75 Insightful Quotes from The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker is a masterpiece! Every woman should read it. I repeat, every woman should read it.This book has valuable information that can help you keep safe from rape and abusive men.If you have a teenage daughter make sure she reads it too.Don't worry,its not boring at all.

 Here are the quotes I Love:

True fear is a gift that signals us in the presence of danger; thus, it will be based upon something you perceive in your environment or your circumstance. Unwarranted fear or worry will always be based upon something in your imagination or your memory.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Listen to your intuition. I don’t know what might be best for you in some hazardous situation because I don’t have all the information, but you will have all the information.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

 

Can you imagine an animal reacting to the gift of fear the way some people do, with annoyance and disdain instead of attention? No animal in the wild suddenly overcome with fear would spend any of its mental energy thinking, “It’s probably nothing.”

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Whether it is learned the easy way or the hard way, the truth remains that your safety is yours. It is not the responsibility of the police, the government, industry, the apartment building manager, or the security company.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Nature’s greatest accomplishment, the human brain,is never more efficient or invested than when its host is at risk. Then, intuition is catapulted to another level entirely, a height at which it can accurately be called graceful, even miraculous. Intuition is the journey from A to Z without stopping at any other letter along the way. It is knowing without knowing why.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Terribly unhealthy families damage children in many ways, but one of the saddest is the destruction of the child’s belief that he has purpose and value.Without that belief, it is difficult to succeed, difficult to take risks. Perhaps more to the point, it may seem foolish to take risks, “knowing,” as such people do, that they are not up to the task.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Just as a surgeon loses his aversion to gore, so does the violent criminal.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Even when intuition speaks in the clearest terms, even when the message gets through, we may still seek an outside opinion before we’ll listen to ourselves.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

 

   “No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.If you let someone talk you out of the word “no,” you might as well wear a sign that reads, “You are in charge.”

 ― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Just as we look to government and experts, we also look to technology for solutions to our problems, but you will see that your personal solution to violence will not come from technology. It will come from an even grander resource that was there all the while, within you. That resource is intuition.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Quite often, my greatest contribution to solving the mystery is my refusal to call it a mystery.Rather, it is a puzzle, one in which there are enough pieces available to reveal what the image is. I have seen these pieces so often that I may recognize them sooner than some people, but my main job is just to get them on the table.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

A characteristic common to predatory criminals (and many other people as well) is their perceived need to be in control.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

There are reasons we all do what we do, and those reasons are sometimes displayed.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

I encourage women to explicitly rebuff unwanted approaches, but I know it is difficult to do.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

When approached by a stranger while walking on some city street at night, no matter how engaging he might be, you must never lose sight of the context: He is a stranger who approached you.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give ever-weakening refusals and then give in.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Listen to humor, particularly dark humor. It can be good for more than a laugh.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

The importance of seeing things from the perspective of the person whose behavior you are predicting cannot be overstated.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

If you can convince an extortionist that the harm he threatens does not worry you, you have at a minimum improved your negotiating position. In many cases, you may actually neutralize the whole matter.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

People who refuse to let go often make small requests that appear reasonable.The real purpose of such requests is to cement attachment or gain new reasons for contact.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

There is an almost irresistible urge to do something dramatic in response to threats and harassment, but often, appearing to do nothing is the best plan.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Though leaving is not an option that seems available to many battered women, I believe that the first time a woman is hit, she is a victim and the second time, she is a volunteer.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

One of the most common errors in selecting a boyfriend or spouse is basing the prediction on potential. This is actually predicting what certain elements might add up to in some different context:He isn’t working now, but he could be really successful. He’s going to be a great artist—of course he can’t paint under present circumstances. He’s a little edgy and aggressive these days, but that’s just until he gets settled.

Listen to the words: isn’t working; can’t paint; is aggressive.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Most real bombers are patient, I’ll-get-you-in-time type people who can mortgage their emotions for another day. They express anger by blowing things up, not by making hostile calls. Ironically, bombers do not have explosive personalities.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

There is no mystery of human behavior that cannot be solved inside your head or your heart.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Pursuers are, in a very real sense, detoxing from an addiction to the relationship. Small doses of that drug do not wean him, they engage him. The way to force him out of this addiction, as with most addictions, is abstinence.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Listen to yourself at every step along the way.

 ― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

when you drink excessively, you become violent.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

children learn by modeling and imitation, the 200,000 acts of violence they will witness in the media by age 18 pose a serious problem.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

 Television exposes children to behavior that man spent centuries protecting them from.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Being killed by one’s own daughter or son is the easiest to avoid. A precaution that is virtually guaranteed starts years before the child is big enough to hurt anyone: Be a loving parent.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Children logically deduce from mistreatment—‘’If this is how I am treated, then this is the treatment I am worthy of”.

 ― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Settle for a simpler, low-tech strategy for reducing violence:treating children lovingly and humanely.

 ― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Like those of a daredevil, all of an assassin’s worth and accomplishment derive from one act, one moment. This is also true for most heroes, but assassins and daredevils are not people who rise courageously to meet some emergency. The assassin and the daredevil create their own emergencies.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Assassins, you see, do not fear they are going to jail—they fear they are going to fail.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

When you feel fear, listen.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

when a victim tells her story and people respond with You-should-have-this or You-should-never-have-that, they are often adding to the victimization.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

when you follow intuition, The solutions come to you, and you don’t know how or why.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

An unhappy child not getting comfort or support at home will look for it somewhere else.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Sexual predators often start with nonsexual touch to desensitize their targets. It might be “accidental” touch, or hugs, pats, strokes, hair-brushing, holding a hand.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Women visit emergency rooms for injuries caused by their husbands or boyfriends more often than for injuries from car accidents, robberies and rapes combined.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

NEWS: Nothing Educational or Worth Seeing.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

With a date who stays beyond his welcome, for example, no matter how jokey or charming he may be, a woman can keep herself focused on context simply by thinking, “I have asked him to leave twice.” The defense for too many details is simple: bring the context into conscious thought.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

The human violence we abhor and fear the most, that which we call “random” and “senseless,” is neither. It always has purpose and meaning, to the perpetrator, at least. We may not choose to explore or understand that purpose, but it is there, and as long as we label it “senseless,” we’ll not make sense of it.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

The person you choose is nowhere near as likely to bring you hazard as is the person who chooses you. That’s because the possibility that you’ll inadvertently select a predatory criminal for whom you are the right victim type is very remote.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Intuition heeded is far more valuable than simple knowledge.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

A person (or an animal) who feels there are no alternatives will fight even when violence isn’t justified, even when the consequences are perceived as unfavorable,and even when the ability to prevail is low.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

We, in contrast to every other creature in nature, choose not to explore—and even to ignore—survival signals. The mental energy we use searching for the innocent explanation to everything could more constructively be applied to evaluating the environment for important information.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Intuition is always learning, and though it may occasionally send a signal that turns out to be less than urgent, everything it communicates to you is meaningful. Unlike worry, it will not waste your time.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

 The assassin might be weird or unusual, but we cannot say we don’t understand his motives, his goal. He wants what Americans want: recognition, and he wants what all people want: significance. People who don’t get that feeling in childhood seek ways to get it in adulthood. It is as if they have been malnourished for a lifetime and seek to fix it with one huge meal.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

 Literally thousands of opportunities exist for them to fail, and only one slender opportunity exists for them to succeed. It is not the type of crime a person can practice—both literally and figuratively, an assassin has one shot at success.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Seven key abilities most beneficial for human beings: the ability to motivate ourselves, to persist against frustration, to delay gratification, to regulate moods, to hope, to empathize, and to control impulse. Many of those who commit violence never learned these skills.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Many batterers control the money, allowing little access to bank accounts or even financial

information. Some control the schedule, the car keys, the major purchases, the choice in clothes, the choice in friends. The batterer may be a benevolent control freak at the start of an intimate relationship, but he becomes a malevolent control freak later.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

[A batterer] gives punishment and reward unpredictably, so that any day now, any moment now, he’ll be his great old self, his honeymoon self, and this provides an ingredient that is essential to keeping the woman from leaving: hope. Does he do all this with evil design? No, it is part of his concept of how to retain love.Children who do not learn to expect and accept love in natural ways become adults who find other ways to get it.

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence