Quotes About Self-preservation

You'll pardon me," he finally said, "if the suggestion that the minuscule black turnip you call a heart is suddenly overflowing with generosity toward me leaves me wanting to arm myself and put my back against a wall.

Crooked Warden," said Locke, "men are stupid. Protect us from ourselves. If you can't, let it be quick and painless.

species that "fear rightly" increase their chances of survival. We anxious people are less likely to remove ourselves from the gene pool by, say, frolicking on the edge of cliffs or becoming fighter pilots.

He had people to love, who, best of all, loved him, too. He didn't feel it made sense to waste the energy on relationships that would only pull him under some emotional waterfall in which he'd never catch his breath.

I could give all to Time except--except What I myself have held.

As I turned around to receive my injection, I said, 'Next time I'll use some protection.' If I see another girl and I get an erection... I'm walking in the other direction!

I'm not a fool and I won't be taken for a ride. I will stand up for my self but at the same time I don't presume the worst and I don't see people coming at me with negativity. Until they do.

You cant reach old age by another man's road, my habits protect my life but they would assassinate you

The only way to win a toxic person, is not to play

Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take to the woods most of the time when he was around.

We all create stories to protect ourselves

W]henever we heard an unflattering portrait of our own side our first question to ourselves was not "Is this true?" but "What are they trying to hide about themselves by accusing us of this?" Once this mental defense system had been perfected, few criticisms could hit home.

La verdad es que un minero que no piensa que está trabajando en su propia sepultura es un tonto.

If we rub a fabric too often, it will quickly grow threadbare; and Nobu's words had rasped against me so much, I could no longer maintain that finely lacquered surface Mameha had always counseled me to hide behind.

Thus the will to live everywhere preys upon itself, and in different forms is its own nourishment, till finally the human race, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as a manufactory for its own use. Yet even the human race...reveals in itself with most terrible distinctness this conflict, this variance of the will with itself; and we find homo homini lupus .

She kept her doors and windows locked, unless she was using them.

We want autonomy for ourselves and safety for those we love." That remains the main problem and paradox for the frail. "Many of the things that we want for those we care about are things that we would adamantly oppose for ourselves because they would infringe upon our sense of self.

You loved people and you came to depend on their being there. but people died or changed or went away and it hurt too much. The only way to avoid that poin was not to love anyone, and not to let anyone get too close or too important. The secret of not being hurt like this again, I decided, was never depending on anyone, never needing, never loving. It is the last dream of children, to be forever untouched.

There is an important difference between openness and naïveté. Not everyone has good intentions nor means me well. I remind myself I do not need to change these people, only recognize who they are.

I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.

Self-preservation warned some of us that we could not afford to settle for one easy definition, one nearrow individuation of self. At the Bag, at Hunter College, uptown in Harlem, at the library, there was a piece of the real me bound in each place, and growing

Self-preservation starts very early in West Indian families.

this action was a kind of shift from safety towards self-preservation. It was a choice of pains. That's what living was all about.

In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.