Defeating Quotes

One of the things I would immediately do [as Commander in Chief ], in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class - Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President [Barack] Obama things that he didn't want to hear. ~ Carly Fiorina

Imagine the word CANCEL being a huge rubber stamp in your mind. Stamp CANCEL on any self-defeating image you place in your head, and begin to think in a self-enhancing way. ~ Wayne Dyer

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Retarding the aging process would be therapy and enhancement because it would mean defeating diseases and because it would extend our life span. ~ Gregory Stock

That tried and true aphorism:
Each day is precious. Each day is a gift. If we don't open the wrapping carefully, we might break it and have to return it to the store. And then they're going to ask for a receipt and throw a total shit fit if we've left it at home, and we'll have to call the manager over and give him a good talking-to, and of course eventually he'll relent and tell the clerk to give us full credit, but by then we'll be so upset that we've wasted an hour of our time that we'll end up with a migraine and having to spend the rest of the day in bed, completely defeating the whole idea that each day is supposed to be precious and so forth. ~ Eric Garcia

Paradoxically, the United States' determination to protect its troops can be self-defeating. Allies and adversaries see U.S. forces living in secure compounds, eating fancy chow and minimizing their exposure to potential terrorist assaults. ~ David Ignatius

Replace your self-defeating thoughts with self-supporting thoughts. ~ Deepak Chopra

Some of the streets are, however, genuinely narrow. These same streets may not be filled with machine-gun fire and the dramatic screech of violins, but they overflow with the invisible and innumerable longings of the human heart. Love continues to minister here, but betrayal still wears its perfidious face, hatred hollows out the weak man's breast, revenge pursues its self-defeating course; and the unfulfilled dreams of the multitude haunt the island like so many hungry ghosts. ~ John Dolan

Sitting with a bunch of adults and arguing about what's going to be most effective for kids is just sort of self-defeating. ~ Jake Barton

Blame is such a self-defeating choice. It renders one helpless, putting any solution well out of reach, for we rarely can change others. Consider this, a solution well within your reach, someone you can surely change: Yourself. ~ Russell Kyle

Before facing and defeating a giant wave, no captain is a captain! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Use your pen to set the world on fire.
Words ignite light, defeating darkness. ~ Deanna Marano Ramirez

Hollywood continues to present the U.S. Army as being the good guys, always defeating the aliens or foreigners. ~ Hideo Kojima

Atreyu was fighting not for himself, but for his friend, whom he was trying to save by defeating him. ~ Michael Ende

5.4 The question of accumulation. If life is a wager, what form does it take? At the racetrack, an accumulator is a bet which rolls on profits from the success of one of the horse to engross the stake on the next one.
5.5 So a) To what extent might human relationships be expressed in a mathematical or logical formula? And b) If so, what signs might be placed between the integers?Plus and minus, self-evidently; sometimes multiplication, and yes, division. But these sings are limited. Thus an entirely failed relationship might be expressed in terms of both loss/minus and division/ reduction, showing a total of zero; whereas an entirely successful one can be represented by both addition and multiplication. But what of most relationships? Do they not require to be expressed in notations which are logically improbable and mathematically insoluble?
5.6 Thus how might you express an accumulation containing the integers b, b, a (to the first), a (to the second), s, v?
B = s - v (*/+) a (to the first)
Or
a (to the second) + v + a (to the first) x s = b
5.7 Or is that the wrong way to put the question and express the accumulation? Is the application of logic to the human condition in and of itself self-defeating? What becomes of a chain of argument when the links are made of different metals, each with a separate frangibility?
5.8 Or is "link" a false metaphor?
5.9 But allowing that is not, if a link breaks, wherein lies the responsibility for ~ Julian Barnes

People who self-handicap purposely shoot themselves in the foot in order to protect themselves from having to confront their possible shortcomings. Many self-handicapping behaviors are those small, subtle bad habits like being late, gossiping, micromanaging, behaving passive-aggressively, or being a perfectionist. We may not recognize these self-defeating--and self-handicapping--traits for what they are. Or we may even wrongly perceive them as strengths. But in truth, they often get in the way of us blooming. ~ Rich Karlgaard

