Defensive People Quotes & Sayings

We got to stop people. We go ahead and we score 100 points every night, but we give up more. Our whole thing was, we know we can score, and we have to start having some kind of fun on the defensive end. Everybody want to play offense. Not too many people want to play defense. Defense is ego, pride, and that's the way we've been coming out, just taking the challenge. Man-on-man first, and having each other's back when a guy gets beat. — Allen Iverson

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

I am always and at once on the defensive, for example, when people speak of races and nations as if they were personalities and had souls and destinies and such like. — Christopher Hitchens

People who make war in order to escape slavery may possibly win ... This will doubtless bring death and suffering to thousands ... But people who tamely allow slavery to be imposed on them without resorting to a defensive war are inevitably doomed to years of death and suffering-and far more of each than any war would bring to them ... The army doesn't exist that can annihilate men in their own land-not if they love it sufficiently. — Kenneth Roberts

The Jesus experience expanded people into a position where they didn't have to have defensive tribal lives, "God loves my people, my tribe, anddoesn't like yours." The Bible is full of such references. — John Shelby Spong

If you go into Hasakah province in northeast Syria, that's an area that's as big as Lebanon. It's controlled by the Kurds, the Christians and the moderate Sunnis. And there are airstrips and hotels. You could settle a lot of people there.All we would have to do is be willing to provide them with some weaponry, some defensive weaponry. — Benjamin Carson

A defensive referendum is for avoiding war and to help keep the Taiwanese people free of fear. — Chen Shui-bian

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

Thus we do disagreeable things, but we are defensive. That, I think, is still fair. We do disagreeable things so that ordinary people here and elsewhere can sleep safely in their beds at night. Is that too romantic? Of course, we occasionally do very wicked things"; he grinned like a schoolboy. "And in weighing up the moralities, we rather go in for dishonest comparisons; after all, you can't compare the ideals of one side with the methods of the other, can you, now? — John Le Carre

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

People in Japan and the Faeroe Islands kill dolphins and pilot whales by running steel rods into their spinal columns while they squeal in pain and terror and thrash in agony. (In Japan, it's illegal to kill cows and pigs as painfully and inhumanely as they kill dolphins.) The lack of compassion for dolphins and whales indicates that humans' "theory of mind" is incomplete. We have an empathy shortfall, a compassion deficit. And human-on-human violence, abuse, and ethnic and religious genocide are all too pervasive in our world. No elephant will ever pilot a jetliner. And no elephant will ever pilot a jetliner into the World Trade Center. We have the capacity for wider compassion, but we don't fully live up to ourselves. Why do human egos seem so threatened by the thought that other animals think and feel? Is it because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them? We seem so unfinished and so defensive. Maybe incompleteness is one of the things that "makes us human. — Carl Safina

Sorry, I had to break the tension; it was making me uncomfortable. It reminded me a lot of some
of my dates in high school. Just before the guy copped a feel."
"Sorry," Kelsey said, her apology directed at Cole. "She doesn't interact with people very often. It's
... like a puppy that gets locked in the laundry room all day."
"Should I get her a treat?" he asked.
"Hey," Alexa said, her tone defensive. "Is the treat bacon?"
"Milk-Bone," he said.
"Then I'll pass and head to bed." She looped her arm through Kelsey's, and they turned, stepping
off the porch. — Maisey Yates

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

How I feel about and behave toward myself is the basic determinant of most of my behavior. If I improve my self-regard, I will find that dozens of behaviors change automatically. If, for example, I increase my feelings of self-competence, I will probably be less defensive, less angered by criticism, less devastated if I do not get a raise, less anxious when I come to work, better able to make decisions, and more able to appreciate and praise other people. — William Schutz

The Istiqlal was powerful, which did not at all coincide with his conception of it, nor with the picture the organization painted of itself: a purely defensive group of selfless martyrs who were willing to brave the brutality of the French in order to bring hope to their suffering countrymen. — Paul Bowles

He was desperately lonely. He had a hard time connecting with new people. If South Koreans were sympathetic toward him, he found them condescending. Even though he hated the North Korean regime, he found he'd get defensive when South Koreans criticized it. This was a common predicament for defectors. — Barbara Demick

