Survival Instinct Quotes

“I let you die. To save myself, I let you die.
That is the danger in keeping company with survivors.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House

“Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.”
― Aberjhani, Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

“Nathan had to admit it was a highly effective war strategy. You didn’t need an army; just a way to turn the native, indigenous creatures against each other, wait until there was no serious resistance, and then move right in.”
― Barry Kirwan, When the children come

“The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. . . . A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive--and nowhere else!--and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.
We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race . . . .
The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“Everyone judges constantly: positively judging one person is the same as negatively judging everyone else; it is to say that that person is superior in some sense.”
― Criss Jami, Venus in Arms

“When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“I'd rather be on the ground than under
To feel the heavy rain and the thunder.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, The Tao of Physical and Spiritual

“All men are born firstly with the instinct to protect themselves. But few grow to really love themselves, and even fewer learn to love their neighbor as themselves.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Why, Mr. Anderson?, Why, why?.

Why do you do it? Why, why get up?.


Why keep fighting?.


Do you believe you're fighting...for something?.

For more than your survival?.

Can you tell me what it is?.

Do you even know?; Is it freedom?, Or truth?.

Perhaps peace?. Could it be for love?


Illusions, Mr. Anderson.


Vagaries of perception.


Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although... only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.


You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson.

You must know it by now, You can't win.

It's pointless to keep fighting.


Why, Mr. Anderson?.


Why?, Why do you persist?.




Agent Smith ( Matrix Revolutions Movie, 2003 ).”
― William Irwin, More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded

“The survival instinct of the self overrides everything.”
― Isaiah Senones

“May you find the strength of will and the grace of endurance to overcome every challenge.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“If anyone rises to power, it's not only because he could, but also because the stars were aligned in his favor. Many with apparent means to take it failed simply because they weren't destined for the honor”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“The suit came up, and Holston thought that maybe people went along with it because they couldn't believe it was happening. None of it was real enough to rebel against. The animal part of his mind wasn't made for this, to be calmly ushered to a death it was perfectly aware of.”
― Hugh Howey, Wool Omnibus

“In any situation, there is a sacred-solution.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“When a person is deserted, he learns by default, how to survive.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“I’m sorry,” you tell him.

You are so sorry, all the time. You are sorry his wife is dead. You are sorry, truly so, about the injustices of the world, the way they’ve befallen him. You are sorry he’s stuck with you, such a needy woman, always hungry and thirsty and cold, and so nosy at that.

Rule number two of staying alive in the shed: he’s always right, and you’re always sorry.”
― Clémence Michallon, The Quiet Tenant

“To say they are ignoring what is happening at the college would not quite be true, or not quite fair. A few sick strangers--those poor kids, but none from the classes they teach--is only one of a hundred bad stories that must be overlooked every day. To close one’s eyes can be an act of survival.”
― Karen Thompson Walker, The Dreamers

“even though they say you don't rationalize,
that all you must do is be quiet and apologize
and only ever compromise and sacrifice,
you continue to rise and survive.”
― Maya Amlin, If I Have A Daughter One Day

“Your biology doesn't want you to be inclusive - your biology doesn't want you to be global - your biology doesn't want you to be civilized - or to put it simply, your biology doesn't want you to be human - because to be human requires to be unselfish, which is deemed by your biology as a threat to your personal survival. Hence, it pulls all its savage strings in every walk of your life, so that you act as much selfish and primitive as possible, because as far as your biology is concerned, being selfish and primitive is what kept your ancestors alive in the jungle.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live

“John Bowlby understood that our need for someone to share our lives with is part of
our genetic makeup and has nothing to do with how much we love ourselves or how fulfilled we feel on our own. He discovered that once we choose someone special, powerful and often uncontrollable forces
come into play.

New patterns of behavior kick in regardless of how independent we are and despite our conscious wills.

Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does. An elegant coexistence that does not include uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability and fear of loss sounds good but is not our biology. What proved through evolution to have a strong survival advantage is a human couple becoming one physiological unit, which means that if she’s reacting, then I’m reacting, or if he’s upset, that also makes me unsettled. He or she is part of me, and I will do anything to save him or her; having such a vested interest in the well-being of another person translates into a very important survival advantage for both parties.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Lo cierto es que me obsesionaba una sola idea: la determinación de vivir, de sobrevivir a toda costa.”
― Heinz Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps

“Fear is an archetypical instinct of survival.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“¿Quién fue el primero?"
No preguntó quién era ni cómo sucedió, y se lo agradecí. Era la única vez que recordaba haber matado a alguien y sentir algo que no fuera solo superviviencia.
(...)
Al día siguiente, maté a cuatro. Y al siguiente a otros tres.
Y no volví a llorar nunca más.”
― Adrienne Young, Sky in the Deep

“We trust security guards—you know, the employment pool that gave us the Son of Sam killer, the assassin of John Lennon, the Hillside Strangler, and more arsonists and rapists than you have time to read about. Has the security industry earned your confidence? Has government earned it? We have a Department of Justice, but it would be more appropriate to have a department of violence prevention because that’s what we need and that’s what we care about. Justice is swell, but safety is survival.”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

“When Robert was younger he lived somewhere else. When asked, he could never say exactly where, for the simple but painful reason that the nature of his removal from his home had been so sudden and rough and frightening, and had taken such a long time to end, that by the time he found himself in his new home and dared to open his eyes, he had not the slightest idea where he was or where he had come from.”
― Steve B McGlaughlin

“The understanding of human nature as a predisposed tabula rasa informs us that survival is the most fundamental human instinct coded in our genetics and that, when imperilled, it is likely to trump everything else.”
― Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan

“in my mind i opened up my toolbox of survival tricks, and grabbed at the first one i found: tell him more about yourself so he’ll see you as human, which will probably make him less likely to want to hurt you. humanize yourself, but make it kinda tragic so you don’t seem like a snob”
― Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark

“in my mind i opened up my toolbox of survival tricks, and grabbed at the first one i found: tell him more about yourself so he’ll see you as human, which will probably make him less likely to want to hurt you. humanize yourself, but make it kinda tragic so you don’t seem like a snob”
― Karen Kilgariff, Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide

“What is survival if you do not survive whole?”
― Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune

“There is no good or evil in this world, only people trying to survive in the best way they know how, and sometimes, this means doing things that are horrific.”
― Rove Monteux