Quotes & Sayings About Defensiveness

Every human being has both sets of forces within him. One set clings to safety and defensiveness out of fear, tending to regress backward, hanging on to the past, afraid to grow away from the primitive communication with the mother's uterus and breast, afraid to take chances, afraid to jeopardize what he already has, afraid of independence, freedom and separateness. The other set of forces impels him forward toward wholeness of Self and uniqueness of Self, toward full functioning of all his capacities, toward confidence in the face of the external world at the same time that he can accept his deepest, real, unconscious Self. — Abraham H. Maslow

Guilt politics ... I regard as conveniently paralyzing, ripe for backlash defensiveness, counterproductive, and boring. — Robin Morgan

Relying on hard data, committing to open and democratic communication, acknowledging fallibility: these are the central tenets of any system that aims to protect us from error. They are also markedly different from how we normally think - from our often hasty and asymmetric treatment of evidence, from the cloistering effects of insular communities, and from our instinctive recourse to defensiveness and denial. — Kathryn Schulz

A lot of people think my sarcasm comes from insecurity and defensiveness, but I assure you I'm just being petty and cruel. — Dana Gould

From the late 1830s to the Second World War, China was bullied and humiliated on a vast scale. And it was more shocking for the Chinese because they had lived with the illusion of power and self-sufficiency for much longer than the Ottomans. 'Our country's civilization,' Liang Qichao pointed out in 1902, 'is the oldest in the world. Three thousand years ago, Europeans were living like beasts in the field, while our civilization, its characteristics pronounced, was already equivalent to theirs of the middle ages.
This wasn't just some cultural defensiveness. China could trace its culture back 4,000 years, and political unity to the third century BC. — Pankaj Mishra

I feel like that now: tired of the Me I've always been, tired of making the same mistakes, repetitively stumbling after the same small ego strokes, being caught in the same loops of anxiety and defensiveness. At the end of my life, I know I won't be wishing I'd held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me. So what is stopping me from stepping outside my habitual crap?
My mind, my limited mind. — George Saunders

This language is from the head. It is a way of mentally classifying people into varying shades of good and bad, right and wrong. Ultimately, it provokes defensiveness, resistance, and counterattack. It is a language of demands. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

When you have an authority figure tell you something that distinguishes you, there's a little bit of a badge of courage or pride point that comes with it, and also some relief that the grownups actually have an answer for the problem. But, at the same time, there's suspicion and defensiveness, like, Why is the way I do things a problem? Maybe the way you do things is the problem. All of these things come with the very notion that you've been described. — Lucy Corin

Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defense. The light or sound does not care about what you or anybody else thinks. You are defending yourself, or rather the illusion of yourself, the mind-made substitute. — Eckhart Tolle

Physical life is characterized by defensiveness, whereas spiritual life is just the opposite. — Eben Alexander

The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness. — John O'Donohue

The fact that California was the most cosmopolitan state in the union, as a result of the gold rush, simply made white voters more susceptible to racist and xenophobic arguments. — H.W. Brands

My defensiveness in life really helps me as a driver. — Larry David

Defensiveness is usually someone silently screaming that they need you to value and respect them in disguise. When you look for deeper meanings behind someone's pain you can then begin to heal not only yourself, but others. — Shannon L. Alder

You can't see clearly through defensiveness. — Bryant McGill

Do you know how hard it is to paint kindness?" She leaned her hip against a desk in the corner of the room, still watching me. "It's the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or defensiveness. But not kindness. You can't hide it. And people either are or they aren't. — Laura Anderson Kurk

Don't let a Narcissist, or any other kind of vampire, get away with nonverbal disapproval. Unspoken communication has much more power than mere words because it is ambiguous. If a Narcissist says you did something wrong, you can at least disagree. If he only hints at it, you are left wondering if what you're seeing really means what you think it does, or if the whole thing is somehow your fault, or whatever else you might be imagining. ... Translate rather than pointing the finger. This is the tricky part because it is subtle, but it will make all the difference. An unsubstantiated accusation of an internal state, like, "You're bored," invites defensiveness. A translation, like, "You keep looking at the clock; I'm assuming you're bored," is much harder to deny. A Histrionic might try, but other kinds of vampires will have to concede that they are indeed looking at the clock. — Albert J. Bernstein

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

You said something slightly off-color about her shoes and she brought up the fact that you had a slow eye and danced like a goat with a rock stuck in its ass. Ouch. You would just be playing and homegirl would be coming down on you off the top rope. — Junot Diaz

I'm a fallible human being - but if I were to react to that knowledge with fear/defensiveness then how would I move forward? — Jay Woodman

