Quotes About Survival

The man does better who runs from disaster than he who is caught by it.

In The Odyssey, we find instead the story of a man whose grand adventure is simply to go back to his own home, where he tries to turn everything back to the way it was before he went away. For this hero, mere survival is the most amazing feat of all.

With him at my side we'd go through fire and make it back alive.

All the other Greeks who had survived the brutal sack of Troy sailed safely home to their own wives—except this man alone. Calypso, a great

De los que sienten este temor, son más los que se salvan que los que mueren; los que huyen, ni alcanzan gloria, ni entre sí se ayudan.

to avoid death he shrank into the host of his own companions.

And as when the land appears welcome to men who are swimming, after Poseidon has smashed their strong-built ship on the open 235 water, pounding it with the weight of wind and the heavy seas, and only a few escape the gray water landward by swimming, with a thick scurf of salt coated upon them, and gladly they set foot on the shore, escaping the evil; so welcome was her husband to her as she looked upon him, 240 and she could not let him go from the embrace of her white arms.

They that shun dishonour more often live than get killed, but they that fly save neither life nor name.

Be still, my heart; thou hast known worse than this. On that day when the cyclops, unrestrained in fury, devoured the mighty men of my company; but still thou didst endure till thy craft found a way for thee forth from out the cave, where thou thoughtest to die.

I truly believe that the death of my mother has made me the way I am today. I am a survivor, mentally strong, determined, stronwilled, self-reliant, and independent. I also keep most of my pain, anger and feelings inside. I refuse to be vulnerable to anyone, especially my husband. The only people who see that more emotional or softer side are my children. That too because of my mother.

As we've already seen, individual selectionists insist that a creature—be he man or woman or beast—will only sacrifice his comfort if the payback to his genes is greater than what he gives.

individuals will sacrifice themselves for the good of a larger whole. When groups struggle, the ones which boast the most effective organization, strategy, and weapons win. Individuals who contribute to their group's virtuosity will be part of the team which survives.

According to biologist Lynn Margulis, it was this collaborative approach which allowed life to survive the first toxic pollutant holocaust—the spread in the atmosphere of a gas lethal to earth's horde of early inhabitants. The killer gas was oxygen. But mitochondria living in the new eukaryotic cells saved the day, gulping oxygen before it could do its harm and turning the murderous vapor into food for their protectress and for the other members of her cellular commune.

When the flood cometh it sweepeth away grain as well as chaff.

In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines.

forced to sell their virtue for bread.

It was now just after 1:30 a.m. Ten of the Titanic's sixteen regular lifeboats had departed, carrying approximately 330 people—only a fraction of the 2,209 on board. To the passengers still on deck, the downward slope toward the bow was now very apparent. Yet many of them, the first-class men in particular, still believed that the ship would last till morning and that help would arrive

In an election speech in 1936, he said: I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping, exhausted men come out of line – the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

My father talks about people dying on coffin ships going to America and my mother talks about people dying on trains going to Poland. My father says our people died in the famine and my mother says those who died under the Nazis are our people, too. Everybody has things they can't forget.

Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.

A man can live on his wits and his balls for only so long.

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.

I blew the horn a few times, hoping to call up an iguana. Get the buggers moving. They were out there, I knew, in that goddamn sea of cactus--hunkered down, barely breathing, and every one of the stinking little bastards was loaded with deadly poison.