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

[Every] hour of delay abates the fame and force of the invader, and multiplies the resources of defensive war. — Edward Gibbon

It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive. — Jawaharlal Nehru

People are shitty for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they're just shitty people. Sometimes people have been shitty to them and, even though they don't realize it, they take that shitty upbringing and go out into the world and treat others the same way. Sometimes they're shitty because they're afraid. Sometimes they choose to be shitty to others before others can be shitty to them. So it's like self-defensive shittiness. — Jennifer Niven

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

When you become aggressive in arguments, you force the other person to become defensive which means they'll either get ready to fight you or ready to flee from you. — Sam Owen

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

Let us call this quality the Original Mind. This mind looked at the world more directly - not through words and received ideas. It was flexible and receptive to new information. Retaining a memory of this Original Mind, we cannot help but feel nostalgia for the intensity with which we used to experience the world. As the years pass, this intensity inevitably diminishes. We come to see the world through a screen of words and opinions; our prior experiences, layered over the present, color what we see. We no longer look at things as they are, noticing their details, or wonder why they exist. Our minds gradually tighten up. We become defensive about the world we now take for granted, and we become upset if our beliefs or assumptions are attacked. — Robert Greene

I think everybody works from a defensive position, for the most part, in the film industry. — Will Oldham

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

Further, a defensive policy involves the loss of the initiative, with all the consequent disadvantages to the defender. — Douglas Haig

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

I'm a storyteller ... I haves a God-given gift that I can share with you and perhaps entertain you and bring you along for the ride ... So when anybody tries to take that away from me, or impede that, I get defensive. — Kurt Sutter

You have to use your mind n the NFL. Every player is smarter. Defensive backs bluff and disguise coverages to try to fool you. — Chad Ochocinco

He's a rather brilliant defensive tactician," Grimm said. "I agree," Bayard said. "The problem is that he's an inept defensive strategist. — Jim Butcher

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

The major media companies are playing a defensive game, and I'm not sure I blame them. If you look at the digital revolution, you look at who the winners and the losers are, there are some very very big losers - music, the newspaper industry. And there are some really big winners, social media, Facebook. — Harry E. Sloan

Like many others who have gone into prisons and jails with us, Chuck and Carol Middlekauff demonstrate what our ministry is all about. We train Christian 'teammates' to share the good news and love of Christ with 'the least of these' so they can continue to do it with others they encounter as they go along. In this book, Carol has written the stories of some of those encounters so you can appreciate how easy it is to tell people about Jesus. It happens when you realize God does all the work, and all you have to do is show up. I hope you will be encouraged by reading the book and then join us soon for a Weekend of Champions to find out for yourself."
Bill Glass, retired NFL all-pro defensive end, evangelist, founder of Bill Glass Champions for Life prison ministries, and author of numerous books, including The Healing Power of a Father's Blessing and Blitzed by Blessings — Bill Glass

He'll keep changing tacks, Marcia had said. It's the way he puts people on the defensive. Pretty soon he'll have you hitting out at where you think he's going to be, and he'll get you someplace else. — Stephen King

In the history of the world the prize has not gone to those species which specialized in methods of violence, or even in defensive armor. In fact, nature began with producing animals encased in hard shells for defense against the ill of life. But smaller animals, without external armor, warm-blooded, sensitive, alert, have cleared those monsters off the face of the earth. — Alfred North Whitehead

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That's when you can get more creative in solving problems. — Stephen Covey

Sicknesses, especially those affecting nerves and head, are signs that the defensive strength of the strong natures is lacking; precisely this is suggested by irritability, so pleasure and displeasure become foreground problems. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The first reaction is, get defensive. Second reaction is, what are we going to do about it? — Henry Blodget

I stopped hating and started just being. My whole life, I had been the most defensive person you'd meet, unable to tolerate any criticism. But now I started listening and being. — Anthony Kiedis

I'm a little territorial and defensive. I don't like having my space invaded. — Shia Labeouf

I'll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true. — Byron Katie

Defensive and offensive lineman control the game and true sports fans know that. — Dante Hall

I realised I really was shy. And once I was in it, I couldn't escape. I'd go to talk and find my face was made of cement. Nothing would come out. On winter days, I'd feel myself turning grey at the edges and fading into the walls.

Was this defensive strategy? It was paralysing. And it went on for years. — Janet E. Cameron

Encryption ... is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. It offers a technical guarantee of privacy, regardless of who is running the government ... It's hard to think of a more powerful, less dangerous tool for liberty. — Esther Dyson

Very much on the defensive, I admitted that I liked to read.
"Sure," Sammy said, "I never said I had anything against reading books ... "
"The publishers will be relieved to know that," I tried to insert, but Sammy was too quick for me and was already rounding the bend of his next sentence. — Budd Schulberg

July 15, 1991

Nita: My mother was a paragon of our neighborhood, People always come up to us with hugs, saying "You have the most wonderful mother." l'd think. "Don't you see what's going on in this house?" To this day, if somehow even in jest raises their hand to me, I will do this (raises hands to protect face and cowers) I cringe. Then they look at me like, what's your probem? You don't get that from a great childhood. — Sarah E. Olson

To conquer by sheer force is becoming harder and harder every day. Defensive is getting continuously the advantage of offensive, as we progress in the satanic science of destruction. — Nikola Tesla

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

Each of us has experienced moments in our lives when we are fully alive - when we have no wish for it to be different, better, or more. We have no disappointment, no comparison with ideals, no sense that it is not what we worked for. We feel no protective or defensive urge - have no desire to hold on, to store up, to save. Such moments are perfect in themselves. — Laurel Scheaf