Every once in a while, someone would call me a foreigner or a Yankee, or whatever. In the United States, someone might say something, like how kids do, to point out that you're different. That would come as a surprise to me. As you get old, you either get defensive about it or you accept it and you reach out, because you realize the world's full of people like that. — Viggo Mortensen

We spend the whole of our lives watching ourselves. But when a man becomes meek he has finished with all that; he no longer worries about himself and what other people say. To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending. So we are not on the defensive; all that is gone. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Ordinary people aren't going to give up emotions and inspiration just because science sniffs at subjectivity. Science shouldn't be so edgy and defensive. Vandals aren't going to smash their way into laboratories and throw Bibles at the equipment. — Deepak Chopra

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

see that her help is needed. Advocating means fighting for not fighting with. As I've said before in many different ways, you have to make your case in a manner that makes other people listen, and that usually means considering their needs as well as your own. You may feel as if your parents' needs take precedence over your sibling's - and they do - but this more communicative approach is likely to get more traction than making people defensive ever does. One great way to keep all of your family — Kimberly Guilfoyle

The most meaningful namesake by far is Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. Also known as Lafayette Park, this is the nation's capital of protest, the place where we the people gather together to yell at our presidents. In each corner of this seven-acre park stands a statue of four of the most revered European officers who served in the Revolutionary War: Lafayette, Rochambeau, Steuben, and Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the Polish engineer whose defensive works contributed to the Continental Army's victory at Saratoga. — Sarah Vowell

Marketing isn't done by computers, it's done by people. And people who sense opportunity and have the confidence to be remarkable will always defeat defensive actions by people who have given up. — Seth Godin

You start talking about God and a lot of people are going to become very defensive. — Ron Perlman

Parents sometimes feel that if they don't criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn't make people wantto change; it makes them defensive. — Laurence Steinberg

When we're playing a good scoring center, we tell our team that it is not our defensive man's job to stop the center. It's the responsibility of our perimeter people to stop the ball from going inside. — Bobby Knight

If God is present with you everywhere you go (and he is), and if he is sovereign over every situation, relationship, and location of your life (and he is), then when you blame other people for your circumstances or for the wrongs that you do, you are, in fact, blaming God. You are saying that God didn't give you what you needed to be what he has called you to be and to do what he has called you to do. You are essentially saying: "My problem isn't a heart problem; my problem is a poverty of grace problem. If only God had given me _, I wouldn't have had to do what I did." This is the final argument of a self-excusing lifestyle. This argument was first made in the garden of Eden after the rebellion of Adam and Eve. Adam: "The woman you gave me made me do it." Eve: "The Devil made me do it." It is the age-old self-defensive lie of a person who doesn't want to face the ugliness of the sin that still resides in his or her heart. — Paul David Tripp

It is important you understand how fear affects you and how it drives human behavior so you can start to see situations and people accurately and respond more appropriately. When someone is behaving badly, attacking you, or being defensive, critical, or judgmental, it is not really about you. Fear is the real reason people behave badly. Their fears make them selfish, defensive, mean, and grouchy. Every time someone is behaving badly, step back and ask yourself, "What is this person afraid of? What fear inside me is driving my reaction to their attack? What am I afraid of?"
When you can accurately see the fear behind their behavior, and yours, you will see the situation for what it really is. — Kimberly Giles

The earlier you intervene, the less likely that people will get defensive. The more real-time and specific your feedback is, the easier it is for people to receive it and learn from it. The — Jonathan Raymond

A lot of people approach their barn or horse like they are going to war, because it's been going badly. So you pick up the next day in a defensive mode instead of cleaning the slate and starting fresh. Animals live so much in the moment, so if you're bringing baggage from yesterday you're already at a loss. We do that with people too. — Cindy Meehl

The man who is meek is not even sensitive about himself. He is not always watching himself and his own interests. He is not always on the defensive ... To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending ... The man who is truly meek never pities himself, he is never sorry for himself. He never talks to himself and says, You are having a hard time, how unkind these people are not to understand you. — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

