Quotes & Sayings About Getting Defensive

but its most important characteristic was an ability to analyze the emotional beats of a movie without any of its members themselves getting emotional or defensive. — Ed Catmull

We need to learn how to give a defense for our belief in Christ without getting defensive. — Beth Moore

Whatever clutter may be getting in your way during a conversation or communication, use the simple acronym HEAR to enter a more spacious and less defensive awareness. HEAR stands for: hold all assumptions; enter the emotional world; absorb and accept; and reflect, then respect. H — Donald Altman

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out - at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure. — B.H. Liddell Hart

They sit on the bed across from mine, and I tell them about getting cornered in one of the Erudite laboratories the night before, about the pillowcase and the Allegiant and the meeting.
"I'm surprised all you did was punch one of them," Uriah says.
"Well, I was outnumbered," I say, feeling defensive. It wasn't very Dauntless of me to just trust them immediately, but these are strange times. And I'm not sure how Dauntless I really am, anyway, now that the factions are gone.
I feel a strange little ache at the thought, right in the middle of my chest. Some things are hard to let go of. — Veronica Roth

Getting defensive doesn't hide the fact that you know you could have done better. Stop putting your energy into your excuses. — Tony Curl

I'm a Saints guy, and I'm on the defensive side and I'm hearing the hell that the Saints fans are giving the opposing offenses and it's pretty tough. It's a huge challenge to manage the defense with that noise, but I'd rather them be loud and pumped up and going than quiet, because if they're quiet it means we're getting beat. — Jonathan Vilma

...and she no longer is having her emotional responses to...stress numbed by medication. "I've been off the drugs for two years, and sometimes I find it very, very difficult to deal with my emotions. I tend to have these rages of anger. Did the drugs bring such a cloud over my mind, make me so comatose, that I never gained skills on how to deal with my emotions? Now I'm finding myself getting angrier than ever and getting happier than ever too. The circle with my emotions is getting wider. And yes, it's easy to deal with when you're happy, but how do you deal with it when you're mad? I'm working on not getting overly defensive, and trying to take things in stride." (124) — Robert Whitaker

My focus had always been the on-side. My coach wanted me to work on the offside strokes since he was convinced of my ability and timing on the leg side. I worked hard and firmed up my defensive technique. I am happy getting runs all around the wicket now, and getting a lot of boundaries. No one calls me a 'leggie batsman' anymore. — Virat Kohli

I couldn't wait for high school to be over. I didn't let my exasperation show, however. I'd long since discovered how to live inside the shark tank without getting eaten or becoming a shark: never let 'em see you sweat. Don't show any emotion, no matter how many you're feeling. It just reveals your weaknesses and, to them, weaknesses are like blood in the water. I try never to let them see me get angry, upset, defensive, flustered, uncertain, anything. I'm sure that, to them, I seem somewhat robotic, but it keeps me out of trouble and keeps them at arm's length. And that's how I survive — M. Leighton

It's a struggle for me to remain open," she admits. "To not shut down because I'm defensive or scared or maybe my ego is getting in the way. And the other side of that is just believing that I belong where I am and deserve to take up space. I fight constantly between those two things, between not apologizing for what I want and staying vulnerable and creatively supple and not thinking I know better than everyone else. — Amy Poehler

You're going to lose it when you follow the world "feel" with the words "because I think". Any time you are thinking, your chance of getting what you need is greatly decreased, especially when you follow the word "think" with the word "you". I predict you won't only not get heard, but I predict a defensive aggressive reaction. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends. — Gary Shteyngart

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?"
"It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else? — Theodore Sturgeon

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

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

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

I grinned at him. 'Jealous?'
He grinned right back. 'That's a trick question. If I say yes you'll accuse me of being paranoid and unreasonable, and if I say no you'll make some defensive crack about how I don't think you're worth getting jealous over.'
This is what I got for hooking up with a lawyer. — Carrie Vaughn

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

The sulky, defensive expression she used to pull as a child no longer fits her face. In the last year or two her cheeks have most some of their softness. Her eyebrows have grown fuller and seem to sit on top of her eyes with a permanently hurt expression she can't shift. Her skin is less soft, the salt is finally getting in there too. She's grown tall and strong and with it she's grown petulant. — Jeremy Page

If your guard is up, let it down. If you've constructed a defensive wall to protect yourself and keep all the bad guys out, don't forget who that wall also prevents from getting in - the good guys. — Brendon Burchard

But she didn't pull away from him. If anything, she seemed to sort of melt against him. It was the
first time she'd willingly accepted something from him without getting stiff and defensive and
generally annoyed — Maisey Yates

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

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

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

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