Self-defense

Self-defense is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm.

Quotes

• And by his belt he baar a long panade,
  And of a swerd ful trenchant was the blade.
  A joly popper baar he in his pouche;
  Ther was no man for peril dorste him touche.
  A Sheffeld thwitel baar he in his hose.
  • Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reeve's Tale, l. 9

• The assailant who breaks the moral law cannot thereby acquire a better right to life than the innocent person who keeps the moral law, so that on being unjustly attacked a man finds that his right to life becomes a duty to die.
  • Austin Fagothey, Right and Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice, 6th ed. (1976), p. 220

• He knew from experience that “self-defense” could mean whatever a person or group wanted it to mean.
  • Philip José Farmer, The Dark Design (1977), Chapter 19

• Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason — the lawyers didn't make it.
  • Douglas William Jerrold, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Self-defense on Wikipedia