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Survival Quotes

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Survival Quotes

“The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

Knows Mind Artist Creative Information Survival Machines Defense Stillness Gathering Analyzing True Artists

Book:The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are.”

World Way Kind Matter Helping Can Do This World Please Survival Machines Be Kind

Book:Yes Please

Source: Yes Please

“The human brain became large by natural selection (who knows why, but presumably for good cause). Yet surely most "things" now done by our brains, and essential both to our cultures and to our very survival, are epiphenomena of the computing power of this machine, not genetically grounded Darwinian entities created specifically by natural selection for their current function.”

Knows Humans Done Culture Causes Natural Brain Essentials Survival Machines Function Currents Entity Grounded Selection Natural Selection Human Brain Computing Good Causes

Author:Stephen Jay Gould

“They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.”

Way Mind Long Body Names Existence Survival Machines Ultimate Genes Preservation Long Way Mind And Body Rationale Selfish Gene

Book:The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition

Source: The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition

“The Chicago mobs... They practiced their own perverted form of "survival of the fittest." Where the strong clawed their way to the top of a criminal empire. And the weak died in a hail of machine gun bullets.”

Way Form Strong Survival Gun Weak Machines Died Criminals Empires Chicago Bullets Hail Survival Of The Fittest Machine Guns

Author:Walter Winchell

“The body is a survival machine programmed to propagate the genes that reside inside it.”

Body Survival Machines Genes

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Humans evolved brains that are pattern-recognition machines, adept at detecting signals that enhance or threaten survival amid a very noisy world. ... But there is only one surefire method of proper pattern recognition, and that is science.”

World Humans Brain Survival Machines Method Patterns Recognition Signals Noisy Adept

Author:Michael Shermer

“We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire—a crackpot machine—that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate. We are, most of us, dependent employees. …Edward Abbey (1927-1989)”

World Depends Survival Resources Machines Slave Rate Manage Managers Employee Dependent Empires Specialists Devouring Abbey Crackpots

Author:Edward Abbey

“The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they didn't use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get. So, in the interest of survival they trained themselves to be agreeing machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking and then they thought it too.”

People Ifs Thinking Mind Ideas Reason Use Bigs Interest Animal Enemy Achieve Needed Comfort Survival Machines Safety Unusual

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”

People Thinking Mind Interest Survival Machines Breakfast Of Champions

Book:Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday!

Source: Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday!

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”

Stills Science Known Evolution Survival Machines Selfish Preserves Genes Vehicle Robots Genetics Molecules Astonishment Selfish Gene

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever.”

Source: The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition