Top 50 Defense Mechanism Quotes
#1. [W]hen the empirical investigator glories in his refusal to go beyond the specialized observation dictated by the traditions of his discipline, be they ever so inclusive, he is making a virtue out of a defense mechanism which insures him against questioning his presuppositions.
Karl Mannheim
#2. Adams's proclivity for truculence and curtness probably emerged early. Uncertain of his abilities and laboring under an exaggerated sense of inadequacy, he probably fashioned such an aggressive manner as a defense mechanism.
John Ferling
#3. Everyone is a little bitter. We're born bitter. The personality itself is really just a very complex defense mechanism. A reaction to the first time someone said, No you can't.
Marc Maron
#4. Lying is not only a defense mechanism; it's also a coping mechanism and a survival technique.
Monica Raymund
#5. I became a control freak as a defense mechanism. The more control I had in my life, the less chance of being surprised, of getting hurt.
J.A. Konrath
#6. As a kid I was short and only weighed 95 pounds. And though I was active in a lot of Sports and got along with most of the guys, I think I used comedy as a defense mechanism. You know making someone laugh is a much better way to solve a problem than by using your fists.
Tim Conway
#7. The nightmares were so devastating that as a self-defense mechanism his brain did all it could to keep him awake at night. Instead of falling asleep, Hunter read ferociously. Books became his refuge, his castle. A safe place where the ghastly nightmares couldn't breach the gates.
Chris Carter
#9. I could always make people around me laugh. It was more of a defense mechanism more than anything else, because I was a pretty shy guy.
Tim Hawkins
#10. I would make people who bullied me laugh, so that's my defense mechanism.
Sherri Shepherd
#11. I suspected eccentricity was often if not always a response to pain, a defense mechanism against anguish and torment and sorrow.
Dean Koontz
#12. Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.
Hunter S. Thompson
#13. I think I came to see Islam, or at least one part of Islam, as an important defense mechanism against the commercialization of the world.
Peter Jennings
#14. I wish I trusted people more. But when I meet someone, the first thing is, 'What does this person want?' And I put up a defense mechanism. But I've always been that way.
Derek Jeter
#15. Black people in America have to, for their own protection, develop a defense mechanism, and I just grew terribly tired of it.
Randall Robinson
#16. I was just a ham since about the age of five. If I was performing at Medieval Times or something, I'd be the court jester. That was always my defense mechanism. I was never all that funny; I was just obnoxious and loud.
Emma Stone
#17. Hope was a pathological part of puberty, like acne and surging hormones. You might sound cynical to the world, but that was just a defense mechanism, cover up coating a zit, because it was too embarrassing to admit that in spite of the bum deals you kept getting you hadn't completely given up.
Jodi Picoult
#18. I wish I trusted people more," Jeter has said. "But when I meet someone, the first thing is, 'What does this person want?' And I put up a defense mechanism." For that matter, he would add, "I've always been that way," and his first seasons as a Yankee
Joseph Bottum
#19. I laugh when I see people in pain. Sometimes I think it is a defense mechanism from childhood, where you're in so much pain you have to laugh. It is a survival mechanism.
Andy Dick
#21. DENIAL
Defense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant realities is disavowed; refers to keeping out of conscious awareness any aspects of external reality that, if acknowledged, would produce anxiety.
Benjamin James Sadock
#22. I've never known a Philadelphian who wasn't a downright 'character'; possibly a defense mechanism resulting from the dullness of their native habitat.
Anita Loos
#23. I don't like smiley pictures. A smile is a defense mechanism. It says, You can't have the real me but here's my smile. You get closer to the real person when they stop smiling.
Chris Killip
#24. Nine times out of 10, criticism is a defense mechanism. We criticize in others what we don't like in ourselves.
Mark Batterson
#26. Humor was also a defense mechanism from getting picked on at school. If I could be funny maybe people wouldn't bother me.
Pandora Boxx
#27. I feel bad about my deeper, underlying reasons for judging people with children. I judge them as a defense mechanism, because I am sad about my motivations for not having kids. I am self-centered and dysmorphic with low self-esteem.
Melissa Broder
#28. I was the fat kid, so as a defense mechanism, I was the jokester.
Peter DeLuise
#29. When I was younger, I was reticent to be vulnerable on camera and everything I was doing was just a really finely honed defense mechanism from when I was a kid, and I was now using this to make a living on camera.
Ryan Reynolds
#30. Ut maybe this was a defense mechanism. Maybe my mind was making me see things I refused to accept were gone forever. It was filling the void, because that was easier than letting go.
Becca Fitzpatrick
#31. Fashion has always been my defense mechanism.
Rihanna
#32. People use irony as a defense mechanism.
David Byrne
#33. My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it. That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive.
Judd Apatow
#34. The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It's called Denial.
Dan Brown
#35. I especially like it when a guy starts out rude, explains that it's a defense mechanism, and then turns even ruder once I get to know him.
Lena Dunham
#36. My mind felt numb, like I couldn't really grasp the hurtful things that I had just recently learned. I was well aware that it was my body's defense mechanism. Shock always did that to a person...enveloped them in a cocoon of decreased sensitivity to allow them to process their hurt.
Courtney Cole
#37. Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism employed to avoid cognitive dissonance.
Zack Love
#38. He said cynicism's self-protection, a defense mechanism used by cowards who give up on love because they're afraid love's given up on them.
Linda Yellin
#39. Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldn't be able to survive.
Garry Shandling
#40. 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
#41. The central mechanism of the avoidance mechanism of PTSD is the ego defense of denial
Frank M. Ochberg
#42. Nullification is not a 'defense' recognized by law, but rather a mechanism that permits a jury, as community conscience, to disregard the strict requirements of law where it finds that those requirements cannot justly be applied in a particular case.
David L. Bazelon
#43. They feel guilty for having survived so they pretend the bad things never happened
Exodus (1960) screenplay
Dalton Trumbo
#44. Envy is a sign of insecurity, yes; but so is longing to be envied.
Criss Jami
#45. 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
#46. The ego with its protective defense mechanisms is the biggest impediment to attaining spiritual growth.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#47. I knew her well enough to understand that when Delia pushed you away, it was her way of making sure she didn't get shoved first.
Jodi Picoult
#49. I was persisting in reading my present environment in the light of my old one.
Richard Wright
#50. We think that boxes take everything that's bad and they lock all that nasty stuff out, when in reality they take everything that we are and they lock all of those great things in.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
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