Home / Topics / Survival Quotes

Survival Quotes

Browse 3207 quotes about Survival.

Survival Quotes

“In the survival of favoured individuals and races, during the constantly-recurring struggle for existence, we see a powerful and ever-acting form of selection.”

Form Individual Powerful Acting Race Existence Struggle Survival Selection Recurring Struggle For Existence

Author:Charles Darwin

“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

“I could easily believe that religion could enhance health and hence survival, and that therefore there could be indeed be literally Darwinian survival value, Darwinian selection in favor of religion. None of that of course bears at all upon the truth value of the claims made by religions.”

Believe Made Values Courses Bears Survival Claims Favors Selection

Author:Richard Dawkins

“I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.”

Ifs Men Sometimes Used Order Term Natural Principles Expression Survival Mark Relation Accurate Selection Variation Convenient Natural Selection Survival Of The Fittest

Author:Charles Darwin

“People are only animals, but special animals. Every animal has fought and killed to survive, even before the dinosaurs. We're the only ones that do it for fun. That's why I don't know about Darwinism. Supposedly evolution and natural selection are all about survival, but we haven't gotten smarter over the years, only more dangerous.”

People Knows Years Fun Natural Animal Special Dangerous Havens Evolution Survival Smarter Selection Dinosaurs Natural Selection Darwinism

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.”

Certain Natural Existence Struggle Survival Preservation Selection Natural Selection Struggle For Existence

Book:The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition

Source: The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition

“As far as my single selections, over the years it's been a very essential part of my survival tactic, but I have no problem being able to jump on records with whoever people think is the rawest rapper in the game or number one or King or whatever they wanna name themselves, to be honest with you. It doesn't affect me, 'cause that's what I come from; I'm comfortable in that zone. But I don't wanna make hood music, I don't wanna make street music, I want to make world music, global music, international music.”

“The very comprehensibility of the world points to an intelligence behind the world. Indeed, science would be impossible if our intelligence were not adapted to the intelligibility of the world. The match between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world is no accident. Nor can it properly be attributed to natural selection, which places a premium on survival and reproduction and has no stake in truth or conscious thought. Indeed, meat-puppet robots are just fine as the output of a Darwinian evolutionary process.”

“This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element.”

Would Be Science Left Natural Evolution Elements Survival Destruction Affected Preservation Selection Variation Natural Selection Survival Of The Fittest

Book:On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Source: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

“This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection", or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.”

Life Term Natural Race Struggle Survival Preservation Selection Natural Selection Life Struggle Survival Of The Fittest Struggle For Survival

Author:Herbert Spencer

“I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.”

Real Used Reading Term Natural Expression Survival Advantage Letters Agree Excellent Selection Governing Verbs Objections Natural Selection Survival Of The Fittest

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)

“In true natural selection, if a body has what it takes to survive, its genes automatically survive because they are inside it. So the genes that survive tend to be, automatically, those genes that confer on bodies the qualities that assist them to survive.”

Ifs Body Science Natural Quality Survival Genes Selection Natural Selection

Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design

“And yet, strange to say, now that this truth is recognized by most cultivated people — now that the beneficent working of the survival of the fittest has been so impressed on them that, much more than people in past times, they might be expected to hesitate before neutralizing its action — now more than ever before in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further survival of the unfittest!”

People World Natural Strange Survival Selection World History Natural Selection

Author:Herbert Spencer

“The [peppered-moth] experiments show the effects of predation on the survival of the dark and of the normal forms of the Peppered Moth in a clean environment and in one polluted by smoke. The experiments beautifully demonstrate natural selection--or survival of the fittest--in action, but they do not show evolution in progress, for however the population may alter in their content of light, intermediate or dark forms, all the moths remain from beginning to end Biston Betularia.”