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Self Preservation Quotes

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Self Preservation Quotes

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Self Political Compassion Caring Warfare Self Care Preservation Indulgence Self Preservation Self Indulgence Black Feminist

Book:A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

Source: A Burst of Light: and Other Essays

“I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus, they suck the life right out of a party.”

People Self Party Moral Instinct Vices Plus Superiority Preservation Narcissistic Self Preservation Moral Superiority

Author:Dennis Lehane

“So he decided to stay out of it and instead turned back to Lady Bridgerton, who was, as it happened, the closest person to him, anyway. “And how are you this afternoon?” he asked. Lady Bridgerton gave him a very small smile as she handed him his cup of tea. “Smart man,” she murmured. “It’s self-preservation, really,” he said noncommittally. “Don’t say that. They wouldn’t hurt you.” “No, but I’m sure to be injured in the cross fire.”

Men Persons Said Self Hurt Fire Happened Smart Crosses Decided Cups Tea Afternoon Closest Preservation Injured Self Preservation Cups Of Tea Smart Man

Author:Julia Quinn

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal”

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Stop the pain.” – Tory “You know I can’t.” – Acheron “Fine. But next time you’re the one who’s doing labor duty. I get to sit there and hold your hand.” – Tory (And again he laughed. She glared at him.) “You have no sense of self preservation, do you?” – Tory”

Knows I Can Self Hands Pain Next Duty Fine Labor Laughed Next Time Preservation Sense Of Self Self Preservation

Author:Sherrilyn Kenyon

“Where's your sense of adventure? It died under mysterious circumstances. My sense of self-preservation found the body, but assures me it has an airtight alibi. -Captain Tagon & Captain Andreyasn”

Self Body Found Adventure Circumstances Died Mysterious Captains Preservation Sense Of Self Self Preservation

Author:Howard Tayler

“I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but self-preservation stops me. Once someone hurts you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse”

Thinking Self Sometimes Hurt Safe Kissing Harder Dirty Relax Preservation Couches Self Preservation Kissing Her

Book:White Cat

Source: White Cat

“I always thought fainting showed an inherent weakness of character, but I understood it now. It was an act of self-preservation. Confronted by emotion too extreme to handle, the body shuts down to keep from running around like a chicken with its head cut off, potentially injuring itself.”

Self Character Body Running Emotion Cutting Understood Weakness Extremes Handle Chickens Inherent Preservation Self Preservation Fainting Weakness Of Character

Book:Shadowfever: Fever Series

Source: Shadowfever: Fever Series

“Not that I don't appreciate the rescue," Holt said. "But I'm forced to ask, in the interest of self-preservation ... exactly how well armed are you right now?”

Wells Said Self Asks Interest Right Now Appreciate Rescue Preservation Self Preservation

Book:Shadow Bound

Source: Shadow Bound

“In his student days, he used to argue that if a woman has no other course open to her but starvation, prostitution, or throwing herself from a bridge, then surely the prostitute, who has shown the most tenacious instinct for self-preservation, should be considered stronger and saner than her frailer and no longer living sisters. One couldn't have it both ways, he'd pointed out: if women are seduced and abandoned they're supposed to go mad, but if they survive, and seduce in their turn, then they were mad to begin with.”

Ifs Way Should Self Used Turns Courses Students Stronger Mad Instinct Arguing Bridges Throwing Abandoned Preservation Prostitution Starvation Seducing Self Preservation Tenacious

Book:Alias Grace: A Novel

Source: Alias Grace: A Novel

“Luckily, I's learned at an early age that self-preservation was the only way to survive with your soul intact.”

Way Soul Self Age Your Soul Preservation Self Preservation

Book:While It Lasts

Source: While It Lasts

“Self-preservation isn't worth it if you can't live with the self you're preserving”

Ifs Self Worth It Preservation Self Preservation

Book:Every Day

Source: Every Day

“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.”

