Quotes About Self-preservation

sometimes you have to defend yourself from yourself." When

Usually when one throw's oneself at another's feet, one should be prepared to do a fast roll to avoid being stepped on.

I don't particularly want to get my heart broken.

I don't want to ever give someone that kind of power to destroy me.

Rest when you're tired. Take a break when life stales. Take time to recharge your battery. Energy isn't something you have—it's something you are. To give and give and give, to put out without taking in, depletes your battery. It drains you, runs you down.

We're so careful to see that no one gets hurt. No one, that is, but ourselves.

You can spoil your fun, your day, your life—that's your business—but I won't let you spoil my fun, my day, or my life.

If it's a choice between being shat on and pissed on and used and being a bastard, I'll choose being a bastard any time.

Like I said, I know bullies. Deflect, deflect, make them think they got their way even when they didn't, but never actually give in to them. Become innocuous, not worth tormenting or thinking about.

Better, I thought, not to touch at all than to touch and bring hurt upon myself and others. Better to do nothing than to make a move and have it be the wrong one. But even deciding to not touch or to be nothing is a decision, Vanyel, and by deciding not to touch, so as to avoid hurt, I then hurt those who tried to touch me.

A man whose house is burning to the ground does not carry water to his neighbour's fire

Our instinctive apparatus consists of two parts- the one tending to further our own life and that of our descendants, the other tending to thwart the lives of supposed rivals.

The immense majority of even the noblest persons' actions have self-regarding motives, nor is this to be regretted, since if it were otherwise, the human race could not survive. A man who spent his time seeing that others were fed and forgot to feed himself would perish.

Interviewing someone is a very proactive process and requires taking a lot of agency into your own hands to get past people's general normal self-preservation mode.

Never reveal all of yourself to other people; hold back something in reserve so that people are never quite sure if they really know you.

People choose to shut themselves off and build a load of defense mechanisms and not let anybody in because it's easier that way. You don't get hurt, and there's less risk involved if you build this hard shell.

I try to not read about myself. I think it's easier to have it out of sight and out of mind.

I'm trying. I'm giving it my all. The thought of tailoring my output to any market or to please any imagined audience never enters my mind. This is for me. I'm writing to save my own life.

But secluding my experience during that early period was both cowardly and wise. Some things are too fragile, too vulnerable to bring into the public eye. Tender things with tiny roots tend to wither in the glare of public scrutiny. By holding my awakening within, I contained the energy of it, and it fed me the way blood feeds muscle. It fed me a certain propelling energy, and I kept moving forward.

You can only drive yourself crazy if you have no distance from the world

Hypocrisy saves one's sanity. It's the shield you hide behind when the truth is too terrible to face

I'm putting on my own oxygen mask," she whispered, doing her best not to give in to the need to throw up. "I'm saving myself. I'm allowed to do that. It's going to be okay.

I'm going to kill him. I'm a lawyer. I can keep myself out of jail.

When she'd heard the news on the phone it had torn a hole in her and she went immediately hard and did not cry. If she let herself feel, the part of her that was left would be riddled wigth holes and there'd be nothing left. She had not, since then, shed a tear. Her body shut down; to allow feeling would sink her