Put simply, energy vampires are individuals who feed off your emotions, mental energy, and even your physical energy. Most of the time they do so subconsciously and with no bad intentions, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t protect yourself.
Moreover, some vampires are more insidious than others (you can have a look at the eight main types here), and at first they may seem the nicest people in the world, but only so they can get you emotionally involved, and ultimately make you more vulnerable.
We all have to deal with toxic people who drain our energy sooner or later, so it’s important that we develop ways to either become less vulnerable or cut them out of our life before they ruin our mental and even physical health.
In today’s post you’ll find a collection of 90 quotes about energy vampires to help you understand the importance of protecting your energy as well as being able to say no. Keep reading for a few tips on how to protect yourself or skip to the quotes if you don’t have time.
Can you protect yourself from energy vampires?
Energy vampires love empaths and all those who genuinely like to help others, simply because they are more vulnerable. But the good news is that even if you do belong to this category of people, you can still learn to protect yourself — and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
A few quick tips:
- Learn to say no. The more you’ll give, the more they’ll take. While it’s natural to help and care about your friends, toxic people will take advantage of your good nature and use that to steal your time and energy. Practice the art of saying no politely and you’ll already be in a ten times better position.
- Be emotionally detached. The more you react emotionally, the easier it will be for the vampire to achieve his or her goal. But if you remain calm (or at least pretend to remain calm), energy vampires will have no power over you. So when they start talking to you, don’t raise your voice; don’t change your posture; don’t smile unless you want to; and so on.
- Surprise them. When energy vampires approach you, they usually expect a specific reaction. For example, vampires who bombard you with negativity expect you to feel sorry for whatever terrible thing just happened in their lives. If your reaction is absurd or the complete opposite of what they expect (for instance, if you start laughing, or mention something irrelevant), they will be very confused.
- Ghost them if necessary. The thing is, while it is possible to tell someone they are toxic to your health and expect them to understand, in some cases you’ll have to end all contact simply because it’s the only way. This is especially true for the most insidious types, such as abusive narcissists. You may feel sorry for ghosting them, but remember, nobody has the right to interfere with your mental health.
Psst! Make sure to check out the eight main signs someone is draining your energy, as well as the definition and examples of energy vampires.
Energy vampires quotes
The only people who get upset about you setting boundaries are the ones who were benefiting from you having none.
— Unknown
I found peace of mind when I walked away from small fights not worth fighting. I stopped fighting for people who gossiped about me. I stopped fighting for those who didn’t respect me. I quit worrying about those who wouldn’t value me for being me.
— Dana Arcuri
You are not being mean when you say no to unreasonable demands or when you express your ideas, feelings, and opinions, even if they differ from those of others.
— Beverly Engel
My encouragement: delete the energy vampires from your life, clean out all complexity, build a team around you that frees you to fly, remove anything toxic, and cherish simplicity. Because that’s where genius lives.
— Robin Sharma
The most basic boundary-setting word is “no”. It lets others know that we exist apart from them and that we are in control of ourselves.
— Henry Cloud
Poisonous relationships can alter our perception. You can spend many years thinking you’re worthless. But you’re not worthless. You’re underappreciated.
— Steve Maraboli
Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life — the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm.
— Robin Sharma
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you. I left because the longer I stayed, the less I loved myself.
— Rupi Kaur
Guard your heart, mind, and time. Those three things will determine the health of everything else in your life.
— Andrena Sawyer
Don’t let anyone drain you of your happiness today. Be drama free. Rise above the petty stuff.
— Trent Shelton
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can defend yourself against it. You can’t. Just walk away. Don’t try to make your case.
— Christiane Northrup
It’s one thing if a person owns up to their behavior and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries, and continues to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go.
— Daniell Koepke
There are primarily two ways people can drain your energy. They can get you to want them or what they have, or they can get you to fear them. In order to drain you, they must get into your attention field.
— Frederick Lenz
I have found that the best way to deal with a toxic person is to not respond in any other way than with a monotone voice and a businesslike manner.
— Jen Grice
Don’t let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out.
— Robert Tew
Honoring your own boundaries is the clearest message to others to honor them, too.
— Gina Greenlee
Positive energy is your priceless life force. Protect it. Don’t allow people to draw from your reserves; select friends who recharge your energy.
— Chalene Johnson
May you reach that level within where you no longer allow your past or people with toxic intentions to negatively affect or condition you.
— Lalah Delia
The hardest part of being in an emotionally abusive relationship is actually admitting you’re in one.
— Anna Akana
People who violate your boundaries are thieves. They steal time that doesn’t belong to them.
— Elizabeth Grace Saunders
Light attracts light. But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and energy.
— Warsan Shire
Cutting people out of your life doesn’t mean you hate them; it simply means you respect yourself. Not everyone is meant to stay.
— Unknown
You best teach others about healthy boundaries by enforcing yours on them.
— Bryant McGill
You don’t have to wait for someone to treat you bad repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it once, if they know they can treat you like that — then it sets the pattern for the future.
— Jane Green
As important as it is to learn how to deal with different kinds of people, truly toxic people will never be worth your time and energy — and they take a lot of each. Toxic people create unnecessary complexity, strife, and, worst of all, stress.
— Travis Bradberry
I no longer have the energy for meaningless friendships, forced interactions, or unnecessary conversations. If we don’t vibrate on the same frequency there’s just no reason for us to waste our time.
— Joquesse Eugenia
You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people you choose to be around.
— Unknown
We don’t get to choose our family, but we can choose our friends. With courage, we can weed out narcissistic people. We can focus on those who appreciate us, love us, and treat us with respect.
