Quotes About Self-preservation

An itinerant selfish gene Said 'Bodies a plenty I've seen. You think you're so clever But I'll live for ever. You're just a survival machine.

An itinerant selfish gene/ Said 'bodies a- plenty I've seen./ You think you're so clever/ But I'll live for ever./ You're just a survival machine.

We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

More generally, if living things didn't work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.

Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it; some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and then there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.

We all pursue what we think is best for us, even if it means our extinction. Sometimes, especially if it means that.

Still, as I tend to repeat, I have some instinct for survival, for self-preservation. And believing you have such an instinct is almost as good as actually having it, because it means you act in the same way.

I think I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation. Perhaps this is what Veronica called cowardice and I called being peaceable.

If you saved yourself, you might also save those around you, those you loved. And since you would do anything in the world to save those you loved, you did anything in the world to save yourself. And because there was no choice, equally there was no possibility of avoiding moral corruption. —

Be to, tas skausmas truko neilgai. Kaip min?jau, turiu stipr? savisaugos instinkt?. Man pavyko išstumti Veronik? iš širdies ir iš gyvenimo

Bet kai esi labai protingas, tai, manau, kas nors gali išmušti tave iš v?ži?, jeigu nepasisaugosi

I always doubt people... I've survived by not believing in other human beings.

There is no place here for softness. Let folk in too close and you offer them up as weapons for your own destruction.

Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

Cualquier cosa era buena para humeceder la garganta; de dejas las cosas tal como estaba, podría acabar por consumir la sangre de mi cuerpo

I did not want to appear before the world as pathetic, deprssed, and psychologically ill. So I erected a barrier of words and wit around myself, so that nobody could see how needy I really was.

I was young, and by instinct of self-preservation I had to collect my energy on something, if I were not to be whirled away with the dusk on the farm-roads, or the smoke on the plain. I begun in the evenings to write stories, fairy-tales, and romances, that would take my mind a long way off, to other countries and times.

Maybe that's why Claire had perfected the art of invisibility. It was a form of self-preservation. You couldn't resent what you could not see. She was so quiet, but she noticed everything. Her eyes tracked the world like it was a book written in a language that she could not understand. There was nothing timorous about her, but you got the feeling that she always had one foot out the door. If the situation got too hard, or too intense, she would simply disappear.

When you're drowning, you don't stop to teach somebody else how to swim.

She knew from before: the moment se let her guard down, the world would spiral into a distant but familiar abyss.

children sometimes, where, as a form of self-defense, they've learned to read mood and nuance better than the typical child. They absorb an incredible amount of blame to keep the peace. They are the ultimate survivors." Faith

Maybe that's why Claire had perfected the art of invisibility. It was a form of self-preservation. You couldn't resent what you could not see. She was so quiet, but she noticed everything. Her eyes tracked the world like it was a book written in a language she could not understand. There was nothing timorous about her, but you got the feeling that she always had one foot out the door. If the situation got too hard, or too intense, she would simply disappear.

Where all meaning disappears, and all certainty vanishes, something arises deep inside man: the self-preservation of his essential identity. This identity preserves itself through endurance - I have to face my destiny in silence - and through the courage to live and the courage to die with dignity.