You're supposed to be a spirit of intellect. I don't understand why you're obsessed with sex."
Bob's voice got defensive. "It's an academic interest, Harry."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe I don't think it's fair to let your academia go peeping in other people's houses."
"Wait a minute. My academia doesn't just peep -"
I held up a hand. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."
He grunted. "You're trivializing what getting out for a bit means to me, Harry. You're insulting my masculinity."
"Bob," I said, "you're a skull . You don't have any masculinity to insult."
"Oh yeah?" Bob challenged me. "Pot kettle black, Harry! Have you gotten a date yet? Huh? Most men have something better to do in the middle of the night than play with their chemistry sets. — Jim Butcher

Tom Stafford was an odd character, you know - a brilliant guy. He looked weird and I think he took a really defensive attitude about being a hunchback. You know how people can be, giving him a hard time. So he turned that into a defensive mechanism. He would strike first, a lot of times. But he was a great guy, and really those talks we had when I was about 15, out of all of that came the studio over the drugstore and everything else. I'm not saying - I'm no big deal, but I was a part of the birth of the music there. — Donnie Fritts

Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful, and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people, while unhappy people are more often withdrawn, defensive, antagonistic, and self-absorbed. Oscar Wilde observed, One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy. — Gretchen Rubin

The church lives in a regime of ecclesial authoritarian security and the military elites live in a regime of national authoritarian security. These structures produce the same kind of authoritarian people, with a super defensive stance in their strategies and argumentation.
This is why they understand each other! (Leonardo Boff, p. 178) — Mev Puleo

Once you can clearly describe what you are reacting to, free of your interpretation or evaluation of it, other people are less likely to be defensive when they hear it. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Human beings remember "firsts"- the first time something happens, or the begining of an experience- and we tend to remember "lasts" as well. So when you are about to make a critical/negative delivery , start your criticism with a positive begining, it will affect the rest of the experience. Start by giving them solid ground to stand by expressing the fact that you value them and they matter. Once they are reassured of their own worth, people will accept your comments far more easily and they'll get less defensive. — Olivia Fox Cabane

At the point when adding people into the company feels like more work than the work that you can offload to the new employees, the defensive lineman has run around you and you probably need to start giving ground grudgingly. — Ben Horowitz

And what happens a lot of times when - let's just speak specifically white and black - when white or black people feel misunderstood when it comes to talking about race, they immediately get defensive. — Regina King

People who are burdened by acute misgivings about their coping capabilities suffer much distress and expend much effort in defensive action ... they cannot get themselves to do things they find subjectively threatening even though they are objectively safe. They may even shun easily manageable activities because they see them as leading to more threatening events over which they will be unable to exercise adequate control — Albert Bandura

Being an American journalist can put people on the defensive. In countries where people assume the press is partisan, like in Lebanon, or where it had essentially become an extension of the government, like in Iraq, people tend to see a journalist as an agent of his or her government. That can be dangerous if the United States military is occupying their country, or aligned with their enemies. — Annia Ciezadlo

One thing I definitely experienced up here (New York), that maybe I have to sort of cop to feeling defensive about, is since the election, people in my cohort, who are sensitive to portrayals of people in the movie as classist, have had no problem coming up with those sorts of [middle-American] stereotypes about a phantom real person they can blame for re-electing George Bush. — Philip Morrison

If you have free trade and free circulation of
capital and people but destroy the social state and all forms of progressive taxation, the temptations of defensive nationalism and identity politics will very likely grow stronger than ever in both Europe and the United States. Note, finally, that the less developed countries will be among the primary beneficiaries of a more just and transparent international tax system. — Thomas Piketty

In America most orthodox Christians become defensive or testy when they are asked even to break into a sweat. Most of our efforts up until now have been more symbolic than anything else. We are great at holding conventions, gathering for strategy meetings and seminars, holding congresses on evangelism. But where are the people to run our own antidefamation league? — Cal Thomas

People are so sensitive, people are so defensive. I agree with you. We have to learn to loosen up, lighten up, and laugh a little bit. — Ainsley Earhardt

Marriage to Perry meant she was always ready to justify her actions, constantly monitoring what she'd just said or done, while simultaneously feeling defensive about the defensiveness, her thoughts and feelings twisting into impenetrable knots, so that sometimes, like right now, sitting in a room with normal people, all the things she couldn't say rose in her throat and for a moment she couldn't breathe. — Liane Moriarty