Ifs Way Writing Mind Long Self Country Stories Romance Young Energy Instinct Tales Evening Smoke Fairy Farms Fairy Tale Other Countries Preservation Long Way Dusk Self Preservation

Author:Isak Dinesen

“self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.”

Self Virtue Foundation Primaries Preservation Self Preservation

Author:Baruch Spinoza

“Everyone has a story; everyone hides his past as a means of self-preservation. Some just do it better, and more thoroughly, than others.”

Mean Self Stories Past Preservation Just Do It Self Preservation Everyone Has A Story

Book:The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

“Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation.”

Self Motivation Ability Compassion Lows Selfishness Aggression Preservation Dishonesty Sense Of Self Self Preservation

Author:Veronica Roth

“With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.”

Self Business Economic Instinct Motive Exception Strongest Commerce Preservation Persistent Self Preservation Propensity Emulation

Author:Thorstein Veblen

“To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life irrespective of its content.”

Self Shows Opinion Useless Occupation Spontaneous Preservation Delightful Self Preservation

Book:The Sense of Beauty

Source: The Sense of Beauty

“Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation.”

Love Self Pain Individual Force Survival Instinct Hunger Preservation Self Preservation Survival Instinct Love Pain

Book:Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

Source: Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words

“We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

Self Justice Ears Slavery Scales Preservation Self Preservation Let Him Go

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds and his conscious behavior. And it teaches me to be for the rights of all human beings, but especially the Afro-American human being, because my religion is a natural religion, and the first law of nature is self-preservation.”

Men Firsts Humans Self Form Law Natural Human Beings Teach Rights Color Judging Behavior Racism Conscious Skins Islam Deeds Racist Preservation Laws Of Nature Self Preservation Afros

Author:Malcolm X

“It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.”

Self Constitution Plant Vain Impulse Barriers Unnecessary Repetition Preservation Germs Precedent Self Preservation Usurpation

Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution: Written in 1788

Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution: Written in 1788

“For a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do--out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation--look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing.”

Source: Conquest of the useless: reflections from the making of Fitzcarraldo

“I was scared before every battle. That old instinct of self-preservation is a pretty basic thing, but while the action was going on some part of my mind shut off and my training and discipline took over. I did what I had to do.”

Mind Self Action Discipline Battle Training Instinct Scared Preservation Of My Mind Self Preservation Basic Things

Author:Audie Murphy

“There's so much that you can get mad about. Out of self-preservation, I focus on being grateful.”

Self Focus Grateful Mad Be Grateful Preservation Self Preservation

Author:Mariska Hargitay

“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; second, to liberty; third, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of ... the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature. All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and ernter into another.... Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?”

“The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.”

Self Law Written Higher Preservation Self Preservation

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenseless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.”

Ifs Writing Years Real Self Hard Jobs Dies Next Morning Happened Talent Pages Saved Preservation Feats Self Preservation Unprepared Defenseless Obstinacy Real Work Morning After

Author:Philip Roth

“Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.”

Self Matter America Differences Unions Idiot Soviet Preservation Irrelevant Soviet Union Saddam Hussein Traitor Self Preservation

Book:Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

Source: Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

“Our culture has few taboos that can't be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place. Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing. This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that "bravely" trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.”

“My inner wolf seeks to destroy the one I love for reasons of self-preservation. For the only cure to free my soul is to be killed, in an act of true love, by the one who loves me most.”

Soul Self Reason True Love Cures My Soul Preservation Self Preservation

Book:The Dark Divine

Source: The Dark Divine

“Isn't it funny how the memories you cherish before a breakup can become your worst enemies afterwards? The thoughts you loved to think about, the memories you wanted to hold up to the light and view from every angle-it suddenly seems a lot safer to lock them in a box, far from the light of day and throw away the key. It's not an act of bitterness. It's an act if self-preservation. It's not always a bad idea to stay behind the window and look out at life instead, is it?”

“Self-preservation's a man's first duty. And natives don't mind dying, you know. They don't feel about it as Europeans do.”

