Defensive Device Quotes

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?"
"It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else? ~ Theodore Sturgeon

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. ~ H.L. Mencken

Because of that she had never had enough energy to be herself, a person who, like everyone else in the world, needed other people in order to be happy. But other people were so difficult. They reacted in unpredictable ways, they surrounded themselves with defensive walls, they behaved just as she did, pretending they didn't care about anything. When someone more open to life appeared, they either rejected them outright or made them suffer, consigning them to being inferior, ingenuous. ~ Paulo Coelho

For if one were to suppose that the stars' motion takes place in a straight line towards infinity, as some people have thought, what device could one conceive of which would cause each of them to appear to begin their motion from the same starting-point every day? How could the stars turn back if their motion is towards infinity? Or, if they did turn back, how could this not be obvious? [On such a hypothesis], they must gradually diminish in size until they disappear, whereas, on the contrary, they are seen to be greater at the very moment of their disappearance, at which time they are gradually obstructed and cut off, as it were, by the earth's surface. ~ Michael J. Crowe

There are already cardiac pacemakers that can sense the beat of the human heart; only when there is the slightest hint of fibrillation does the pacemaker stimulate the heart. This is a mild but very useful sort of machine intelligence. I cannot imagine the wearer of this device resenting its intelligence. I ~ Carl Sagan

Real relationships happen in person not through a device. ~ Staci A. Welch-Bartley

Anxiety, in short, is a conscious feeling. It can arise in a bottom-up way, driven by activity in defensive circuits or from higher processes that conceptualize worry, either about an uncertain future or about existence itself. ~ Joseph E. Ledoux

Movement away from defensive destructiveness and towards greater social responsibility is a characteristic of this [actualising] tendency. The political implication of this position is that we do not need to be controlled by authority. We, individually and collectively, not only have the right to self-determination and group determination but, given the necessary conditions, can be trusted to use our power responsibly. ~ Rose Cameron

Like a lot of gym teachers, Coach Babcock loved to torture his students. He felt he had failed as a teacher if his students didn't cry out for mercy. He often bragged that he held the school district's record for causing the most hysterical breakdowns in one afternoon. He used such classic forms of torture as weight training, wrestling, long-distance running, rope climing, wind spirits, chin-ups, and the occasional game of wet dodgeball (the wet ball was superloud when it hit a kid, and it left a huge red welt). But his favorite device of torment was so horrible, so truly evil, that it would drive most children to the brink of madness. It was the square dance.
For six weeks of the school year, his students suffered through the Star Promenade, the Slip the Clutch, and the Ferris Wheel. As Babcock saw it, square dancing was the most embarrassing and uncomfortable form of dancing ever created, and a perfect way to prepare his students for the crushing heartbreak of life. Square dancing was a metaphor for like- you got swung around and just when you thought you were free, you got dragged back into the dance. He really thought he was doing the kids a favor. ~ Michael Buckley

If I reach behind my hair, just at the nape of my neck, I can feel it; the slight bump of the tiny electronic device that the men who invaded New Haven surgically implanted in me. Other chips were placed in the rest of the children stolen from the facility. As far as I can tell, they're a means of keeping tabs on us…and for most they're meant to neutralize the gifts we were born with.

What they meant to do and what they actually did, however, were far removed from each other. ~ Kimberly Gourgon

First, our focus on security is on the infrastructure itself. So it is all about how you protect the network, the device, and the application that is riding on the server. ~ John W. Thompson

The accumulated knowledge of materials, computing, electromagnetism, product design, and all the rest that we've learned over the last several centuries converts a few ounces of raw materials worth mere pennies into a device with more computing power than the entire planet possessed fifty years ago. ~ Ramez Naam

The question of whether a device will come into being depends upon three things: first, whether there is a practical use for it that warrants its development and manufacturing costs; second, whether the laws of physics applying to the elements available for its design allow the attainment of the needed ranges, sensitivities, or the like; and third, whether the pertinent art of manufacture has advanced sufficiently to allow a useful embodiment to be built successfully. ~ Vannevar Bush

With fandom, people are sensitive, and sometimes defensive, about their experiences. ~ Rainbow Rowell

He was as surprised as anyone when the excrement hit the cooling device. He ~ Stephen King

I'm starting to believe that part of the solution regarding the devices is that they have a role to play in engaging the customer and keeping our product in front of them during the pre-show. They certainly have a role to play in ticket sales. Inside the movie auditorium, though, during the feature presenation there's no place for them. Every single weekend two out of the top three reasons people contact us are: somebody's being disruptive, with a device most of the time, or a dirty bathroom. ~ Gerry Lopez

Think about technological float: it took centuries for the wheel to gain universal acceptance. Now any microchip device can be in use around the world in weeks. ~ Dee Hock

A suspicious person is the rival of him that deceives, both seem to practice a knowledge of cunning device, and equable sense of disengenuous merit. ~ Norm MacDonald

Mann was conscious of adopting different perspectives in different parts of the novella, but my guess is that there are plenty of passages in which the resonance of the words he chose struck him as exactly right (even though he didn't probe to discover exactly what tone or narrative device gave them that effect). ~ Philip Kitcher

Sometimes, by using the most over-the-top, ridiculous plot device you can imagine, you get some interesting little conflicts and cool things that you might not otherwise have a chance to explore. ~ G. Willow Wilson

If you have free trade and free circulation of
capital and people but destroy the social state and all forms of progressive taxation, the temptations of defensive nationalism and identity politics will very likely grow stronger than ever in both Europe and the United States. Note, finally, that the less developed countries will be among the primary beneficiaries of a more just and transparent international tax system. ~ Thomas Piketty

Behind Nicholas, Henry paces back and forth, with a large open book in his hands.
"Didn't we used to have a dungeon downstairs?" the blond prince asks his older brother.
"Could've sworn I found it when I was six or seven. Gave me nightmares for a week." He points at an image in the book and smiles manically. "That device looks like it hurts - we'll order two."
Huh. I thought I was just teasing Ellie about the dungeon. ~ Emma Chase

Thus the story of the facts has to reckon with filters, deferments, partial truths, half lies: from it comes an arduous measurement of time passed that is based completely on the unreliable measuring device of words. ~ Elena Ferrante

Every once in a while, someone would call me a foreigner or a Yankee, or whatever. In the United States, someone might say something, like how kids do, to point out that you're different. That would come as a surprise to me. As you get old, you either get defensive about it or you accept it and you reach out, because you realize the world's full of people like that. ~ Viggo Mortensen

There are days we all live with defensive thoughts in our mind. Without losing these thoughts we can't totally be ourselves, and enjoy life's freedom of the heart. ~ Ron Baratono

In experiments at Baylor University where people were given Coke and Pepsi in unmarked cups and then hooked up to a brain scanner, the device clearly showed a certain number of them preferred Pepsi while tasting it. When those people were told they were drinking Pepsi, a fraction of them, the ones who had enjoyed Coke all their lives, did something unexpected. The scanner showed their brains scrambling the pleasure signals, dampening them. They then told the experimenter afterward they had preferred Coke in the taste tests. ~ David McRaney

I'm with you on measuring this week in letters and the two-day drought we are about to experience. If only there was a way to transport letters faster, through some sort of electronic device that codes messages and sends them through the air. But that's just crazy talk.

Friday from me:

Sending letters through the sky? Like when airplanes attach notes to their tails? I thought they only advertised for going-out-of-business sales. But perhaps our letters would be okay up there as well. I wonder how much they charge per word. ~ Kasie West

You have to take into account it was the cell phone that became what the modern-day concept of a phone call is, and this is a device that's attached to your hip 24/7. Before that there was 'leave a message' and before that there was 'hopefully you're home.' ~ Giovanni Ribisi

Social media, like blogs, are truth-seeking technologies. In fact, the Internet itself is the greatest truth-generating device ever created. ~ Jason Calacanis

Allusion is lovely, and experience with other forms of writing brings the ability to use that device pervasively. This in turn sets high expectations for the reader- in that you are expecting him to pick up on it- and this is a way of respecting your readers. And when you respect your readers, they will come to respect you. ~ Douglas Wilson

I've been in love with you for weeks.'
There's no such thing,' she says. 'It's a rhetorical device. It's a bourgeois fallacy.'
Haven't you ever been in love, then?'
When I was younger,' she says, 'I allowed myself to be constructed by the discourse of romantic love for a while, yes.'
What the hell does that mean?'
We aren't essences, Vic. We aren't unique individual essences existing prior to language. There is only language. ~ David Lodge

I want to invent a Laughometer, a device to measure and gauge humor, which would be used for comedians. And politicians. ~ Jarod Kintz

Vanity is an expressionless stylistic device. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

When you are criticised don't ignore it, but don't get overpowered by it, and certainly there is no need to be defensive about it. Rather, wait for a while and then weigh up its merits and demerits, balance it out and chart out your approaches and actions to improve. That is the right way to handle criticism, as it demonstrate your emotional maturity and will enhance your self confidence. ~ Vishwas Chavan