Self Defence Quotes:

Self-defence, self-confidence, discipline and self control. The values you learn are priceless.

- Rickson Gracie

topic: Art, Self Confidence, Discipline, Self Defence

I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.

- Malcolm X

source: Spike Lee, Ralph Wiley, Malcolm X (1992). “By any means necessary: the trials and tribulations of the making of Malcolm X”, Hyperion Books

topic: Self, Defense, Violence, Self Defence

We need to teach our children how to debate the major life issues. Debate strengthens their beliefs and enables them to defend themselves against ideologies that are going to come their way.

- Jim Rohn

source: Source: www.premiumtimesng.com

topic: Children, Issues, Needs, Self Defence

Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order...

- Thomas Paine

topic: Gun, Order, Law, Patriotic Gun, Militia

If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim.

- Jeff Cooper

source: Jeff Cooper (2006). “Principles of Personal Defense: Revised Edition”, p.44, Paladin Press

topic: Judging, Police, Doe, Shooter, Violent Crimes

The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.

- Thomas Paine

topic: Strong, Gun, Balance, Pro Gun, Balance Of Power

Nonviolence becomes meaningless if violence is permitted for self-defence.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: Mahatma Gandhi (1949). “Communal Unity”

topic: Self, Violence, Defence, Self Defence

Humour has always been a self-defence mechanism for me.

- Brooke Shields

source: "Brooke Shields: My family values" by Elaine Lipworth, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2010.

topic: Self, Humour, Defence, Defence Mechanism, Self Defence

No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.

- Thomas B. Macaulay

topic: Peace, War, Hate, Lenient, Self Defence

I always make it a rule to let the other fellow fire first. If a man wants to fight, I argue the question with him and try to show him how foolish it would be. If he can't be dissuaded, why then the fun begins but I always let him have first crack. Then when I fire, you see, I have the verdict of self-defence on my side. I know that he is pretty certain in his hurry, to miss. I never do.

- Ben Thompson

topic: Fun, Fighting, Men, Self Defence

By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

source: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.92, SCM Press

topic: Christian, Jesus, Self, Self Defence

Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.

- Susan Sontag

topic: Lying, Simple, Self, Self Defence

Legitimate steps of self-defence which Israel takes in its war against Palestinian terror - actions which any sovereign state is obligated to undertake to ensure the security of its citizens - are presented by those who hate Israel as aggressive, Nazi-like steps.

- Ariel Sharon

topic: War, Hate, Self, Self Defence

A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.

- Steven Pinker

topic: Government, Self, People, Court System, Hotheads

Doesn't the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft? In self defence, anything goes.

- Imelda Marcos

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Fighting, Self, Survival, Self Defence

The United Nations charter gives every nation the right to self defence, therefore when the American embassies were bombed it was a matter of time before the Americans responded by going for what they suspected were the causes of the attack.

- Benazir Bhutto

topic: Self, Giving, Matter, Charter, Self Defence

The strength to kill is not essential for self-defense; one ought to have the strength to die. When a man is fully ready to die, he will not even desire to offer violence. Indeed, I may put it down as a self-evident proposition that the desire to kill is in inverse proportion to the desire to die. And history is replete with instances of men who by dying with courage and compassion on their lips converted the hearts of their violent opponents.

- Mahatma Gandhi

topic: Heart, Men, Compassion, Ready To Die, Self Defence

Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.

- Alexander McCall Smith

source: FaceBook post by Alexander McCall Smith from Dec 12, 2016

topic: Daughter, Mother, Running, Self Defence

At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' - if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

topic: Religious, Believe, Men, Religious Persecution, Self Defence

If she and Sam ever had kids, they'd be gluten-intolerant out of self-defence.

- Maggie Stiefvater

source: Maggie Stiefvater (2014). “Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)”, p.1006, Scholastic UK

topic: Kids, Self, Gluten, Self Defence

I can't bear to be on a train without a book", she announced. " It's a form of self-defence in a way" .

- John Boyne

topic: Book, Self, Bears, Self Defence

All knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost, in self defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature.

- Charles Dickens

source: Charles Dickens (2006). “Martin Chuzzlewit: Easyread Edition”, p.423, ReadHowYouWant.com

topic: Funny, Morning, Food, Self Defence

It would have been very alarming - morally, and in other ways too - if an attack of that nature, the 11 September attacks, had not aroused in us and in our governments and societies the spirit of self-defence. If that had not been one of the responses it seems to me there would have been very grave cause for concern.

- Christopher Hitchens

topic: Self Defence

Whether it is under the guise of survival and self-defence or directly expressed through dominion and greed, the failure to recognize the common humanity shared by us all lies at the heart of our difficulties. To overcome it, we should begin to develop, from the level of the individual through that of society to the world at large, what I call a sense of universal responsibility; a deep respect for every living being who lives on this one small planet and calls it home.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Self Defence

I would, therefore, say that for no reason whatsoever, except in self-defense, should one think of killing any animal.

- Morarji Desai

source: "19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967". The British Vegetarian, ivu.org. March/April 1968.

topic: Animal, Thinking, Self, Self Defence

Should we choose to extend our airstrikes into Syria, we will be doing this in the collective self-defence of Iraq. We would be doing this out of a responsibility to protect innocent people at risk of horrible death from the most violent people imaginable.

- Tony Abbott

source: "Tony Abbott signals extending military campaign to Syria - politics live" by Katharine Murphy, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2015.

topic: Responsibility, Iraq, Self, Responsibility To Protect, Self Defence

Individual civil disobedience was everybody's inherent right, like the right of self-defence in normal life.

- Mahatma Gandhi

topic: Self, Normal, Individual, Self Defence

All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new art foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: "Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men." He would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: "The man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband." He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: "Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

topic: Art, Husband, War, Self Defence

War is never lenient but where it is wanton; where men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge. This may be bad, but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hands of the Potter.

- Thomas B. Macaulay

topic: War, Hate, Fighting, Wanton, Lenient

In their pure form, the martial arts demand the intense awareness of the meditative mind, and have nothing to do with anger or wanton aggression. A practitioner is taught from the outset that the skills must never be used for personal gain, but only in self-defence or in the protection of others -- and even then only enough force as is absolutely necessary should be used.

- David Fontana

topic: Art, Skills, Self, Wanton, Personal Gain

The academic mind, as we know, is sometimes capable of assuming an aggressive attitude. The official mind, on the contrary, is and has to be, expert in the art of self-defence.

- Ronald Fisher

source: Presidential address to the First Indian Statistical Congress, 1938.

topic: Self Defence

For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.

- Margaret Thatcher

topic: Self, World, Weapons, Idealistic, Free World

[Somali maritime violence] is a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia's water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalia children's food.

- Muammar al-Gaddafi

source: "Gaddafi defends Somali pirates" by Argaw Ahine, www.nation.co.ke. February 5, 2009.

topic: Children, Self, Water, Somali, Maritime