“Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.”
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
A collection of quotes on the topic of saving, savings, use, doing.
“Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.”
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
“If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life”
Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet
“All the drugs in the world won't save us from ourselves.”
Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg
Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher
"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html <br class="br">Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.
Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
Reported in Patti Denys, Mary Holmes, Animal Magnetism: At Home With Celebrities & Their Animal Companions (1998), p. 106
Source: Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe
Heinz Guderian (1888–1954) German general
Arguing with Adolf Hitler about the German army being cut off in the Courland Pocket; as quoted in Inside the Third Reich : Memoirs (1971) by Albert Speer, p. 534
Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899–1990) Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer, and author
The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)
Jack Kerouac book On the Road
Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
“Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you.”
Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted
p205
Variant: Yes, terrible things happen, but sometimes those terrible things- they save you.
Source: Haunted (2005), Chapter 11, Ritual
“If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.”
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school
Quoted from [Martha Bush Ashton, Martha Bush Ashton-Sikora, Bruce Christie, Yakṣagāna, a Dance Drama of India, 23, http://books.google.com/books?id=ug3DNI-1xwUC&pg=PA23, 1977, Abhinav Publications, 23–].
Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil
Responding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiyezo1fLRs to Senator José Agripino Maia - former member of ARENA, ruling party of the military dictatorship - in a Senate hearing, May 7. He suggested that, for having lied when she was interrogated by the political police, she could also have been lying about the leak of data of Fernando Henrique Cardoso's personal expenditures. <br class="br">2008
“You cannot save people, you can only love them.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
“And if you save yourself
You will make him happy.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Sappy
Song lyrics, B-sides and compilation tracks (1989-1993)
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 73
James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China
(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 362).
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Bombay, Second Public Talk (25 February 1962)
1960s
Context: The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically, there is nothing in the world that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing. That is a scientific fact, as well as a psychological fact. Because, your leaders — religious and political — and your books — sacred and profane — have all failed, and you are still confused, in misery, in conflict. So, that is an absolute, undeniable fact.
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution
“Two drowning people can't save each other. All they can do is drag each other down.”
Carsten Jensen (1952) Danish author and political columnist
Source: We, the Drowned
Dean Koontz book One Door Away from Heaven
Source: One Door Away from Heaven (2001), chapter 73, pp. 604, 605
Context: What will you find behind the door that is one door away from Heaven? […] If your heart is closed, then you will find behind that door nothing to light your way. But if your heart is open, you will find behind that door people who, like you, are searching, and you will find the right door together with them. None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another's salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.
“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist
Letter to Cassandra (1798-12-24) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters
Source: Jane Austen's Letters
“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
"How We Must Rebuild Russia" in Komsomolskaya Pravda (18 September 1990).
William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
third edition (2006), p. 1
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet
Found in Pushkin's. The Captain's Daughter and Other Stories. English edition by Random House LLC. 2013. p. 139
As quoted by Joseph Frank in Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (2009). Princeton University Press, p. 203.
Anthony the Great (251–357) Christian saint, monk, and hermit
Book IV, Chapter 20 (his last words), St. Athanasius. Trans. Dom J.B. McLaughlin, O.S.B. St. Antony of the Desert. Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc, 1995.
From St. Athanasius' Life of St. Antony
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 75-76
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto I, lines 22–24 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 80
“We need a science to save us from science.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
1950s
Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader
Journal of Discourses 13:143 (July 11, 1869)
1860s
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist
Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work
George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London
On "Bozo", in Ch. 30
Down and out in Paris and London (1933)
Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986
Address at the launching of the Mabuhay Ang Pilipino Movement, Malacañang (30 November 1972)
1965
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism
As quoted in Michael Bakunin (1937) by E.H. Carr, p. 175
Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist
" My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf" at the The Giving Pledge (2010) <br class="br">Context: Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden. Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.<br>My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest. Both my children and I won what I call the ovarian lottery. (For starters, the odds against my 1930 birth taking place in the U. S. were at least 30 to 1. My being male and white also removed huge obstacles that a majority of Americans then faced.) My luck was accentuated by my living in a market system that sometimes produces distorted results, though overall it serves our country well. I’ve worked in an economy that rewards someone who saves the lives of others on a battlefield with a medal, rewards a great teacher with thank-you notes from parents, but rewards those who can detect the mispricing of securities with sums reaching into the billions. In short, fate’s distribution of long straws is wildly capricious.<br>The reaction of my family and me to our extraordinary good fortune is not guilt, but rather gratitude. Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs. My pledge starts us down that course.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Harvard University address (1978)
Context: Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man's life and society's activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?
If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.
This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropologic stage. No one on earth has any other way left but — upward.
Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians
I Corinthians 9:22 (KJV)
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Context: Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Some Thoughts on the Common Toad" http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/commontoad.html, Tribune (12 April 1946) <br class="br">Context: Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him?
Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
"The Power of One", TIME Magazine (26 August 2002) http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1003125,00.html
“Allah, save this country! Pakistan zindabad!”
Liaquat Ali Khan (1895–1951) Pakistan Movement Leader and 1st Prime Minister of Pakistan
Translation: "Pakistan zindabad" means "Long live Pakistan."
Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan, spoke to the nation before being shot.
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism
Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author
Quoted when donating 15,000 COVID-19 Vaccine doses to the government of Uganda.
2020s
Source: [2021-03-10, Tycoon Kiggundu donates sh530m to procure Covid-19 vaccine, https://www.newvision.co.ug/articledetails/107712, 2021-10-03, New Vision, en-US]
“Sorry I didn't save the world, my friend
I was too busy buildin' mine again
I choose me, I'm sorry”
Kendrick Lamar (1987) American rapper, songwriter and record producer from California
Mirror
Song lyrics, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022)
“Acquire a peaceful spirit and then thousands of others around you will be saved.”
Seraphim of Sarov (1754–1833) Russian saint
As quoted in The Inner Kingdom (2000) by Kallistos Ware, p. 133.
As quoted in The Folly of Prayer : Practicing the Presence and Absence of God (2009) by Matt Woodley, p. 156.
Variant: Acquire a peaceful spirit, and then thousands around you will be saved.
Variant: Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.
“I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.”
Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian
Variant: I saved a girl from being attacked last night. I controlled myself.
“The aspiration to save the world is a morbid phenomenon of today's youth.”
Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
“Maybe it's what we don't say/that saves us.”
Dorianne Laux (1952) American poet
Source: What We Carry
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
"My Own View" in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1978) edited by Robert Holdstock; later published in Asimov on Science Fiction (1981)
General sources
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
Variant: God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fool
Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 10: The American Forests <!-- Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 604-605 -->
Context: Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed — chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. … It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries … God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.
“I became intent on saving him through showing him that he was loved.”
Joyce Johnson (1935) American novelist, short story writer, memoirist
Source: Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958
“Everything can be forgiven in this world, save telling the truth.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven
Source: The Prisoner of Heaven
“She who saves a single soul, saves the universe.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: Wild Geese
“I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world’s muteness.”
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
“Where are our Men of abilities? Why do they not come forth to save their Country?”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
“It's like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.”
Terry Pratchett book The Shepherd's Crown
Source: The Shepherd's Crown
“You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.”
Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady
Source: The Portrait of a Lady
“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.”
E.M. Forster book Howards End
Source: Howards End (1910), Ch. 41
“Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.”
Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist