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

by Gavin de Becker

Every day, people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in mid-thought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it.

The inner voice is wise, and part of my purpose in writing this book is to give people permission to listen to it.

“it is the brain which sees, not the eye. Reality is in the brain before it is experienced, or else the signals we get from the eye would make no sense.”

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. For when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”)

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

This same process of comparing reliability, importance, cost, and effectiveness (which my office calls the RICE evaluation) is how people go about making many daily decisions.