The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

by Gavin de Becker

“People should learn to see and so avoid all danger. Just as a wise man keeps away from mad dogs, so one should not make friends with evil men.”

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

Unless it is relevant and accurate, knowledge can be the sinking ship the fool insists is sea-worthy, because knowledge often masquerades as wisdom.

If you tell someone ten times that you don’t want to talk to him, you are talking to them—nine more times than you wanted to. If you call him back after he leaves twenty messages, you simply teach him that the cost of getting a call back is twenty messages.

work is a place where many of us are forced to interact with people we did not choose to have in our lives.

when participants are in the ring, it’s hard for them to see past their fists.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

I guess when you are starving, even a morsel seems like a feast.”

fighting will always be available, but it isn’t always possible to go back to avoidance once a war is under way.

It is similar to one brother asking another, “Why did you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is “Because Dad was a drunk.” The second brother then asks, “Why didn’t you grow up to be a drunk?” The answer is “Because Dad was a drunk.”

In Denial of Death, Ernest Becker explains that “animals, in order to survive have had to be protected by fear responses.” Some Darwinians believe that the early humans who were most afraid were most likely to survive. The result, says Becker, “is the emergence of man as we know him: a hyperanxious animal who constantly invents reasons for anxiety even when there are none.”

The Suicide, as she is falling, Illuminated by the moon, Regrets her act, and finds appalling The thought she will be dead so soon.