Quotes About Defensiveness

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended.

Healthy self-esteem is not ashamed to say, when the occasion warrants it, "I was wrong." Denial and defensiveness are characteristics of insecurity, guilt, feelings of inadequacy, and shame.

We are not the enemy," he says. "That's what the enemy always says.

By the way he reacted, you would have thought I told him that slavery never happened. He laid into me with the same gusto as a right-wing political pundit on the O'Reilly Factor defending President Bush's right to vacation six days out of the week.

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.

The attempt to create defensiveness through trivialization is the first conversational gambit which greets threatening reforms. This pre-establishes the perimeters of discourse.

self-justification momentarily protects us from feeling clumsy, incompetent, or forgetful. The kind that can erode a marriage, however, reflects a more serious effort to protect not what we did but who we are, and it comes in two versions: "I'm right and you're wrong" and "Even if I'm wrong, too bad; that's the way I am.

I swear,if she were a cat she'd be hissing.

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.

Everyone who isn't us is an enemy." - Cersei

Perhaps I could-- She snarled at him, hunched protectively over her unit. You just want to show off. Would I be that small? To cut me down on this, you'd shrink to microscopic.

But even when habits of blaming or defensiveness arise, something profound can change if those involved bring a committed presence to what is happening. This is when community becomes a refuge—a place of true awakening.

No human beings, regardless of who they might be, want to look directly at their own shortcomings.

Most men would rather be shot through with a broad-headed arrow than be described by you.

Humility, rather than involving the presence of certain thoughts or behaviors, might better be construed as the absence of narcissism, self-enhancement, or defensiveness.

In the end, when you enter a tough conversation, prepare yourself to take the high road, not be defensive, and remain open by practicing the strategies above. Instead of losing ground with someone in a conversation like this, it can actually become a moment that solidifies your relationship going forward.

True narcissists, like Charlotte, never think they're wrong. When they react by lashing out, they're convinced that they're simply defending themselves against some nefarious provocation from someone trying to harm them. When they feel threatened, they go into overdrive and retaliate quickly. Narcissism can be described as a trigger-happy defence.

Of course, "white tears" does not refer to all pain but to the particular emotional fragility a white person experiences when they find racial stress so intolerable they become hypersensitive and defensive, focusing the stress back to their own bruised ego.

It's simple-minded people like that, the ones that are afraid of change, they use everything in their power to defend what they stand up for instead of trying to listen and understand what's going on.

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?

Take away the clothes of the greatest living man, his father once told him, and you behold a very embarrassed, naked and defenseless animal. Pitt

Defensive, defensive, defensive. And you can imagine the tone of voice she had throughout our meeting: sharp, dismissive, and filled with anger that she was not being recognized for her talent and expertise.

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