Compensation Mechanism Quotes

Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.

Mrs. Ewing was a short woman who accepted the obligation borne by so many short women to make up in vivacity what they lack in number of inches from the ground.

You want your parents to say, "Hey, I'm proud of you." When you don't hear that, you learn to compensate. You say, "Hell, I don't need their approval. If I get my music right, I'll have everyone else's approval." I didn't understand it then, but I now know that's what happened to me.

I come from an overly confident place. But I'm overconfident because of feelings of inferiority.

The fact that I didn't finish school left me with a lifelong need to prove that I'm smart, prove it to myself, maybe to the world. I [also] needed to be - not the center of attention - but I needed to be able to attract attention when I wanted it, through my stunts and my fooling around physically with faces or postures or voices I would do. Those things are important elements in the drive behind all of this [my career].

Eleanor Roosevelt was painfully shy, painfully shy. So she overcompensated. In the same way that Nancy Reagan felt unattractive and unlovable and so everything had to be - hair had to be perfect, and the makeup and the clothes. Because she thought, "They don't think I'm pretty."

To me, once you lose that step or two, you pick up a step or two with your head.

I was 4'11'' in the 9th grade. I was a little guy... I think I had that little man complex.

A disease is never a mere loss or excess. There is always a reaction on the part of the organism or individual to restore, replace or compensate for and to preserve its identity, however strange the means may be.

I feel like I'm the worst, so I always act like I'm the best.

There's not only emotion in the way you sing but also in what you sing. That way I can compensate it.

My mom was always late. It drove me crazy as a child. So I'm always on time - or early.

I personally feel that, for some people, their physique and looks work for them. And when you're deprived of both these aspects, you rely on humour!