— Dana Arcuri
When you say “yes” to others, make sure you’re not saying “no” to yourself.
— Paulo Coelho
As adult women, we’re better able to protect ourselves emotionally. We understand we don’t need to spend time with people who don’t make us feel good. We recognize that some people have bad energy and we know we don’t want that in our lives.
— Deborra-Lee Furness
There’s folks you just don’t need. You’re better off without them. Your life is just a little better because they ain’t in it.
— William Gay
I stay away from negative relationships. They are energy-sapping vampires. I can’t handle them.
— Preity Zinta
When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.
— Brené Brown
The idea is quite simple: stay a light year away from people who make you feel less about yourself.
— Mohith Agadi
Another person behaves inappropriately or in some way violates our boundaries. We challenge the behavior, and the person gets angry and defensive. Then we feel guilty.
— Melody Beattie
If someone gets mad at you for creating a boundary, consider that a good sign that the boundary was necessary.
— Jenna Korf
Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious and you get to decide how you use them. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.
— Anna Taylor
Don’t allow people into your energy field on a regular basis that you wouldn’t want to be like yourself.
— Dawn Gluskin
Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings, and emotions.
— Will Smith
Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.
— Brené Brown
Toxic people quotes
It’s amazing how quickly things can turn around when you remove toxic people from your life.
— Robert Tew
Removing toxic people from your life isn’t the difficult part. Not feeling guilty about it is.
— Unknown
When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sandpaper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.
— Chris Colfer
The meanest people are the weakest people, for they do not even have the strength to believe in goodness.
— Sean Patrick Brennan
Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are toxic to our being simply because they are not the right people for us. And as hard as it is, we have to let them go.
— Daniell Koepke
Controllers, abusers, and manipulative people don’t question themselves. They don’t ask themselves if the problem is them. They always say the problem is someone else.
— Darlene Ouimet
There are people who break you down by just being them. They need not do anything. Dissociate.
— Malebo Sephodi
As you remove toxic people from your life, you free up space and emotional energy for positive, healthy relationships.
— John Mark Green
I have learned to surround myself with women who lift me up and leave me feeling nurtured rather than drained.
— Carré Otis
I realized that bullying never has to do with you. It’s the bully who is insecure.
— Shay Mitchell
Relationships with negative people are simply tedious encounters with porcupines. You don’t have the remote knowledge how to be close to them without quills being shot in your direction.
— Shannon Alder
Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are part of your history, but not part of your destiny.
— Steve Maraboli
Pay no attention to toxic words. What people say is often a reflection of themselves, not you.
— Christian Baloga
Keeping bad company is like being in a germ-infested area. You never know what you’ll catch.
— Frank Sonnenberg
If you walked away from a toxic, negative, abusive, one-sided, dead-end low vibrational relationship or friendship — you won.
— Lalah Delia
Sometimes it’s better to end something and to try to start something new than to imprison yourself in hoping for the impossible.
— Karen Salmansohn
The wrong person will give you less than what you’re worth, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept it.
— Sonya Parker
Remove toxic people from your life. Stop maintaining relationships with people that make you feel guilty about things that you like, that make you feel awful about yourself, that put you down, that don’t support you, that are mean. You just get those people and remove them from your life.
— Rachel Whitehurst
Toxic people will not be changed by the alchemy of your kindness. Yes, be kind, but move on swiftly and let life be their educator.
— Brendon Burchard
Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you. Stress shortens your lifespan.
— Bryant McGill
Gossipers quotes
When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you. The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth, just like you did.
— Jill Blakeway
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Loose tongues are worse than wicked hands.
— Jewish proverb
Often, those who criticize others reveal what they themselves lack.
— Shannon Alder
People are insecure, so they talk about other people, so that they won’t be talked about. They point out flaws in other people to feel good about themselves.
— Blake Lively
Fake friends believe in rumors. Real friends believe in you.
— Yolanda Hadid
It is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one. Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things.
— Lawrence Lovasik
Don’t worry about those who talk behind your back: they are behind you for a reason.
— Unknown
Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.
— Anna Godbersen
When people seek to undermine your dreams, predict your doom, or criticize you, remember: they are telling you their story, not yours.
— Cynthia Occelli
Short energy vampires quotes
You have the right to say “no” without feeling guilty.
— Manuel J. Smith
You get what you tolerate.
— Henry Cloud
Boundaries are a part of self-care. They are healthy, normal, and necessary.
— Doreen Virtue
People either inspire or drain you. Pick them wisely.
— Hans F. Hansen
Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul.
— Steve Maraboli
You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.
— Joel Osteen
Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do.
— Rachel Wolchin
Weeding out harmful influences should become the norm, not the exception.
— Carlos Wallace
Don’t listen to what they say; watch what they do.
— Steven Levitt
Manage your energy, not your time.
— Unknown
Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
— Cheryl Strayed
Negative people need drama like oxygen.
— Unknown
We teach people how to treat us.
— Phil McGraw
Stop asking why they keep doing it and start asking why you keep allowing it.
— Unknown
Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.
— Roger Ebert
Boundary setting helps you prioritize your needs over other people’s wants.
— Lauren Kenson
Don’t settle for a relationship that won’t let you be yourself.
— Oprah Winfrey
Some people are like clouds: when they go away, it’s a brighter day.
— Proverb
If they do it often, it’s not a mistake: it’s just their behavior.
— Steve Maraboli
The less you respond to negative people, the more peaceful your life will become.
— Unknown
If somebody is looking for a bin to throw all their trash into, make sure it’s not your mind.
— Dalai Lama
Have you ever had to deal with an energy vampire? Leave a reply and let me know! 👇