There is something that can happen to every athlete and every human being; the instinct to slack off, to give in to pain, to give less than your best; the instinct to hope you can win through luck or through your opponent not doing his best, instead of going to the limit and past your limit where victory is always found. Defeating those negative instincts that are out to defeat us, is the difference between winning and losing - and we all face that battle every day. ~ Jesse Owens

Every religion holds forth the promise of either defeating time, escaping time, overcoming time, reissuing time, or denying time altogether. We use our religions as vehicles to enter the state of nirvana, the heavenly kingdom, or the promised land. We come to believe in reincarnation, rebirth, and resurrection as ways of avoiding the inevitability of biological death. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

The enduring responsibility of the United States Air Force is to provide strategic deterrence for the Nation and fly, fight and win as an integral part of the Joint Team. Together with our brothers and sisters in arms, we underwrite the national strategy of defending the Homeland and assuring allies, while dissuading, deterring and defeating enemies. ~ Norton A. Schwartz

There is nothing more foolish or self-defeating than for a Christian to say that he is not interested in doctrines. ~ David Lloyd-Jones

And the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty." "She was," said Meera, "but that's a sadder story. ~ George R R Martin

In his law-fulfilling life, curse-bearing death, and death-defeating resurrection, Jesus has entirely accomplished for sinners what sinners could never in the least do for themselves. The banner under which the Christian lives reads, It is finished. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

We need to cultivate in our own hearts the same hatred of sin God has. Hatred of sin as sin, not just as something disquieting or defeating to ourselves, but as displeasing to God, lies at the root of all true holiness. ~ Jerry Bridges

Inside every woman, is a crazy girl. And we all know what I'm talking about. That part of you that is entangled with insecurities, fears, and absolute insanity! The art of femininity lies in the molding, pounding, and defeating of that crazy girl on a daily basis! Look at any woman, and you're looking at a woman fighting a daily battle, wielding her weapons in war, every day! I have said it before and I'll say it again: it is never easy being a woman! And if we could only pound that crazy, insecure girl out of ourselves, it would make such the difference! ~ C. JoyBell C.

There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won. ~ Will Durant

We must understand how we responded to formative trauma and how that response is perpetuated today. Otherwise, we will remain stuck in self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, all the while blaming them on someone else. ~ Russell Willingham

All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied. ~ Vernon Howard

I feel as if it were not for me to record, even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine, how hard I worked at that tremendous short-hand, and all improvement appertaining to it, in my sense of responsibility to Dora and her aunts. I will only add, to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. Heaven knows I write this, in no spirit of self-laudation. The man who reviews his own life, as I do mine, in going on here, from page to page, had need to have been a good man indeed, if he would be spared the sharp consciousness of many talents neglected, many opportunities wasted, many erratic and perverted feelings constantly at war within his breast, and defeating him. I do not hold one natural gift, I dare say, that I have not abused. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that ~ Charles Dickens

There are about 15 million Muslims in the EU. They face ignorance, insult and even persecution. They cannot be wished away. To impose Enlightenment freedoms is self-defeating. Anyway, the Muslims have their own enlightenment. ~ James Buchan

Success - is not about defeating others; but about defeating oneself ~ Ashok Kallarakkal

It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

It is a visual temper tantrum. You are making an ineffective statement about this and that, a grotesque, self-defeating mockery of cultural standards of beauty, societal misogyny. It is a blow to your parents, at whom you are pissed. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Our imagination is so limited, our arsenal of potential responses so narrow, that the only thing anyone can think to do with an inappropriate shamer like Adria is to punish her with a shaming. All of the shamers had themselves come from a place of shame, and it really felt parochial and self-defeating to instinctively slap shame onto shame like a clumsy builder covering cracks. ~ Jon Ronson

The good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy. ~ Sun Tzu

For man is a symbol-making animal. He constructs a symbolic model of outer reality in his brain, and expresses it by a second set of symbols in terms of words, equations, pigment, or stone. All he knows directly are bodily sensations, and all he can directly do is to perform bodily motions; the rest of his knowledge and means of expression is symbolical. To use a phrase coined by J. Cohen, man has a metaphorical consciousness. Any attempt to get a direct grasp at naked reality is self-defeating; Urania, too, like the other muses, always has a last veil left to fold in. ~ Arthur Koestler

