubin

Night Train Lane was the best defensive back to ever play the game. I tried to pattern my game after him because he was the best. He could have played any one of the four (secondary) positions. I've never seen a defensive back hit the way he hit - I mean take them down, whether it be Jim Taylor or Jim Brown. — Herb Adderley

We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond the stars to eat our brains. — Charles Stross

Ecologist Paul Ehrlich stressed that people who hold opposing opinions need to engage in open discussion with well-reasoned dissent. Positions should be questioned and criticized, not the people who hold them. Personal attacks preclude open discussion because, once someone is put on the defensive, fruitful exchanges are impossible, at least for the moment. — Marc Bekoff

When you're dealing with Switzerland, Mr. Allon, it's best to keep one thing in mind. Switzerland is not a real country. It's a business, and it's run like a business. It's a business that is constantly in a defensive posture. It's been that way for seven hundred years. — Daniel Silva

Josh Bard is a catcher with excellent defensive tools and someone ... whose best days are ahead of him. He's not coming off his best [offensive] season, but we still think there is some ceiling on him. He has outstanding makeup and calls a good game. [He's] a solid receiver with a plus arm, and he's going to be coming to camp with a chance to open some eyes. — Theo Epstein

I didn't play in the NFL, and I didn't play defensive line. But football, at the fundamental level, is football. It's about motivating people and getting the best out of them. — Brendan Daly

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. — George Orwell

As consumers of culture, we are lulled into passivity or, at best, prodded toward a state of pseudo-semi-self-awareness, encouraged toward either the defensive group identity of fanhood or a shallow, half-ironic eclecticism. Meanwhile, as citizens of the political commonwealth, we are conscripted into a polarized climate of ideological belligerence in which bluster too often substitutes for argument. There is no room for doubt and little time — A.O. Scott

Basketball is a great mystery. You can do everything right. You can have the perfect mix of talent and the best system of offense in the game. You can devise a foolproof defensive strategy and prepare your players for every possible eventuality. But if the players don't have a sense of oneness as a group, your efforts won't pay off. And the bond that unites a team can be so fragile, so elusive. — Phil Jackson

The open side Defensive End has to be one of your best football players. Size does not matter as much. We want an athletic player who can move around. — Pete Carroll

The way I see it, thinking about the position of the club during the swing is about the worst way to play golf. It makes you tight and defensive, which kills your natural speed and rhythm. Although there's obvious value to minding your technique, at best you'll play an OK round. Where's the fun in that? — Rickie Fowler

Defensive backs are the best players on the field. But when you get an exceptional player like a Deion Sanders or a Darrell Green - these guys are fast and they have very good technique. You have to work a little harder. — Jerry Rice

Westbrook: 10 triple-doubles and carrying that team, injury-prone, into the playoffs. LeBron being the best player in the world. But I think right now I would go with James Harden because of what he's done. He's stepped up his game defensively. He's not a great defender but he's competing on the defensive end. — Mark Jackson

Defensive players kind of have that two-faced kind of way of being able to be very aggressive on the football field and going out there and getting there job done. At the same time, from my own incidents and my own personality, I'm much a person that's very likable and lovable. — Ndamukong Suh

Every relationship has problems, because every person has problems, and the place that our problems appear most glaringly is in our close relationships. The key is whether or not we can hear from others where we are wrong, and accept their feedback without getting defensive. Time and again, the Bible says that someone who listens to feedback from others is wise, but someone who does not is a fool. — Henry Cloud

She's fine," said Declan, defensive. "You're fine, right?"
She gave him a look. "Peachy."
"See? Both Alex and her astounding wit have made it here intact. Her sense of humour seems to be M.I.A, but I'm pretty sure that was a pre-existing condition. — Jena Leigh

Incidentally, part of a photographer's gift should be with people. You can do some wonderful work if you know how to make people understand what you're doing and feel all right about it, and you can do terrible work if you put them on the defense, which they all are at the beginning. You've got to take them off their defensive attitude and make them participate. — Walker Evans

The vitality of a culture is in its capacity to assimilate foreign influences. The culture that's defensive and closed condemns itself to decadence. — Juan Goytisolo

Because yeah, females could be vanity hounds and most preferred their dates to have hair. Black, blond, red, it didn't matter, as long as the locks were thick and lustrous. And here was a news flash for little Miss Giggles: when he allowed his to grow, it was dark brown, nearly jet, with hints of gold and worthy of a fucking lion.
Not that he was feeling defensive or anything. — Gena Showalter

I have my meals delivered ... you know what I like? Chicken and rice ... But the problem with being a defensive lineman is, if we get out of hand with our eating, we balloon up to, like, 300-some pounds. So I really got to watch what I eat. — Hugh Douglas

By the 1980s beauty had come to play in women's status-seeking the same role as money plays in that of men: a defensive proof to aggressive competitors of womanhood or manhood. Since both value systems are reductive, neither reward is ever enough, and each quickly loses any relationship to real-life values. — Naomi Wolf

People call you this or that. But I can't respond because then it seems like I'm defensive, you know, what does it matter, really? — Bob Dylan

The worst thing is the world is a defensive my-kid-can't-do-anything-wrong parent. — Laura Schlessinger

But if they stripped all those labels off, people might be shocked to find a normal girl beneath. Who doesn't want to spend her days on the defensive. Who wants what everyone else wants. To be loved. — Kim Harrington

I learned to never say never and never say no, so I decided to go pro. I knew I'd have an opportunity to be a defensive player in the NFL. — Darius Philon

I was a very defensive kid 'cause I was really sensitive underneath and didn't want people to know. So I came off as very tough and very angry. — Pink

Gold Gloves are nice to have people mention. They're basically saying you're a pretty good defensive player along with everything else. But I was about the offensive side. — Mike Schmidt

Look at me, I'm getting defensive about something that happened so many years ago, somebody said. I'll have to find out who that was and if he's still alive. — Paul Reubens

Now he laughed again. "I'm sorry. I just tend to get on the defensive." "That's okay. I tend to get on the clueless. So we're even." He — N.R. Walker

Let me see a complete reorganization of the North Atlantic fleet's defensive strategy against Nazi U-boats. And if it won't go on one side of one sheet of paper, it hasn't been properly thought out - Winston Churchill. — Patrick Robinson

You can always look back on having a good defensive day, even if you didn't do anything offensively. You won the game and you contributed. — Jorge Posada

Few understand that horses are never truly domesticated. Their instincts are always there and readily take over once they are free. They stay or return to us by their choice, not the compulsion forced upon them.
Once realized you must also recognize only kindness will prevail to make a partner of an animal who'd prefer only the company of his kind and the freedom of wide open spaces. Any other relationship is based on the inadequacies of the tormentor on the tormented. One will lose. It's always the horse, for even if he wins his defensive battle the mark of rogue will remain.
It's been witnessed how a mustang will give up his life if his freedom can't be regained when in the grip of adversity. There's so much for us to learn from this, if we'd only learn to listen to their message. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

The news, when it leaked out, caused outrage and horror in Rome. The Republic was never so dangerous as when it believed that its security was at stake. The Romans rarely went to war, not even against the most negligible foe, without somehow first convincing themselves that their preemptive strikes were defensive in nature. — Tom Holland

Generally speaking, the main principles are as follows: (1) the use of initiative, flexibility and planning in conducting offensives within the defensive, battles of quick decision within protracted war, and exterior-line operations within interior-line operations; (2) co-ordination with regular warfare; (3) establishment of base areas; (4) the strategic defensive and the strategic offensive; (5) the development of guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare; and (6) correct relationship of command. — Mao Zedong

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions and tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled 'good' or 'bad' ... By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. — George Orwell

We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it. — C.S. Lewis

But for years questions persisted about whether most cannibalism was religiously motivated and selective or culinary and routine. DNA suggests routine. Every known ethnic group worldwide has one of two genetic signatures that help our bodies fight off certain diseases that cannibals catch, especially mad-cow-like diseases that come from eating each other's brains. This defensive DNA almost certainly wouldn't have become fixed worldwide if it hadn't once been all too necessary. — Sam Kean

Of all the things in sports, getting a sack is one of the hardest things to do. It's like a last-second, game-winning shot in the NBA. A guy hits the last-second shot, and the fans scream. For us (defensive ends), the sack is everything. It's hard to get there. But once you do, there's nothing like it. — Dwight Freeney

You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output - how much you produce - not in terms of the quality of your life experiences. To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution. — Jean Shinoda Bolen

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior). — John Bradshaw

We need empathy to give empathy. When we sense ourselves being defensive or unable to empathize, we need to (a) stop, breathe, give ourselves empathy, (b) scream nonviolently, or (c) take time out. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Nothing is more idealistic than a journalist on the defensive. — Melvin Maddocks

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter. — Toni Morrison

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire. — Edmund White

My thought for today: Writing a letter to a friend today has helped clear a lot in my mind. It has taught me not to go on the defensive, instead to poke two fingers up to my critics who have no idea what restrictions there are when it comes to writing about a cold case". — Monica Weller