Those who cannot dance, should not dance.

~ Cian Beirdd

Cian Beirdd Human Nature Humor Self Preservation

In one form or the other, the quest for human dignity has proved to be one of the most propulsive elements for wars, civil strife and willing sacrifice. Yet the entitlement to dignity, enshrined among the 'human rights', does not aspire to being the most self-evident, essential need for human survival, such as food, or physical health. Compared to that other candidate for the basic impulse of human existence - self-preservation - it may even be deemed self-indulgent.

~ Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka Dignity Existence Human Rights Self Preservation

...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.

~ José Saramago

José Saramago Ego Egoism Egotism Self Centeredness Self Preservation

Without parlaying with the renunciation of the world, a person must establish a means to live in harmony with the uncertainties of a chaotic world.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Kilroy J. Oldster Adaptation Adjustments Chaotic Endure Self Preservation Survival

After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment.

~ Judith Lewis Herman

Judith Lewis Herman Anxiety Danger Hypervigilance Jumpy Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Ptsd Self Preservation Startled Trauma Traumatized

Just because something is ubiquitous does not mean that it is innocuous.

~ Clifford Cohen

Clifford Cohen Avoiding Danger Danger Responding To Threat Risk Risk Mitigation Self Preservation Threat

She didn’t dare expose her heart the way she’d exposed her body.

~ Nicki Elson

Nicki Elson Love Hurts Seduction Self Preservation Sex

His immense self-pity, his demand for sympathy poured and spread itself in pools at their feet, and all she did, miserable sinner that she was, was to draw her skirts a little closer round her ankles, lest she should get wet.

~ Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf Guilt Self Pity Self Preservation

The instinct of self-preservation and the urge to self-destruction are equally strong in man! The Devil has equal a sway over humanity as God until a time still unknown to us.

~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky Devil God Self Destruction Self Preservation

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

~ Baruch Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza Self Preservation Virtue

When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.

~ Meljean Brook

Meljean Brook Self Preservation Stupidity

Any fear associated with giving to God's kingdom is irrational. It's on par with a farmer who, out of fear of losing his seed, refuses to plant his fields.

~ Andy Stanley

Andy Stanley Fear Finances Giving God S Kingdom Irrational Plannings Planting Self Preservation

Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained.

~ Mary Allsebrook

Mary Allsebrook Archaeologists Crete France Harriet Boyd Hawes Nazis Self Determination Self Preservation Victorian Era Women S History

Maybe that's why Claire had perfected the art of invisibility. It was a form of self-preservation. You couldn't resent what you could not see. She was so quiet, but she noticed everything. Her eyes tracked the world like it was a book written in a language that she could not understand. There was nothing timorous about her, but you got the feeling that she always had one foot out the door. If the situation got too hard, or too intense, she would simply disappear.

~ Karin Slaughter

Karin Slaughter Escape Invisibility Self Preservation