One is not a great one because one defeats or harms other living beings. One is so called because one refrains from defeating or harming other living beings. ~ Gautama Buddha

We don't have a prayer of defeating the Red Threat of our generation without a long boom of almost unprecedented duration. ~ Mitch Daniels

In opposing Communism, we are defeating ourselves if we use methods that do not conform to the American sense of justice. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

We need to be focused on defeating radical Islamic terrorists. ~ Ted Cruz

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn. ~ Carol S. Dweck

A lot of our Democratic consultants have fallen into the self-defeating prescription that the candidate that runs the most negative ads wins. I have a new theory: Positive is the new negative. ~ Martin O'Malley

The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity. ~ Columbus Short

I feel that non-violence is really the only way that we can follow because violence is just so self-defeating. A riot ends up creating many more problems for the negro community than it solved. We can through violence burn down a building, but you can't establish justice. You can murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder through violence. You can murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. And what we're trying to get rid of is hate, injustice, and all of these other things that continue the long night of man's inhumanity to man. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Defeating ISIS. If we do not defeat them abroad, we will be facing more and more of a threat at home. This does not require an occupation or an enduring ground operation. ~ Lee Zeldin

Defeating racism, tribalism, intolerance and all forms of discrimination will liberate us all, victim and perpetrator alike. ~ Ban Ki-moon

The only benefit a woman can have in talking too much is defeating a man who troubles her too much. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

There's no magic to the phrase radical Islam. It's a political talking point. It's not a strategy. And the reason I am careful about how I describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism. Groups like ISIL and al-Qaeda want to make this war a war between Islam and America or between Islam and the west. They want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion Muslims around the world who reject their crazy notions. They want us to validate them by implying that they speak for those billion plus people. That they speak for Islam. That's their propaganda. That's how they recruit. And if we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims with a broad brush and imply that we are at war with an entire religion, then we are doing the terrorist's work for them. ~ Barack Obama

Defeating death is the best skill of all. ~ Toba Beta

It can be seen, then, that a public debate on the issue of the Nakbah, whether conducted in Israel itself or in the United States, its imperial protector, could open up questions concerning the moral legitimacy of the Zionist project as a whole. The mechanism of denial, therefore, was crucial, not only for defeating the counter-claims made by Palestinians in the peace process, but, far more importantly, for disallowing any significant debate on the very essence and moral foundations of Zionism. ~ Noam Chomsky

I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals ... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Nahri rose to her feet. "We need to retrieve Suleiman's seal," she declared. "It's our only hope of defeating them." She glanced down at Ali, reaching out her hand. "Are you with me?"
Ali took a deep breath but then clasped her hand and climbed to his feet. "Until the end. ~ S.A. Chakraborty

You do not change people's minds by defeating them with logic. ~ Herbert A. Simon

The civil involvement of the church is a spiritual tactic aim at defeating the forces of darkness. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Q5. Have not I merely shown that it is possible to outdo just a particular algorithmic procedure, A, by defeating it with the computation Cq(n)? Why does this show that I can do better than any A whatsoever?

The argument certainly does show that we can do better than any algorithm. This is the whole point of a reductio ad absurdum argument of this kind that I have used here. I think that an analogy might be helpful here. Some readers will know of Euclid's argument that there is no largest prime number. This, also, is a reductio ad absurdum. Euclid's argument is as follows. Suppose, on the contrary, that there is a largest prime; call it p. Now consider the product N of all the primes up to p and add 1:

N=2*3*5*...*p+1.

N is certainly larger than p, but it cannot be divisible by any of the prime numbers 2,3,5...,p (since it leaves the remainder 1 on division); so either N is the required prime itself or it is composite-in which case it is divisible by a prime larger than p. Either way, there would have to be a prime larger than p, which contradicts the initial assumption that p is the largest prime. Hence there is no largest prime. The argument, being a reductio ad absurdum, does not merely show that a particular prime p can be defeated by finding a larger one; it shows that there cannot be any largest prime at all. Likewise, the Godel-Turing argument above does not merely show that a particular algorithm A can be defeated, it shows that there ~ Roger Penrose

When I think of the farm, I think of mud. Limning my husband's fingernails and encrusting the children's knees and hair. Sucking at my feet like a greedy newborn on the breast. Marching in boot-shaped patched across the plank floors of the house. There was no defeating it. The mud coated everything. I dreamed in brown. When it rained, as it often did, the yard turned into a thick gumbo, with the house floating in it like a soggy cracker. ~ Hillary Jordan

For example, if you are fearful your mind will freeze, motion will be stopped and you will be defeated. If your mind is fixed on victory or defeating your opponent, you will be unable to function automatically. ~ Joe Hyams

Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance. ~ Albert Ellis

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. ~ Henry George

The body, then, is one's animal fate that has to be struggled against in some ways. At the same time, it offers experiences and sensations, concrete pleasure that the inner symbolic world lacks. No wonder man is impaled on the horns of sexual problems, why Freud saw that sex was so prominent in human life-especially in the neurotic conflicts of his patients. Sex is an inevitable component of man's confusion over the meaning of his life, a meaning split hopelessly into two realms-symbols (freedom) and body (fate). No wonder, too, that most of us never abandon entirely the early attempts of the child to use the body and its appendages as a fortress or a machine to magically coerce the world. We try to get metaphysical answers out of the body that the body-as a material thing-cannot possibly give. We try to answer the transcendent mystery of creation by experiences in one, partial, physical product of that creation. This is why the mystique of sex is so widely practiced-say, in traditional France-and at the same time is so disillusioning. It is comfortingly infantile in its indulgence and its pleasure, yet so self-defeating of real awareness and growth, if the person is using it to try to answer metaphysical questions. It then becomes a lie about reality, a screen against full consciousness. If the adult reduces the problem of life to the area of sexuality, he repeats the fetishization of the child who focuses the problem of the mother upon her genitals. Sex then becomes a scree ~ Ernest Becker

Here's a payoff for everyone. The reason we hang on to self-defeating behaviors is because it's easier not to take responsibility. ~ Wayne Dyer

In defeating terror, Israel's cause is our cause. ~ Hillary Clinton

Don?t make decisions in anger or humiliate an enemy after defeating him ... ~ Saddam Hussein

It is a principle of the art of war that one should simply lay down his life and strike. If one's opponent also does the same, it is a even match. Defeating one's opponent is then a matter of faith and destiny. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Secretary Rumsfeld used to represent parts of our district in the 1960s. I think that he and his team have done a masterful job in defeating Iraqi forces quickly and decisively. ~ Mark Kirk

There's a real danger when people get distracted by peripheral issues. They get distracted by democracy building. They get distracted about military conflicts. We need to focus on defeating jihadism. ~ Ted Cruz

I think our challenge as parents is to rise above that preference for the child of least resistance and to think beyond short-term success as a criterion - particularly if success is defined by conventional and insipid standards. Don't we want our kids to be inspiring rather than spend their lives just collecting tokens (grades, money, approval)? Don't we want them to think in the plural rather than focusing only on what will benefit them personally? Don't we want them to appraise traditions with fresh eyes and raise questions about what seems silly or self-defeating or oppressive, rather than doing what has always been done just because it's always been done? ~ Alfie Kohn

We begin the path toward defeating Mexico's real adversary, who represents authoritarianism and the worst antidemocratic practice, who represents a return to corruption as a system and impunity as conviction. That adversary is Pena Nieto and his party. ~ Josefina Vazquez Mota

Heaven would be a comfy armchair ... .You'd get a great, private phonograph, and all of eternity to listen to your life's melody. You could isolate your one life out of the cacophonous galaxy - the a cappella version - or you could play it back with its accompaniment, embedded in the brass and strings of mothers, fathers, sisters, windfalls and failures, percussion cities of strangers. You could play it forward or backward, back and back, and listen to the future of your past. You could lift the needle at whim, defeating Time. ~ Karen Russell

