Quotes about survival
page 18

Raquel Welch photo

“A lot of times I would play a lot of roles a man would play…In One Million Years B.C.—yes, the costume was revealing. But I was outdoors all the time, I was fighting to survive, there was a girlfight. I was participating, it was physical, and I was independent. I wasn’t that pushover kind of a girl. And I think that left an impression.”

Raquel Welch (1940–2023) American actress

On how she felt her roles were masculine in “Body of Work: Screen Siren Raquel Welch Gets Her Lincoln Center Retrospective” https://observer.com/2012/02/body-of-work-screen-siren-raquel-welch-gets-her-lincoln-center-retrospective/ in The Observer (2012 Feb 7)

Peter Matthiessen photo
Noah Levine photo
Helena Roerich photo
Adlai Stevenson photo
Buckminster Fuller photo

“That’s the basis of all politics: it has to be you or me, there’s not enough for both of us. Survival of the fittest.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Buckminster Fuller Talks Politics (1982)

Kapka Kassabova photo
Newton Lee photo
Newton Lee photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo

“It is a gross contradiction to suppose that the constitution might preside over this new order of things; that would be to assume it had itself survived. What are the laws that replace it? Those of nature, the one which is the foundation of society itself: the salvation of the people. The right to punish the tyrant and the right to dethrone him are the same thing; both include the same forms. The tyrant’s trial is the insurrection; the verdict, the collapse of his power; the sentence, whatever the liberty of the people requires.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Speech on the Trial of Louis XVI (Dec. 3, 1792)
Source: https://ihrf.univ-paris1.fr/enseignement/outils-et-materiaux-pedagogiques/textes-et-sources-sur-la-revolution-francaise/proces-du-roi-discours-de-robespierre/ Speech on the Trial of Louis XVI (Dec. 3, 1792)

en.wikiquote.org - Maximilien Robespierre / Quotes / Speech on the Trial of Louis XVI (Dec. 3, 1792) https://ihrf.univ-paris1.fr/enseignement/outils-et-materiaux-pedagogiques/textes-et-sources-sur-la-revolution-francaise/proces-du-roi-discours-de-robespierre/

Charles Stross photo

“There is no point in prioritizing doing your job when your organization faces being defunded in less than three months’ time if you don’t do something else: you do what’s necessary in order to ensure your organization survives, then you get back to work.”

This is how the iron law of bureaucracy installs itself at the heart of an institution. Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization’s ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren’t, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it’s no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It’s no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization’s task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.
Source: The Laundry Files, The Annihilation Score (2015), Chapter 16, “Democracy in Action” (pp. 311-312)

Daniel Abraham photo
H.L. Mencken photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Margaret Sanger photo
Sarojini Naidu photo

“Her work has a real beauty. Some of her lyrical work is likely, I think, to survive among the lasting things in English literature and by these, even if they are fine rather than great, she may take her rank among the immortals.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Aurobindo said on her poetry quoted in Critical Response To Indian Poetry In English, p123/xxxx

Donald J. Trump photo

“Seven decades ago, the warriors of D-day fought a sinister enemy who spoke of a thousand-year empire. In defeating that evil, they left a legacy that will last not only for a thousand years, but for all time—for as long as the soul knows of duty and honor; for as long as freedom keeps its hold on the human heart. To the men who sit behind me, and to the boys who rest in the field before me, your example will never, ever grow old. Your legend will never tire. Your spirit—brave, unyielding, and true—will never die. The blood that they spilled, the tears that they shed, the lives that they gave, the sacrifice that they made, did not just win a battle. It did not just win a war. Those who fought here won a future for our Nation. They won the survival of our civilization. And they showed us the way to love, cherish, and defend our way of life for many centuries to come. Today, as we stand together upon this sacred Earth, we pledge that our nations will forever be strong and united. We will forever be together. Our people will forever be bold. Our hearts will forever be loyal. And our children, and their children, will forever and always be free. May God bless our great veterans, may God bless our Allies, may God bless the heroes of D-day, and may God bless America. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2019, June, Remarks on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in Colleville-sur-Mer, France

Bianca Jagger photo
Ayn Rand photo
Jack Kirby photo

“Unlike other comic book creators who were given either stateside or way-behind-lines assignments, and perhaps because Kirby understood Yiddish, the Jewish German dialect spoken by his family, he was sent as a scout behind enemy lines to draw maps. He endured and survived many harrowing violent experiences during his service, almost losing his feet to trench foot. He had no time for fascists or racists.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Randolph Hoppe, as qtd in Arturo Garcia, "Would Captain America’s Co-Creator Punch Nazis?" https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/01/24/captain-americas-co-creator-punch-nazis/, Snopes, (24 January 2017).
About

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The law of evolution is that the strongest survives.”

“Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical.”
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Dispossessed (1974), Chapter 7 (p. 220)

Anthony Crosland photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Carl Sagan photo

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

54 min 25 sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13]

Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo

“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this: smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (p. 240)

Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan photo

“The price we pay for the anticipation of our future is anxiety about it. Foretelling disaster is probably not much fun; Pollyanna was much happier than Cassandra. But the Cassandric components of our nature are necessary for survival.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Dragons of Eden (1977), Chapter 3, “The Brain and the Chariot” (p. 74)

Buckminster Fuller photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Ko Wen-je photo

“What matters most (for Taiwan in dealing with Mainland China) is exerting the positive influence of Taiwan and making (mainland) Chinese people envy life on the (Taiwan) island. This would be key to the survival of Taiwan.”

Ko Wen-je (1959) Taiwanese politician and physician

Ko Wen-je (2019) cited in " Taipei Mayor says no need to infuriate China https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3792875" on Taiwan News, 9 October 2019.

Enoch Powell photo
Charles Darwin photo

“Pāṇini had before him a list of irregularly formed words, which survives, in a somewhat modified form, as the Uṇādi Sūtra.”

Pāṇini ancient Sanskrit grammarian

There are also two appendixes to which Pāṇini refers: one is the Dhātupāṭha, "List of Verbal Roots," containing some 2000 roots, of which only about 800 have been found in Sanskrit literature, and from which about fifty Vedic verbs are omitted; the second is the Gaṇapāṭha, or "List of Word-Groups," to which certain rules apply. These gaṇas were metrically arranged in the Gaṇaratna-mahodadhi, composed by Vardhamāna in 1140 A.D.
Appendix A History of Sanskrit Literature

Poul Anderson photo

“Anderson demonstrates that if one accepts a sham mystery as real, one has stopped or strayed in the search for truth, and truth has survival value.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Patrick L. McGuire, Her Strong Enchantments Failing (p. 94)
Short fiction, The Book of Poul Anderson (1975)

Poul Anderson photo
Narendra Modi photo
Ernst Röhm photo
Thorsten J. Pattberg photo
Sabine Hossenfelder photo
Paul D. Miller (academic) photo

“Someday, if we survive the mess we’ve made of the planet, someone will compile a detailed sociological examination of how this constant torrent of mind bombs came to affect the population. For many, I fear, the ultimate result is inaction due to confusion, consternation and livid frustration.”

William Rivers Pitt (1971) writer

"The Problem Is Not “Fake News.” It’s the Noise That Drowns Out the News". Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/the-problem-is-not-fake-news-its-the-noise-that-drowns-out-the-news/ (9 February 2019)

Michael Witzel photo
Michael Witzel photo
Michael Witzel photo
Dave Barry photo
Chang Guan-chung photo

“We intend to make use of the natural buffer zone of the Taiwan Strait and our geostrategic advantages (in the case of conflicts with Mainland China). We adopt innovative and asymmetric concepts to focus our investment on systems that are mobile, hard to find, agile, cheap, numerous, survivable and operationally effective.”

Chang Guan-chung (1959) Taiwanese military personel

Chang Guan-chung (2019) cited in " Taiwan seeking long-term U.S. logistic support: defense official http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201910080004.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 8 October 2019

Antonio Llidó photo

“Despite his physical state and the abuse inflicted by DINA agents, who grossly mocked his condition as priest, he found strength to console his cellmates, sharing his crusts of bread or fruit peels to help us survive.”

Antonio Llidó (1936–1974) Spanish priest

Fellow detainee, Julio Laks Feller sworn testimony before the Spanish consulate on November 27, 1977.

