Psychological Defence Quotes & Sayings

It is annoying that the rules of chess do not allow a pawn to take either horizontally or backwards, but only forwards ... This psychological tuning is ideal for attacking purposes, but what about for defence? — David Bronstein

Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence. — Alexander McCall Smith

Like the microscopic strands of DNA that predetermine the identity of a macroscopic species and the unique propertires of its members, the modern look and feel of the cosmos was writ in the fabric of its earliest moments, and carried relentlessly through time and space. We feel it when we look up. We feel it when we look down. We feel it when we look within. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Children do not have to learn that streets are dangerous places by potentially fatal trial and error. — Keith Henson

Unholy soldier, disciple of sin, what kind of mind are you living in? — Ozzy Osbourne

So great are the psychological restistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier. — Harold Lasswell

God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trusted Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two assymetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions. — Richard Dawkins

Differentiating from parental introjects and psychological defences based on the emotional pain of childhood is essential not only for neurotic or seriously disturbed individuals; it is a central developmental issue in every person's life. — Lisa Firestone

The closer a Negro got to the ballot box, the more he looked like a rapist. — E. Franklin Frazier

Anything that the private sector can do, the government can do it worse. — Dixie Lee Ray

Defence lawyers use the term "duress" to describe the use of force, coercion or psychological pressure exerted on a client in the commission of a crime. When duress is applied to the emotionally unstable the result can be as violent as it is unpredictable. — Emily Thorne

As many as six out of ten American adults have never read a book of any kind, and the bulletins from the nation's educational frontiers read like the casualty reports from a lost war. — Lewis H. Lapham

I like to make my voice sound like a piece of tin that's been stuck on the side of a chair, lifted up as far as it would go and then let to spring - "doooiiinng." I like to make it into a piece of metal from time to time and I can do it, both with the movements in my throat and with, uh, my little toys ... So I like to take it beyond just a voice, more into the realms of a weapon. — Robert Plant

- Rape is a unique crime, representing both a physical and psychological violation.
More than with any other crime the victim can experience reporting rape as a form of revictimisation.
l In no other crime is the victim subject to so much scrutiny at trial, where the most likely defence is that the victim consented to the crime. Powerful stereotypes function to limit the definition of what counts as 'real rape'."
Kelly, L., Lovett, J., & Regan, L. (2005). A gap or a chasm?: attrition in reported rape cases. London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. — Liz Kelly

If you want to expel religion from our European civilization, you can only do it by means of another system of doctrines; and such a system would from the outset take over all the psychological characteristics of religion - the same sanctity, rigidity and intolerance, the same prohibition of thought - for its own defence. You have to have something of the kind in order to meet the requirements of education. And you cannot do without education. — Sigmund Freud