Top 1200 Defense Mechanism Quotes & Sayings

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.

A big part of becoming a funny person was a major defense mechanism. Onstage, especially as a woman, I've had to be really tough. The second you show a crack, the audience can literally leave.

Black people in America have to, for their own protection, develop a defense mechanism, and I just grew terribly tired of it.

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.

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.

Fashion has always been my defense mechanism.

I trust the regulatory mechanism; it is a fair and independent mechanism, and the politicians and government do not interfere with the regulators.

I've never known a Philadelphian who wasn't a downright 'character'; possibly a defense mechanism resulting from the dullness of their native habitat.

Ultimately, the naming of buildings is not a mechanism by which history is kept alive. It is a mechanism by which the rich and the powerful are honoured.

Let us hope our weapons are never needed - but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny.

The purpose of the UN mechanism, this inspection mechanism, is not to engage in a cat and mouse game with Saddam Hussein and try to find weapons that the Iraqi government is working on concealing.

Nine times out of 10, criticism is a defense mechanism. We criticize in others what we don't like in ourselves.

[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.

Most people don't see themselves as sitting on that bottom rung as a defense mechanism. The more they blame poor people for their poverty, the further they feel from being in the same place. Even the working poor who qualify for food, childcare and housing benefits don't see themselves as such.

There's hardly any precedent for a guy like me to have the career that I've had. Because I grew up the way I grew up, I'm an in-your-face kind of guy. I developed that as a defense mechanism to survive in the streets. I do that in Hollywood in the service of my passion.

Humor is his defense mechanism, so that would allow me to talk about some serious subjects, but get a lot of hilarious jokes in.

When you're walking at the airport, you're expected to smile at people because they know you... I find that tough. I'm only trying to protect myself. So I don't take my eyes off the floor. People can take that as attitude. But it's actually shyness. Yes, it is a bad habit. But it's a defense mechanism.

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.

A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.

Humor was also a defense mechanism from getting picked on at school. If I could be funny maybe people wouldn't bother me.

What postmodernism gives us instead is a multicultural defense for male violence - a defense for it wherever it is, which in effect is a pretty universal defense.

To promote the process of European integration, we must improve an institutional mechanism already existing in the European Union, reinforced co-operation, by making it more flexible and effective. This approach allows a few states to move faster and further... We are all aware that this mechanism is vital.

With comedy, a lot of people develop their sense of humor as a defense mechanism.

Without comedy as a defense mechanism I wouldn't be able to survive.

I would make people who bullied me laugh, so that's my defense mechanism.

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.

We often engage the defense mechanism of tunnel vision, just to keep ourselves focused on our daily lives. This makes us terribly jaded in our perception of what is really around us.

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.

That we can now think of no mechanism for astrology is relevant but unconvincing. No mechanism was known, for example, for continental drift when it was proposed by Wegener. Nevertheless, we see that Wegener was right, and those who objected on the grounds of unavailable mechanism were wrong.

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

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.

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.

In L.A., we have a saying - 'What do you do?' It's less of a question and more of a self-defense mechanism for wayward screenwriters looking to slip you a first draft, or the occasional actor looking to get in on the latest shoot. But I hate the question because of my own answer - I write about games.

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.

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.

The criminal defense attorney is misunderstood if not despised by most of society. It doesn't matter if we believe in our adversarial system and the ideal that everyone charged with a crime is entitled to a vigorous defense. Ideals give away to reality - defense lawyers working loopholes and angles to get their clients off.

In Ronald Reagan's chaotic childhood, the imagination was armor. There is nothing unusual about that; transcending the doubts, hesitations, and fears swirling around you by casting yourself internally as the hero of your own adventure story is a characteristic psychic defense mechanism of the Boy Who Disappears.

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.

As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It's conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.

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.

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.

God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.

A lot of the turning points happen in high school and in college, and it defines a lot of how you see the world and how you decide to defend yourself from the world. Some people - their defense mechanism is, I'm really smart or I'm sexy or I'm the leader. And other people - they hide or they make jokes.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

I was the fat kid, so as a defense mechanism, I was the jokester.

As the name of the agency suggests, 'Department of Defense,' the defense refers to the United States of America - not the defense of South Korea, not the defense of Ukraine, not the defense of Syria or Germany.

..but 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.

I used to be someone who would not even tread on an ant. But this is a war for honor and self-defense. A 100 percent elimination policy (by Ankara of the Kurds) has forced me to defense and it has become a glorious defense of a people.

If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.

Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me.".

This Creative Mechanism within you is impersonal. It will work automatically and impersonally to achieve goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure, depending upon the goals which you yourself set for it. Present it with success goals and it functions as a Success Mechanism. Present it with negative goals, and it operates just as impersonally, and just as faithfully as a Failure Mechanism.

Does any woman really just come in and say, 'I'm a plus-size woman?' Maybe as a defense mechanism or maybe as a way to kind of cope with fitting into society but... I just think it's divisive.

Any mechanism that will ensure benefits to consumer, any mechanism that will ensure that we do not waste food grains, any mechanism that helps the poorest of the poor is a welcome step.

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.

I’m instantly mortified by my fat, uncontrollable mouth, but that’s when it occurs to me that my humor is a self-defense mechanism. Even though I may come off like a stark raving asshat, being funny is the most important tool I have to stay sane. The ability to say what I think is the key to allowing me to feel in control.

Lying is not only a defense mechanism; it's also a coping mechanism and a survival technique.

My mental approach is totally different. My coach predicated everything on defense. He always talked about defense, defense, defense. I took it to heart that if you play defense, you can take the heart from an offensive player.

The masks we wear are simply veils that we have chosen to hide behind in order to get our way, or to demonstrate how we are reacting to the powers and forces that seem to influence us from the external world. They are part of our self image, and in some cases the mask is nothing more than a protective device, a defense mechanism.

Food is sort of like the Jewish sense of humor, a defense mechanism. It is one of the things that helped the Jews survive through 2,000 years of an often very harsh Diaspora.

I was actually pretty shy in school. My defense mechanism was to be the class clown. I remember getting into a lot of trouble for being disruptive, and I was brought in front of the headteacher, who said: 'What's going to happen to you; what are you going to do when you grow up?' and I said: 'Well, I'm obviously going to be a comedian.'