Alain de Botton Quotes

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.

The instinct of self-preservation in human society, acting almost subconsciously, as do all drives in the human mind, is rebelling against the constantly refined methods of annihilation and against the destruction of humanity.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

When your life is being threatened there's an instinctive urge to fight. You fight for the time you have, for your relationships.

Without game, men prey on each other.

If we cannot secure our needs for survival on the basis of law and justice, then we must be ready to secure them with army in our hands.

Nations like individuals, when driven to choose between desperate courses, might at times be compelled to take the chance of destruction, often destroying themselves or suffering irreparable harm.

It is not that I believe ideals are unimportant, even among the realities of war; but if a nation is to survive in a hostile world, its ideals must be backed by the hard logic of military practicability.

Fighting, you have to be selfish.

Sometimes you found yourself in conflict or within an area where there's conflict. Some days you just find yourself in danger. Sometimes these things mould you and that's what I mean about hostile environments.

If I went in the cage, I was going to end up eaten alive. That was actually one of my top five ways not to die.

It's better for one to die than for all of us to be killed in a shooting affray. Anyway, we've practically no ammunition.

The first time you see something that you have never seen before, you almost always know right away if you should eat it or run away from it.

If you're going to risk dying, there's no sense doing it wet, cold and hungry unless absolutely necessary.

The perception of potential threats to survival may be much more important in determining behavior than the perceptions of potential profits, so that profit maximization is not really the driving force. It is fear of loss rather than hope of gain that limits our behavior.

That's what civilization sometimes did to threats, real or perceived. They walled them off. Us against them. Survival of the fittest. You die so I can live.

Either I act or I die.

War is not for winning, Masha," sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. "It is for surviving.

They are only safe That know to soothe the prince's appetite, And serve his lusts.

My experience is that relationships can be difficult, hard work. I love to be in a relationship.

For the person and for the species love is the form of behavior having the highest survival value.

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival".

You're never more alive than in battle." "Never more dead after," I say.

When people are forced to interact to survive, their prejudices diminish.

Instinct. When the house burns one forgets even lunch. Yes, but one eats it later in the ashes.