The gospel of the kingdom is an invitation to a different reality, a different way of living. The kingdom is a new way of relating as people. Where ordinary human life is based on competitiveness and defensiveness, domination and subjugation, treachery and violence, the kingdom is based on the self-giving love of God. — J.P. Moreland

In the name of "force protection," the military often rolls up windows, builds walls, and points rifles at the outside world. The best force protection, however, is to be surrounded by friends and allies. — Eric Greitens

That was his phrase - "the high ramparts of my defensiveness"- and I remembered it in case I ever decide to build and then describe my own ramparts. — Brock Clarke

You can get to a place where you see clearly; that place is zero defensiveness. — Bryant McGill

Mutual defensiveness moves parents and children away from intersubjective experience and joint influence and into a desire to gain control of the situation. To — Daniel A. Hughes

You don't need to play every ball on back foot. Some balls in life deserve to be played on front foot. Every ball needs good judgement to extend the limit. — Amit Ray

How we like to hold on! Sometimes we're unwilling to let things go just because we know them, and they feel "safe" to us, even if we're talking about something like behaviors that harm us, like defensiveness or addictions. We hesitate to let go because doing so will expose us to the unknown in our own lives, and we'll have to deal with life without this part of ourselves that we've grown so accustomed to. But if we're ever to move on to the next thing in life, if we're to grow and develop as people, we may have to let go of things that are holding us back - behaviors and beliefs and sometimes even people. There is no formula that can tell us what we should let go of and what we should hold on to. But if we listen to our hearts, we can know what still serves us well, and what is keeping us from moving on and becoming better people. — Tom Walsh

Yielding to emotions such as anger or hurt or defensiveness will drive away the Holy Ghost. — Richard G. Scott

Any defensiveness is a sign of failure. You can't move forward if you are defensive. — Bryant McGill

This is why she hates Alabaster: not because he is more powerful, not even because he is crazy, but because he refuses to allow her any of the polite fictions and unspoken truths that have kept her comfortable, and safe, for years. — N.K. Jemisin

To get greater than 100% return on a growth step, give up defensiveness. Defensiveness stifles performance, and destroys relationships. — Henry Cloud

Seventy percent of US companies now use open-plan offices and hot desking in the hope that these free-form physical structures will provoke free-form thinking. This architectural determinism isn't entirely convincing - there's plenty of evidence that people find open workspaces noisy, distracting, and impersonal. Walking through several such workspaces recently, I couldn't help but notice how hard everyone was working to simulate privacy. Plugged into headphones, surrounded by stacks of books and temporary dividers, defensiveness was more evident than openness. Architecture alone won't change mindsets and tearing down physical walls won't demolish the mental silos that trap thinking. — Margaret Heffernan

Criticism of the traditional male role is often mistaken for criticism of men themselves. When this happens, men understandably become defensive, push away any discussion of gender, and are unable to hear women's appeals for change. Any gender-role discussion quickly becomes a women's problem, and the issue is repressed by men who fell unjustly accused, and by women who are afraid of men's disapproval and anger. — Peggy Natiello

Have we become so defensive that we cannot even tolerate a kind act? — Kyra Gregory

We often hear of someone saying, 'So you don't trust me' or 'Are you questioning my integrity?' or 'You don't believe me.' They get defensive and angry because someone questions their actions, and they think they are above being questioned or having to prove their trustworthiness. But none of us is above questioning. — Henry Cloud

As you embrace the present and become one with it, and merge with it, you will experience a fire, a glow, a sparkle of ecstasy throbbing in every sentient being. As you begin to experience this exultation of spirit in everything that is alive, as you become intimate with it, joy will be born within you, and you will drop the terrible burdens of defensiveness, resentment, and hurtfulness ... then you will become lighthearted, carefree, joyous, and free. — Deepak Chopra

The Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. — Malcolm Gladwell

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

It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made. — Christopher Hitchens

People must have dignity and identity. If they can't do it peacefully, they will do it defensively. — Joseph Tirella

As wars dwindled to skirmishes and our strength grew, so David was able to spend less time with military commanders and more with the engineers and overseers who were fanning out throughout the land, digging cisterns, making roads, fortifying, connecting, and generally making a nation out of our scattered people. — Geraldine Brooks

You don't need to play every ball but every ball needs your judgement. — Amit Ray

She had been carried away by the need to defend herself. — Stephen L. Carter

So whenever your relationship is not working, whenever it brings out the "madness" in you and in your partner, be glad. What was unconscious is being brought up to the light. It is an opportunity for salvation. Every moment, hold the knowing of that moment, particularly of your inner state. If there is anger, know that there is anger. If there is jealousy, defensiveness, the urge to argue, the need to be right, an inner child demanding love and attention, or emotional pain of any kind - whatever it is, know the reality of that moment and hold the knowing. The relationship then becomes your sadhana, your spiritual practice. If you observe unconscious behavior in your partner, hold it in the loving embrace of your knowing so that you won't react. Unconsciousness — Eckhart Tolle

Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and reduce defensiveness. — Dale Carnegie

All defensiveness stems from the need to be right and frustration over not being able to control others. — Bryant McGill

The writer as boxer says he develops by, "learning from everyone who'll spar with me. — Davis Miller

In a person who is open to experience each stimulus is freely relayed through the nervous system, without being distorted by any process of defensiveness. — Carl Rogers

You need your ego to survive in the three-dimensional world, but you need only that part of the ego which processes information. The rest - pride, arrogance, defensiveness, fear - is worse than useless. The rest of the ego separates you from wisdom, joy, and God. — Brian Weiss

Professing not to care is a primordial defense mechanism. Whenever a person finds oneself mired in failure and despondency, rebelling is a viable option to preserve false personal pride. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I think the main thing that has to end is men's defensiveness. — Jon Stewart

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it"). — Brian Luke Seaward

Laine had been very proud of herself last night. Nicholas had talked about ghosts and magic and woven a bit of a spell himself. He'd sounded so convincing, so logical, so sad, that she'd found herself wanting to believe him. But testing prods at his argument had made him angry, and long years with Gavin had taught her that angry, defensive people shared the lousy habit of being wrong. — Stephen M. Irwin

All defensiveness and emotional tumult is a fear response because of your need for acceptance and ruthless control of the territory of your safe fantasy world. — Bryant McGill

A second characteristic of the process which for me is the good life, is that it involves an increasingly tendency to live fully in each moment. I believe it would be evident that for the person who was fully open to his new experience, completely without defensiveness, each moment would be new. — Carl Rogers

It would be better to be deceived a hundred times than to live a life of suspicion. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

As NVC replaces our old patterns of defending, withdrawing or attacking in the face of judgment and criticism. We come to perceive ourselves and others, as well as our intentions and relationships, in a new light. Resistance, defensiveness, and violent reactions are minimized. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

He enjoys the surprise on people's faces when he tells them he's a professor of American history. "Well, I am American," he says when people blink, a barb of defensiveness in his tone. Someone — Celeste Ng

Lacking an articulable defense of the cultural values under siege, he became a vessel of smoldering animosities. — George F. Will

Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures. — Audre Lorde

Nixon under pressure turned only to reporters from publications already favorable to him; Kennedy, in trouble, turned to those most critical and dubious of him, and if anything tended to take those already for him a bit for granted. — David Halberstam

The ego with its protective defense mechanisms is the biggest impediment to attaining spiritual growth. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I would advise you against defensiveness on priciple. it precludes the best eventualities along with the worst. At the most basic level it expresses a lack of faith. — Marilynne Robinson

It is more likely that the paths others have chosen influence the paths I choose. This suggests that the simplest way to help others make different choices is to make them myself, and to do it openly. As I shift the patterns of my own participation in the systemps of privilege, I make it easier for others to do so as well, and harder for them not to. Simply by setting an example - rather than trying to change them - I crate the possibility of their participating in change in their own time and in their own way. In this way I widen the circle of change without provoking the kind of defensiveness that perpetuates paths of least resistance and the oppressive systems they serve. — Allan G. Johnson

Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Even within the Four Horsemen, in fact, there is one emotion that he considers the most important of all: contempt. If Gottman observes one or both partners in a marriage showing contempt toward the other, he considers it the single most important sign that the marriage is in trouble. — Malcolm Gladwell

Remember every mistreatment experience shows up to give you the opportunity to learn love at a deeper level. You don't need to defend yourself because you cannot be diminished. You must understand that defensiveness doesn't protect you. It actually makes you feel more vulnerable and unsafe. In protecting yourself you are embracing the idea that you can be hurt and this will only create more fear in your life. If you embrace fear and judgment you are choosing to live in fear and judgment.
If you choose to let go of the need to protect and defend yourself and put down your defenses because you understand you cannot be hurt - you will actually feel safer. When you choose to feel bulletproof, infinite and absolute all the time, no defense is ever necessary. — Kimberly Giles

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

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse predict an ailing marriage: Criticism, Defensiveness, Stonewalling and Contempt. The worst of these is contempt. — John M. Gottman

Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness. — Audre Lorde

Enough of invisibility, silence, timidity, defensiveness, guilt! An invisible, silenced man was an empty space into which others could pour their prejudices, their agendas, their wrath. The fight against fanaticism needed visible faces, audible voices. He would be quiet no longer. He would try to become a loud and visible man. — Salman Rushdie

Mixing defensiveness with anger - a wonderful mix, by the way. — Liza Palmer

Is constructive criticism really constructive? Not really. You can't make a child better by pointing out what you think is wrong with him or her. Criticism either crushes spirit or elicits defensiveness. Constructive criticism is an interesting combination of words. "Construct" means "to build." "Criticism" means "to tear down" It creates defiance and anger as well. — H. Norman Wright

Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning. — Melanie Joy

Lesson number one: defensiveness is defeat. Never defend yourself. — Leah Raeder

Their carefully relaxed demeanors hid a fragile defensiveness, as if they expected to be criticized at any moment and they weren't going to stand for it. They both seemed to cling so hard to their chosen personalities. I am this sort of person and therefore I believe this, I think this, I do this and I am right, I'm right, I'm sure I'm right! — Liane Moriarty

The greatest thing I learned while taking classes at Second City was the very first thing they taught: 'Yes, and ... '. In improv, you keep scenes alive but accepting whatever you are given and then adding to it or amplifying it. There is no space on stage for 'No,' 'I'm sorry, you're mistaken,' or 'Yes, but ... '. Those transitions kill energy, set up interpersonal conflict, engage the ego in a defensive posture, and stymie the flow of conversation onstage. — Jason Seiden

If we do not cultivate the same confidence, the danger is that Christians will tend toward defensiveness and anger. In today's grievance culture, it seems that some new group is always coming forward to complain that they are offended. It can be easy for Christians to pick up the same victim language. But our motivation for speaking out should not be only that we are offended. After all, we are called to share in the offense of the Cross. We are called to love the offender. Christians will be effective in reaching out to others only when they reflect biblical truth in their message, their method, and their manners. — Nancy Pearcey

Managers who feel inadequate in their jobs are often unreceptive to employees' ideas and denigrate subordinates who speak up, according to research at a multinational energy company and a subsequent experiment. In such cases underlings might consider voicing their ideas in private so that bosses feel less threatened. "MANAGING TO STAY IN THE DARK: MANAGERIAL SELF-EFFICACY, EGO DEFENSIVENESS, AND THE AVERSION TO EMPLOYEE VOICE," BY NATHANAEL J. FAST, ETHAN R. BURRIS, AND CAROLINE A. BARTEL — Anonymous

It is not the absence of defensiveness that characterizes learning teams but the way defensiveness is faced — Peter M. Senge

Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life
be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others ... I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba's child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused — Brennan Manning

True sincerity reveals a powerful form of clarity and discernment that is necessary in order to perceive yourself honestly without flinching or being held captive by your conditioned mind's judgments and defensiveness. — Adyashanti

The student's job is to stay open-minded, to quell the knee-jerk defensiveness we all possess in the face of suggestions for improvement, and to maintain patience when faced with a process that is often slow, confusing, and frustrating. — Renee Fleming

In liminal space, one meets the unknown, the marginalized, the synchronistic, the other, the unconscious edge of one's former narratives. At this point, the possibility to try out new narratives, to reframe one's story, becomes critical. Through narratives of participation the center of gravity shifts from fear and defensiveness to curiosity, creativity, and celebration. One begins to take a stand to validate one own's affects and doubts while at the same time interrogating them. The effect of such a shift is that the area of questioning about the self, the world, and the use of narrative language begins to widen noticeably. We can no longer assume there will be an outcome of homogeneous accounts through dialogue. The frames of narratives of participation anticipate heterogeneity rather than accord. — Helene Shulman

Humility is a quality for which I have only a limited admiration. In many phases of life it is a great mistake and degenerates into defensiveness or hypocrisy. — E. M. Forster

Author describes that a failed sea captain, vacillated miserably between self-recrimination and defensiveness. — Joseph Wheelan

Why should you want to give up a child's wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not-understanding is, after all, a way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are a participation in precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from. — Rainer Maria Rilke

When things get personal, we need to resist the natural male instinct to run for cover, man the defenses, or--worst of all--reach for the big guns. Much better to set aside our natural defensiveness and focus on listening well even though we feel under attack. Because we're probably not. — Jeff Feldhahn

Defend myself? I cannot defend the verbal repressions of a boy. A curmudgeonly, cantankerous, ill-tempered, counterfeit boy. — Coco J. Ginger

The culture around us knows what it means when they see a church in perpetual bluster and outrage. They know that we are scared. — Russell D. Moore

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