I will say little more. Cugel, you have small acquaintance with the trade, but I take it as a good sign that you have come to me for training, since my nethods are not soft. You will learn or you will drown, or suffer a blow of the flukes, or worse, incur my displeasure. But you have started well and I will teach you well. Never think me harsh, or over-bearing; you will be in self-defeating error! I am stern, yes, even severe, but in the end, when I acknowledge you a worminger, you will thank me."
"Good news indeed," muttered Cugel ~ Jack Vance

Excuses are contagious, self-defeating bad habits. Where ~ Tommy Newberry

There is nothing worth having that can be obtained by nuclear war - nothing material or ideological - no tradition that it can defend. It is utterly self-defeating. ~ George Wald

Healthy communication and an unconditional environment can prove the greatest asset to defeating at-risk behaviors. ~ Asa Don Brown

No more self-defeating device could be discovered than the one society has developed in dealing with the criminal. It proclaims his career in such loud and dramatic forms that both he and the community accept the judgment as a fixed description. He becomes conscious of himself as a criminal, and the community expects him to live up to his reputation, and will not credit him if he does not live up to it. ~ Frank Tannenbaum

The true object of religion is to bind mankind together, and to bind them all to God. If we see that in the name of religion, men, instead of promoting peace on earth and good-will among men, are trying to show their antagonism and animosity towards each other, then certainly we must stand forward with our voice of protest, and say that religion is defeating its own legitimate object. ~ Keshub Chandra Sen

Of course, it was Iris who'd actually exposed the traitor. He could tell Lulu, but Iris was just a young hothead with no sense for politics. She wasn't suited for Quentin's position; really, he was doing her a favor, saving her from future embarrassment when she couldn't handle the responsibility. And if defeating Quentin had been his test, surely this was his reward. He could always award Iris an extra banana allowance once he was officially made chancellor - he wasn't heartless. Hex bowed politely. "Your Majesty, I'm honored. I'll certainly consider your offer." She nodded and tossed the banana peel over her shoulder; a guard hurried forward to catch it. "Now," she said, "I must attend to my people." With that, she swept out the door, a scatter of rhinestones sparkling in her wake and the guard trailing behind her. ~ Danielle Paige

I found not being able to use a pen or pencil as defeating as the loss of her beak would be to a hen. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

When cancer first came into my life, people all around me treated it as the enemy. I was told I had to join the medical team and we'd fight together to defeat it. This was the wrong thing to say to someone who was the last one to be picked for any team. I was much happier sitting on the sidelines and encouraging the other players. I was totally unskilled at defeating anything. So I secretly went my own way and decided that I was free to choose the meaning of the healing experience. I decided I would develop a friendly relationship with the cancer, which was something I was good at. ~ Dawna Markova

One of Satan's most deceptive and powerful ways of defeating us is to get us to believe a lie. And the biggest lie is that there are no consequences to our own doing. Satan will give you whatever you ask for if it will lead you where he ultimately wants you. ~ Charles Stanley

Your greatest contribution to God's Kingdom work - and to defeating the Enemy's efforts against this Kingdom - is to keep up your daily devotions; live a clean, honest, humble, Spirit-filled life; trust God to guard and protect you morally, physically, and spiritually; and openly witness for Jesus Christ. Don't be a pawn of the devil, but a servant of Christ. ~ Billy Graham

When I heard the ghouls coming for you, all I cared about was reaching you in time. How often must I tell you that you mean more to me than vengeance? I can live without defeating my enemies, but I cannot live without you. ~ Jeaniene Frost

I believe most evangelicals know that defeating Obama is at heart of our country's future. ~ Newt Gingrich

Ingenuity and creativity, even for a defeating case of two steps forward and one backward, applied strategically can covert a loss into gain. ~ Priyavrat Thareja

The Bible is the weapon which enables us to join with our Lord on the offensive in defeating the spiritual hosts of wickedness. But is must be the Bible as the Word of God in everything it teaches- in matters if salvation, but just as much where it speaks of history and science and morality. If we compromise in any if these areas ... we destroy the power of the Word and ourselves in the hands of the enemy. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure. ~ Max Eastman