The most obvious defensive management ploys are prescriptive Methodologies ("My people are too dumb to build systems without them" ) and technical interference by the manager. Both are doomed to fail in the long run. — Tom DeMarco

That's really good for an actor - to like the people behind the scenes - because then you treat the camera differently. If you really like someone who's shooting you, you're more open. You're not defensive, you're more relaxed, and I think that translates into a more interesting, natural performance. — Emile Hirsch

Feedback doesn't tell you about yourself. It tells you about the person giving the feedback. In other words, if someone says your work is gorgeous, that just tells you about *their* taste. If you put out a new product and it doesn't sell at all, that tells you something about what your audience does and doesn't want. When we look at praise and criticism as information about the people giving it, we tend to get really curious about the feedback, rather than dejected or defensive. — Tara Mohr

When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. They become rigid and defensive, and their self stops growing. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Some people are hard to hold accountable because they are so helpful. Others because they get defensive. Others because they are intimidating. I don't think it's easy to hold anyone accountable, not even your own kids — Patrick Lencioni

It's a natural thing for people to say, you know, Who's in this book? I find myself get ting a little defensive. People come along and I'm waiting for that first question. — Hugh Leonard

Brandt was in a room full of people all looking at him as he was about to get naked...When Brandt's cock sprung free, there was a gasp from all corners of the room.
Nestor fanned himself. Bryce's mouth made a perfect "O" in exactly the right shape to fit over a beautiful, plump cockhead. Donnelly just stared, blinked hard, and stared some more.
"What? You guys all look like you've never seen a dick before," Brandt said, a touch of defensive anger in his voice.
"Honey, I thought I had, but I have been most cruelly misled," answered Bryce.
--Dressing room incident #3 — Xavier Mayne

Some people who experience a religious conversion seem to undergo a personality change. They can be quite congenial and easygoing when talking about mundane things, but when they start talking about their faith, their demeanor changes. Their tone of voice modifies, their smile becomes tense and they become defensive when questioned about their evidence for belief. It becomes difficult to have a friendly conversation with them. — Darrel Ray

Over the years, I've become barraged by comments from people, such as, 'Beam me up, Scotty!' and I became defensive. I felt they were derisive and engendered an attitude. I am grateful for the success, but didn't want to be mocked. — William Shatner

That is how I experience life, as apocalypse and cataclysm. Each day brings an increasing inability in myself to make the smallest gesture, even to imagine myself confronting clear, real situations.
The presence of others - always such an unexpected event for the soul - grows daily more painful and distressing. Talking to others makes me shudder. If they show any interest in me, I flee. If they look at me, I tremble.
I am constantly on the defensive. Life and other people bruise me. I can't look reality in the eye. The sun itself leaves me feeling discouraged and desolate. — Fernando Pessoa

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

[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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

I am sometimes perplexed by people who refer to defensive rifles, or defensive rifle shooting. The defensive arm is the pistol, since you have it at hand to meet situations that you do not anticipate. If you have the luxury of anticipating a lethal encounter, you pick up a long arm, either a rifle or a shotgun, but in that case you go on to the attack. Thus rifle shooting is offensive, and pistol shooting is defensive. Of course, life does not always duplicate theory, and there are exceptions to everything, but nevertheless the rifle is not a defensive weapon in concept. — Jeff Cooper

The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis. — Henry Miller

I eventually came to suspect that any God who is nervous, defensive, or angry in the face of questions is a false god. I began to realize that I often ascribed to God the traits of people who are ill at ease, anxious, and occasionally hateful and who even presume from time to time to speak on God's behalf. — David Dark

And that's all this Prime Minister needed, a nice multi-syllable word like destabilization to turn it into a fucking jingle. But he threw us on the defensive in a way that I'll make sure never happens again. Of course the only people listening was Penthouse magazine. Goddamn, what does it mean when the conscience of America airbrushes pussy for a living? — Marlon James

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

Everyone these days was defensive about their lives. Everyone had settled. — Lorrie Moore

Guns can turn you into an insider even if you're an outsider by nature, recruiting you into a loose fraternity of people who feel embattled and defensive and are primally eager to win allies. — Walter Kirn

I am not too accusatorial or defensive by nature. I have always been kind of philosophical about it, remembering that it is just a game. People take these things too seriously. — Steve Nash