Knows Men Feels Mind Firsts Self Dying Duty Preservation Self Preservation

Book:Agatha Christie: five complete novels of murder and detection

Source: Agatha Christie: five complete novels of murder and detection

“At the same time the Muslims are commanded to exercise self-restraint as much as possible. Force is a dangerous weapon. It may have to be used for self-defense or self-preservation, but we must always remember that self-restraint is pleasing in the eyes of Allah. Even when we are fighting, it should be for a principle not out of passion.”

Should May Self Eye Remember Used Fighting Passion Force Principles Dangerous Exercise Weapons Defense Restraint Preservation Self Defense Self Preservation Self Restraint

Author:Abdullah Yusuf Ali

“Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk-the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behaviour, the second can wilt if not cultivated.”

Source: Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and

“Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.”

Men Firsts Self Law Fear Creatures Awe Preservation Self Preservation

Author:Andrew Marvell

“With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. In an industrial community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste.”

Self Form Community Economic Waste Regard Instinct Western Motive Exception Civilized Strongest Preservation Persistent Self Preservation Propensity Emulation

Author:Thorstein Veblen

“After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.”

Ifs Humans Self Moments Seems Might Danger Return Permanent Preservation Ptsd Self Preservation Traumatic Experiences

Book:Trauma and recovery

Source: Trauma and recovery

“Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”

Soul Self Fighting Weapons Preservation Self Preservation Search For Meaning Mans Search For Meaning

Book:Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition

Source: Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition

“Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically.”

“He who governs himself according to what he calls his principles may be punished either by one party or the other for those very principles. He who proceeds without principle, as chance, timidity, or self-preservation directs, will not perhaps fare better; but he will be less blamed.”

May Self Chance Party Principles Punishment Preservation Self Preservation Timidity

Author:J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

“As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.”

Men Needs Self Matter Friendship Enemy Tasks Former Latter Good Friend Preservation Ardent Self Preservation

Author:Diogenes

“That mainstream English is essential to our self-preservation is indisputable . . . but it is not necessary to abandon Spoken Soul to master Standard English, any more than it is necessary to abandon English to learn French or to deprecate jazz to appreciate classical music.”

Soul Self Masters Essentials Standards Appreciate Jazz Abandon Mainstream Preservation Classical Music Self Preservation Standard English

Author:John R. Rickford

“As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live--we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.”

Source: 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

“The violent, antirationalistic impulse in Western countries is reacting to an intellectual state of affairs in which all thinking has become strategy; this impulse shows a disgust for a certain form of self-preservation. It is a sensitive shivering from the cold breath of a reality where knowledge is power and power is knowledge.”

“The State has always one purpose: to limit, control, subordinate the individual and subject him to the general purpose Through its censorship, its supervision, and its police the State tries to obstruct all free activity and sees this repression as its duty, because the instinct of self-preservation demands it. The State does not permit me to use my thoughts to their full value and communicate them to other men unless they are its own Otherwise it shuts me up.”

“Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.”

Men World Made Self Fear Steps Cases Air Feet Empty Instinct Scared Efficiency Preservation Self Preservation Sloppy

Author:Joe Abercrombie

“Many have dreamed up republics and principalities that have never in truth been known to exist; the gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.”

Men Way Should Doe Self Done Known Truth Is Destruction Wide Neglect Republic Idealism Preservation Self Destruction Self Preservation

Author:Niccolo Machiavelli

“Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.”

Firsts Self Principles Survival Preservation Self Preservation

Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc

Source: The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc

“If you lie down in a village square hoping to capture a sea gull, you could stay there your whole life without succeeding. But a hundred miles from shore it's different. Sea gulls have a highly developed instinct for self-preservation on land but at sea they're very cocky.”

Ifs Different Self Whole Lying Sea Land Succeed Hundred Instinct Whole Life Miles Village Shore Capture Squares Preservation Cocky Self Preservation Gulls

Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez