Protecting Ourselves Quotes

• The more clearly we recognize how deep our commitment to self-protection operates in our relational style and the more courageously we face the ugliness of protecting ourselves rather than loving others, the more we'll shift our direction.

  Larry Crabb

  Commitment, Self, Style

  59 Copy quote

• Most of us spend our lives protecting ourselves from losses that have already happened.

  Geneen Roth

  Loss, Happened, Our Lives

  Twitter post from Jun 25, 2012

  41 Copy quote

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• We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

  Pema Chodron

  Truth, Fear, Heart

  65 Copy quote

• Take it slowly. The deepest resentments are wrapped up in a lot of hurt and pain. We think we're protecting ourselves by not forgiving. Acknowledge that and go easy on yourself. Forgiveness means that you've decided not to let it keep festering inside even if it only comes up once in awhile. Forgiveness is a powerful yet challenging tool that will support and honor you, even in the most extreme circumstances.

  Howard Martin

  Forgiveness, Hurt, Pain

  8 Copy quote

• And often enough, when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Struggle, Thinking, Enough

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.154, Macmillan

  11 Copy quote

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• If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Enemy, Plot, Violence

  26 Copy quote

• The very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately institute, in advance of the happening of various contingencies and emergencies of life, devices for detecting their approach and registering their nature, for warding off what is unfavorable or at least for protecting ourselves from its full impact.

  Dale Jamieson

  Impact, Essence, Culture

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

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• Restricted immigration is not an offensive but purely a defensive action. It is not adopted in criticism of others in the slightest degree, but solely for the purpose of protecting ourselves. We cast no aspersions on any race or creed, but we must remember that every object of our institutions of society and government will fail unless America be kept American.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Race, Government, America

  138 Copy quote

• You can't substitute promise after promise with known violators of prior promises at the expense of protecting ourselves or setting an example.

  Fred Thompson

  Promise, Example, Substitutes

  14 Copy quote

• There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Reading, Heart, Law

  292 Copy quote

• In terms of protecting ourselves, the main issues are around how do we protect our borders [from illegal migrants and livestock and plant diseases], how do we protect our fisheries?

  Helen Clark

  Issues, Migrants, Borders

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes when we think we’re protecting ourselves, we’re really hurting ourselves. And sometimes the people around us too.

  Dale Peck

  Hurt, Thinking, People

  Dale Peck (2010). “Sprout”, p.228, Bloomsbury Publishing

  5 Copy quote

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• The idea is that for ten minutes, we forget that we have feelings. And we forget about protecting ourselves or other people and we just say the truth. For ten minutes. And then we can go back to being lame.

  John Green

  Ideas, People, Feelings

  John Green, David Levithan (2010). “Will Grayson, Will Grayson”, p.84, Penguin

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• Many of us have unconsciously erected barriers to protect ourselves from failing or succeeding. We may think we're protecting ourselves by denying our creative impulses, but all we're doing is burying our authentic selves alive.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Thinking, Self, Creative

  4 Copy quote

• Because the state can no longer protect us from crime, it wants to take away from us the means of protecting ourselves. This is the logic of gun control.

  Joseph Sobran

  Mean, Gun, Political

  53 Copy quote