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“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, The Fifth Season

“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, Scar Tissue

“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, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

“It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

“Love' is the only weapon I have, I will defend with love, I will attack with love.”
― Amit Kalantri

“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, Letters to a Young Poet

“Defend myself? I cannot defend the verbal repressions of a boy. A curmudgeonly, cantankerous, ill-tempered, counterfeit boy.”
― Jamie Weise

“The detection of a person as safe or dangerous triggers neurobiologically determined pro-social or defensive behaviors.
Even though we may not always be aware of danger on a cognitive level, on a neurophysiological level, our body has already started a sequence of neural processes that would facilitate adaptive defense behaviors such as fight, flight or freeze. ”
― Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation

“To switch effectively from defense to social engagement strategies, the nervous system must do two things: (1) assess risk, and (2) if the environment looks safe, inhibit the primitive defensive reactions to fight, flight or freeze.”
― Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation

“A person whom fails to conquer oneself will always live in fear, and experiences life filled with conflict and emotional storms. Fearfulness prevents a person from perceiving reality and ever knowing oneself. Unable to cope with fear and uncertainty, a person resorts to denial, repression, compromise, and hides behind the mask of a false self.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“People are only defensive when they have something to defend.”
― Melanie A. Smith, Bad Boys Don't Make Good Boyfriends

“The ego with its protective defense mechanisms is the biggest impediment to attaining spiritual growth.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“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 feel unjustly accused, and by women who are afraid of men's disapproval and anger.”
― Peggy Natiello, Experiences in Relatedness: Groupwork and the Person-Centred Approach

“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

“A person lives a false life whenever they are afraid to make contact with his or her authentic self. A sensitive ego â€� one that protects a person from pain â€� can also prevent a person from maturing mentally and emotionally by causing a person to distort truths and refuse to admit unpleasant facts.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“This means that emotional hoarding is occurring. How to balance the needs of others is difficult for them. Therefore, more AVPs need psychological treatment to assist on an ongoing basis. Add to this the fact that the spouse of the AVP recognizes the AVP has times of clarity. This just increases anxiety and defensiveness for both when the needed clarity is gone.”
― Dr. Sandra Smith-Hanen, Hiding In The Light: Understanding Avoidant Personality Disorder

“I wanted to run away
From all of my problems
I wanted to find a zone
Where I could just be alone

I felt like people
Were out to get me
I was defensive and scared
Felt like no one cared

We tend to shut down
And push others away
When we feel pain
Its always been the same”
― Aida Mandic, A Maniac Did

“Sincerity is frequently written off as an immature stance. Naiveté and earnestness often co-exist, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Naiveté is a simple lack of knowledge and experience. Earnestness is a way of BEING in the world: sometimes by default of innocence, but also as a conscious, informed choice to reject cynicism and live life in an authentic way. To be earnest is to face each day with an open spirit, as opposed to living one's life crouched in an impermeable, defensive posture. For many in our culture, it is a much greater sin to be a gullible idealist than a cruel cynic.”
― Kate Kretz, Art from Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice

“We as ambitious human beings can maintain self respect by influencing ourselves to behave as civil human beings and focus on our long term goals by not allowing others to take advantage of our lives.”
― Saaif Alam

“Once you being defensive in your answer. Just know there is the truth in the question you have been asked, or there is truth in what they are saying to you.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“Unable to face the paltriness of our lives, it is simpler to bask in a fleeting pleasure dome than labor endlessly to create worthy secular testimonies demonstrating that a life well lived does in fact have intrinsic value. Regardless of what providence has in store, dense men such as me fritter away their lives hoping to capture eroticism’s delights. It is less taxing to rummage through the garbage dump picking amidst the trash heap of life’s inglorious scandals than it is to delve into penetrating our defensive shells.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“We do not defend furiously what has most real value in our lives; it seems as natural and inevitable as breathing. What we defend most hotly are those things we think we ought to value but secretly know or fear we do not.”
― John Holt, Escape from Childhood

“I’d always found that humor made a better shield than indifference.”
― Daniel Thorman, Calamity at Conclave

“The truth is that intimacy with our partner rises or falls in direct proportion to our capacity to listen well. Listening with an open heart is the ultimate spiritual act. It is the greatest gifts we can give to our partner, and ultimately to ourselves.

The problem is that we're all defensive a fair amount of the time, although we may be better able to observe defensiveness in other people. Once we’re in defensive or reactive mode we can’t take in new information or see two sides of an issue—or, better yet, seven or eight sides.

Defensiveness is normal and universal. It is also the archenemy of listening. Defensiveness makes it impossible to truly know our partner or be known.”
― Harriet Lerner

“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. It would be even more accurate to say that the illusion is defending itself.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“You were working for Army Artillery."
"These were our own aircraft, coming from Ault. Why would I report them?"
"What did they look like?"
It was Woods who asked that question. I looked directly into those flat, gray eyes. "Mr. Woods." My pretense of a fragile feminine voice evaporated as I spoke with confidence and a touch of temper. "It was a world war. We still have enemies. If I had seen experimental American planes, I certainly wouldn't describe them to two perfect strangers who showed up at my door and asked me a lot of odd questions."
Woods blinked but gave no other sign that he had taken in my insult. Harrison cleared his throat and fiddled with his notebook, but he didn't seem to know what to say next.”
― Louisa Morgan, The Witch's Kind

“(...) defensiveness bores me, because it all sounds the same.”
― Tracy Letts, Man from Nebraska

“All Americans are defensive. You can't help it.”
― Tracy Letts, Man from Nebraska

“Any negative feedback stings, but feedback that doesn’t align with who you are at your core can hurt even worse because you feel misunderstood. How you react to the feedback and what you do afterwards will impact your career trajectory at the company. Your first instinct may be to rebut, defend, or explain the behaviors that led to the feedback. But perceptions don’t change because of explanations or more information; they change over time after you adjust your actions and behaviors.”
― Marlo Lyons

“Understanding what triggers you to give advice when it’s not invited can help you be a little more objective when others dish it out. Reframing how you see someone’s input won’t necessarily keep you from feeling frustrated, but it will help you respond conscientiously instead of reacting.”
― Emily Grabatin, Dare to Decide: Discovering Peace, Clarity and Courage at Life's Crossroads