Self-Preservation Quotes

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of a high obligation.... To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself ... absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

If one comes to kill you, make haste and kill him first.

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout.

I'd rather betray the world than let the world betray me.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely.

Those who love to be feared fear to be loved, and they themselves are more afraid than anyone, for whereas other men fear only them, they fear everyone.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.

I'm so afraid of losing something I love that I refuse to love anything

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

You can't save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can't save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine.

It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result.

Conquest has made me what I am, only conquest can maintain me.

Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death.

I'm not afraid of flying; I just fear I'm going to die. I think I'm - vulnerable. I admit it. I don't fly. I got claustrophobia. I don't go in high buildings. I don't do those things. I'm just myself, whatever that is.

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt.

I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else... I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road.

I flee what I can't fight. What can only do me harm.

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

The mercenaries devoted all their professional skill to eliminating hardship and anxiety for themselves and their own troops; they did not kill one another in battle, but rather took each other prisoner.

People do terrible things all the time, but we don’t regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things.

I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.