The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone; in its own field reason does not restrain it at all. It is vital to the view of all history that reason is something separate from religion even in the most rational of these civilisations. It is only as an afterthought, when such cults are decadent or on the defensive, that a few Neo-Platonists or a few Brahmins are found trying to rationalise them, and even then only by trying to allegorise them. But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom. — G.K. Chesterton

Defensive devaluation is a protective device that makes love bad, trust unimportant and people "no darn good any way". People who have been deeply hurt in their relationships will often devalue love so it doesn't hurt so much. And they often become resigned to never loving again. — Henry Cloud

Because of that she had never had enough energy to be herself, a person who, like everyone else in the world, needed other people in order to be happy. But other people were so difficult. They reacted in unpredictable ways, they surrounded themselves with defensive walls, they behaved just as she did, pretending they didn't care about anything. When someone more open to life appeared, they either rejected them outright or made them suffer, consigning them to being inferior, ingenuous. — Paulo Coelho

The culture of irony is the culture of postmodernism, which I would furiously want to denounce. We have to act ethically and politically. Irony is a defensive position, against reality. It always knows what to think about reality. The idea of commitment and engagement is central to me, which is not ironic. — Simon Critchley

One forceful CEO recently lamented to me about the absence of "real leaders" in his organization. He felt his company was full of compliant people, not committed visionaries. This was especially frustrating to a man who regards himself as a skilled communicator and risk taker. In fact, he is so brilliant at articulating his vision that he intimidates everyone around him. Consequently, his views rarely get challenged publicly. People have learned not to express their own views and visions around him. While he would not see his own forcefulness as a defensive strategy, if he looked carefully, he would see that it functions in exactly that way. — Peter M. Senge

Suburbia is all about private ownership and not having to share, and it leads to a paranoid, defensive mindset. I know this, having grown up in Essex. — Hari Kunzru

Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men. — Augustine Of Hippo

When the United States cannibalize dollars from the defensive business of the NSA, securing our communications, protecting our systems, patching zero-day vulnerabilities, and instead we're giving those dollars to be used for creating new vulnerabilities in our systems so that they can surveil us and other people abroad who use the same systems. — Edward Snowden

Playing against a defensive opponent is just as bad as making love to a tree. — Jorge Valdano

We are a terrible defensive team right now. We're not putting forth the maximum effort that we need to put forth, especially in our position. You'd think that we'd put forth that maximum effort to not only win the game, but to get a good rhythm to get into the playoffs. — Jermaine O'Neal

I get very weird and defensive about what I'm working on - I wouldn't even tell my secretary what the next page of my novel was about. — Joan Juliet Buck

Most people do surprisingly poorly when dealing with a relative who is hurting, depressed, or anxious - we get defensive and try to solve the problem rather than finding the truth in what the person is saying. — David D. Burns

You asked me to speak. If this is a problem, the solution is not to get defensive because you don't like what you hear. The answer is to not invite me to talk. — J.R. Ward

Instead, it was a Christianity engaged with modernity (and postmodernity) - grappling with its issues, sensitive to its questions and concerns, aware of its spiritual vacuum, in vital dialogue with its artistic and intellectual leaders. It was a "third-way" faith seeking to steer a course that would avoid defensive retreat and isolation on the one hand and capitulation and sellout on the other. — Brian D. McLaren

For Uncle Giles had been relegated by most of the people who knew him at all well to that limbo where nothing is expected of a person, and where more than usually outrageous actions are approached, at least conversationally, as if they constituted a series of practical jokes, more or less enjoyable, according to where responsibility for clearing up matters might fall. The curious thing about persons regarding whom society has taken this largely self-defensive measure is that the existence of the individual himself reaches a pitch when nothing he does can ever be accepted as serious. — Anthony Powell

[People] who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons ... Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own righteousness, and defensive criticism of others. — Timothy Keller

I think we were promoting New Moon just as I was finishing The Runaways, and I remember going to Comic-Con with a Minor Threat T-shirt on. I was really happy and excited to be there, but I was so defensive and crazy. — Kristen Stewart

The left hemisphere seems to feel quite defensive-in a strange way insecure-about the right hemisphere; and, if this is so, verbal criticism of intuitive thinking becomes suspect on the ground of motive. Unfortunately, there is every reason to think that the right hemisphere has comparable misgivings -expressed nonverbally, of course- about the left. — Carl Sagan

The thing is, once a person's got their base, people they know they can trust in their corner, it makes dealing with everything else easier. It doesn't matter if you've got one or ten you can rely on. If they're there, you can face the rest of the crowd a lot easier. You don't have to be defensive with the world at large because you know at the end of the day, your real friends aren't far away." And — Rhenna Morgan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A search through Whistler's correspondence, now online at the University of Glasgow, paints a portrait of a relationship that at times was volatile, with Sickert swinging from sycophantic to offended and defensive. Whistler's — Patricia Cornwell

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

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

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

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

We must be honest here, and not defensive; the issues are now too grave and too urgent. Our inability to see our personal failures is paralleled by our inability to see our institutional and national sins too. It is the identical and same pattern of addiction and denial. Thank God that Pope John Paul II introduced into our vocabulary words like "structural sin" and "institutional evil." It was not even part of the conversation in most of Christian history up to now, as we exclusively concentrated on "personal" sins. The three sources of evil were traditionally called "the world, the flesh, and the devil." We so concentrated on the flesh that we let the world and "the devil" get off scot-free.8 — Richard Rohr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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