Today, to allege corruption seems to be the pastime of most people. All kinds of allegations are leveled. I think it is self-defeating. ~ P. Chidambaram

Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do. Have done with those unsettled pleasures, which cost one dear - they do one harm after they're past and gone, not merely when they're in prospect. Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light. ~ Seneca

The negative patterns that form as a result of this self defeating behaviour actually symbolize the negative belief that we nurture. ~ Stephen Richards

There are three creativities: creativity in technology, in product planning, and in marketing. To have any one of these without the others is self defeating in business. ~ Akio Morita

Reflecting on various aspects of our lives is essential for a person to grow and adjust to changing phases in their life. Self-analysis entails examining a person's existing level of self-esteem and documenting the inner voice that speaks to a person, which is frequently either affirming of self-defeating. Failure to periodically engage in self-analysis, make crucial revisions in our personas, and modify our thinking patterns when we encounter transformative events in life can lead to mood disorders, burnout, and other emotional maladies. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

But defeating one's enemies is only half the game; for a war to be truly justifiable one has to materially gain. ~ Scott Anderson

Fear is destructive and defeating, but faith is constructive and creative. ~ Seth Adam Smith

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating. ~ Peter Singer

It is wrong, and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that we have seen ... in recent years. There is too much of it, and we must do much more to stop it." "The fact is that employer sanctions have been in the law ... since 1986 but no prior administration has made a serious attempt to enforce them. ~ William J. Clinton

Travel has always been my way of defeating this sinking feeling, partly because travel is a form of escape, and travel itself - the elemental farewell - becomes the fugitive fantasy of a new life, travel inspiring a sense of hope. I ~ Paul Theroux

All we have to do is to receive what we are given ... We are given the naturalness to love someone, to be calm in crisis, to ignore self-defeating suggestions, to be pleasant, forgiving, tender, helpful, unworried, brave, energetic. ~ Vernon Howard

Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you're trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I'd never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs - expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both. ~ Stacey Abrams

Labeling yourself is not only self-defeating, it is irrational. Your self cannot be equated with any one thing you do. Your life is a complex and ever-changing flow of thoughts, emotions, and actions. To put it another way, you are more like a river than a statue. Stop trying to define yourself with negative labels - they ~ David D. Burns

Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul. ~ E. M. Forster

[Neurotic] pride is both so vulnerable and so precious that it also must be protected in the future. The neurotic may build an elaborate system of avoidances in the hope of circumventing future hurts. This too is a process that goes on automatically. He is not aware of wanting to avoid an activity because it might hurt his pride. He just avoids it, often without even being aware that he is. The process pertains to activities, to associations with people, and it may put a check on realistic strivings and efforts. If it is widespread it can actually cripple a person's life. He does not embark on any serious pursuits commensurate with his gifts lest he fail to be a brilliant success. He would like to write or to paint and does not dare to start. He does not dare to approach girls lest they reject him. [...] He withdraws from social contacts lest he be self-conscious. So, according to his economic status, he either does nothing worthwhile or sticks to a mediocre job and restricts his expenses rigidly. In more than one way he lives beneath his means. In the long run this makes it necessary for him to withdraw farther from others, because he cannot face the fact of lagging behind his age group and therefore shuns comparisons or questions from anybody about his work. In order to endure life he must now entrench himself more firmly in his private fantasy-world. But, since all these measures are more a camouflage than a remedy for his pride, he may start to cultivate his neuroses beca ~ Karen Horney

As a rule, people who classify art as "irrelevant" are trying to position themselves above the entity; it's a way of pretending they're more in step with contemporary culture than the artist himself, which is mostly a way of saying they can't find a tangible reason for disliking what something intends to embody. Moreover, the whole argument is self-defeating: If you classify something as "irrelevant," you're (obviously) using it as a unit of comparison against whatever is "relevant," so it (obviously) does have meaning and merit. Truly irrelevant art wouldn't even be part of the conversation. ~ Chuck Klosterman