Quotes About Self-preservation

and I never allowed another human being to touch me in intimacy again.

Do you have no sense of self-preservation?

You can't protect my sanity by destroying yours.

3: I can't wear my heart on my sleeve or it'll be crushed.

She advised self-preservation. What a relief! How remarkable!

Fear isn't actually a bad thing. It's a primitive instinct that's your friend. It warms you to pay attention, because you're in danger. It tells you to do something, to act, to save yourself.

There is a part in each of us which holds fast to the old truth: either you are the hunter or you are the prey. Learn which you are. Act accordingly. Your life depends upon it.

There is a part on each of us which holds fast to the old truth: either you are the hunter or you are the prey. Learn which you are. Act accordingly. Your life depends upon it.

This, without a doubt, is neoliberalism's single most damaging legacy: the realization of its bleak vision has isolated us enough from one another that it became possible to convince us that we are not just incapable of self-preservation but fundamentally not worth saving.

A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.

Marine training is essentially a psychological battle against the instinct for self-preservation.

Your life is yours and yours alone. No one has the right to take it from you. That's right- no one. Not even your parents. And if someone wants threatens to take it from you...it's okay to run and never look back. You're more than allowed to protect yourself. Expecting someone to smile and say thank you to their family...when that "family" is stepping all over them- that's just abuse. It's just a curse.

I think...there were a lot of instances where I avoided people to protect myself. I wouldn't bother anyone that way. If I don't know anything, if I don't take an interest in anything, if I don't get involved in anything...I won't have to go through unnecessary pain. But...at the same time, I might have kept myself from seeing...things that were very important...by always looking down. Even things I really...really...wanted...

She'd rather break her own heart than have it broken.

I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.

There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can.

There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone—even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way—no one can. That's why I have no references. But, of course, there's always the hope that my new employer won't check them out.

That's what I was gonna do, and I wasn't going to hurt. And if you shut yourself off and say, "This isn't going to hurt me," you can't shut it down without shutting it down totally. I closed myself down so much that I was making it, doing great with surviving – but my soul was completely encased.

If there is something you want to protect, attack it with measured vigour yourself, thus investing it with replenished force, and pre-empting its annihilation.

I touched my reflection with a fingertip. My reflection felt nothing. That's what I wanted from the world, to feel nothing. To feel nothing and not be involved, for everything to stay comfortably outside myself and not get in. How did people survive all this knowledge of suffering in the world? How did they carry it around, day after day, and not go mad? And what would I wear tomorrow?

Showing off her best points was a habit that saved her life more than once.

Oh, you won't kill yourself, you're too self-centered and you're too stubborn to go mad. So that means you'll have to cope.

We are all basically selfish, driven by fear of death and the hope of personal gain

decided to take himself away, as if not seeing something spared you from its sorrow.