People say that one of the most important things about being an actor is to have thick skin, but I don't think that's it. Because you can't just walk around being tough, you have to be able to be vulnerable to do this. So really, it's about not being defensive. — Jess Weixler

When people saw that the film was called 'White People,' many got very defensive. I've been getting some very interesting emails - and I'm used to hate mail, believe me. I think this idea that we grouped white people together is offensive to people. — Jose Antonio Vargas

When people begin to become fundamentalist, it becomes a real challenge to the church to maintain the Spirit of Christ. What happens is people get defensive about their faith because they're insecure and this is a very insecure time for the world. Fundamentalism says we know the answers; therefore, we should superimpose them on anybody who doesn't agree with us. And along comes the organization of fundamentalists into a political bloc that not only takes over their churches but takes over (or attempts to take over) the governments of their countries, whether you're a fundamentalist Muslim or a fundamentalist Jew or a fundamentalist Christian, the spirit is about all the same. — David L. Felten

It's so much easier for me to talk about my life in front of two thousand people than it is one-to-one. I'm a real defensive person, because if you were sensitive in my neighborhood you were something to eat. — Richard Pryor

So here I am, a white man telling Black children to not give white people the benefit of the doubt. It's not prejudice I'm giving them, it's survival. Don't talk to strangers. Don't trust white folk you don't know. Don't trust cops. The basics. When Black folk don't want to walk right up and be my friend, I don't take it personally, and I don't get defensive. And I'll tell other thin-skinned white people the same thing. It's not personal. It's survival. Get used to it, and quit whining. — Stan Goff

It is a Lancashire custom to be on the defensive. We anticipate jokes about rain, "bi gum," and Wigan; we expect people to peer at us through the thin layer of smoke they fancy they see around our heads. — Sylvia Lovat Corbridge

People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit ... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective. — William Howard Taft

In the clearness of this Himalayan air, mountains draw near, and in such splendor, tears come quietly to my eyes and cool on my sunburned cheeks. this is not mere soft-mindedness, nor am I all that silly with the altitude. My head has cleared in these weeks free of intrusions- mail, telephones, people and their needs- and I respond to things spontaneously, without defensive or self-conscious screens. Still, all this feeling is astonishing: not so long ago I could say truthfully that I had not shed a tear in twenty years. — Peter Matthiessen

It's natural for people to protect what they know instead of leaping into the unknown, and managers are no exception. Managers might even be worse, as the politics they rely on to survive can make them more entrenched and defensive. — Scott Berkun

Vic Wertz once hit a ball rather famously that was later described as such: 'It would have been a home run in any other park - including Yellowstone.' Instead, he's remembered as the guy who got robbed by Willie Mays' spectacular catch during the 1954 World Series between the Indians and the Giants, a play that remains one of the game's all-time greatest defensive efforts. What people often forget about Wertz is that his greatest battle wasn't that one at bat, and that one out never defined his career. He was stricken with polio in 1955, and after 74 games his season was over and his career was hanging in the balance. 'The Catch' by Willie Mays couldn't keep him down, and neither could polio - he came back in 1956, and despite playing in only 136 games he belted 32 home runs with 106 RBIs. — Tucker Elliot

I considered quitting graduate school. I paid my ticket, I rode the ride. Right? Half the people I started with quit. I did not have to continue toward scholar. But something wouldn't let me. Some deep wrestling match going on inside my rib house and gray matter. Some woman in me I'd never met. You know who she was? My intellect. When I opened the door and there she stood, with her sassy red reading glasses and fitted skirt and leather bookbag, I thought, who the hell are you? Crouching into a defensive posture and looking at her warily out of the corner of my eye. Watch out, woman. To which she replied, I'm Lidia. I have a desire toward language and knowledge that will blow your mind. — Lidia Yuknavitch

When the door opened, the three goons from the hall found me braced in a defensive stance, holding a full-sized horseman's glaive in front of me. As expected, all three of them stopped and stared. Eight-foot long polearms had that effect on people. — Seanan McGuire

My submission to you is we're fighting the war on terror not overseas but in our own streets, and we'd be spending vast more fortunes to try to be a defensive country to protect ourselves rather than an offensive country to spread democracy wherever people yearn for it. — Johnny Isakson

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