James Frey photo
Russell Brand photo
Christopher Titus photo

“My dad also survived five divorces, and the women he married cleaned his ass out every time.”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

I used to think my dad got divorced because he wanted new furniture. At one point in my life, all we had left was a wooden box, a 12" black-and-white TV, and a four-man rubber raft for a couch. And yet, I was the coolest kid in third grade. (imitating a kid): "Mom, can we have a sleepover in Christopher Titus' house? They have a raft in the living room! We can row to breakfast in the morning. I can actually be Captain Crunch!"
Norman Rockwell is Bleeding (2004)

Ptolemy photo
Jane Roberts photo

“It is my contention that if a large body of strong healthy men do not exist as a pool of hope for the race, then the race has no chance to survive. If twenty million starved neurotics manage to live through the plague, does this mean that humanity survives?”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

He paused, throwing the question at them and waiting until they formed their own answer. Then he shouted, "No, it does not! What is humanity, a physical form only? I say it is more. It is intellect and reason and dignity. It is these qualities that must survive, not the mere number of twisted sickly bodies."
Source: The Rebellers (1963), p. 79

Aldo Leopold photo
Robert Greene photo

“Creating this feeling of validation is the golden key that will unlock people’s defenses. And we cannot survive and thrive in this highly competitive world without possessing such a power.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 7 : Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Teal Swan photo
Will Durant photo

“The principle of the family was mutual aid; but the principle of society is competition, the struggle for existence, the elimination of the weak and the survival of the strong.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 2 : On Youth

Saffron Burrows photo

“If you’re told that’s how you behave in order to survive and flourish, then you actually question far less in your 20s and 30s because you think: ‘Oh, nothing’s as bad as that.’ So it’s a real issue. No one wants their teenage daughter thinking that’s what you should expect from your life.”

Saffron Burrows (1972) English actress, model and writer

On women starting out young in the modeling or film industry in “Saffron Burrows: ‘I was raised to feel like I could love who I wanted’” https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/19/saffron-burrows-i-was-raised-to-feel-like-i-could-love-who-i-wanted in The Guardian (2020 Feb 19)

Richard Dawkins photo
Viktor Orbán photo

“Is it possible to successfully reject migration, to protect families, to defend Christian culture, to announce a programme of national unification and nation building, and to create an order of Christian freedom? Is it possible in all this to survive against the full force of an international headwind, and indeed to make it succeed?”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Tusnádfürdő speech https://www.kormany.hu/en/the-prime-minister/the-prime-minister-s-speeches/prime-minister-viktor-orban-s-speech-at-the-30th-balvanyos-summer-open-university-and-student-camp, 27 July 2019

Audre Lorde photo
Cory Doctorow photo

“Look, whatever else happiness is, it’s also some kind of chemical reaction. Your body making and experiencing a cocktail of hormones and other molecules in response to stimulus. Brain reward. A thing that feels good when you do it. We’ve had millions of years of evolution that gave a reproductive edge to people who experienced pleasure when something pro-survival happened. Those individuals did more of whatever made them happy, and if what they were doing more of gave them more and hardier offspring, then they passed this on.”
“Yes,” I said. “Sure. At some level, that’s true of all our emotions, I guess.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m just talking about happiness. The thing is, doing stuff is pro-survival—seeking food, seeking mates protecting children, thinking up better ways to hide from predators...Sitting still and doing nothing is almost never pro-survival, because the rest of the world is running around, coming up with strategies to outbreed you, to outcompete you for food and territory...If you stay still, they’ll race past you.”
Source: Short fiction, The Man Who Sold The Moon (2014), p. 130

Andrea Dworkin photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Stephen Baxter photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
John Allen Paulos photo

“For the record, natural selection is a highly nonrandom process that acts on the genetic variation produced by random mutation and genetic drift and results in those organisms with more adaptive traits differentially surviving and reproducing.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Part 1 “Four Classical Arguments”, Chapter 2 “The Argument from Design (and Some Creationist Calculations)” (p. 19)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Love and fraternity, once part of an ideal, have become crucial to our survival. Jesus enjoined his followers to love one another. Teilhard added, "or you perish."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Without human affection, we become sick, frightened, hostile. Lovelessness is a broken circuit, loss of order.
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing

Dotsie Bausch photo

“My students have described this process of testing ideas in science as: “Hit it with a sledgehammer and see if it breaks. Whatever survives is the best we've got."”

Greg Craven American teacher and writer

Science is a very adversarial activity! Hence the old adage among physicists: Physics is a contact sport.

Chapter 2 "The Nature of Science" (p. 43)
What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate (2009)

Herbert Hoover photo

“American life is builded, and can alone survive, upon . . . [the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

“Radio Address to the Nation on Unemployment Relief,” American Presidency Project, October 18, 1931

Oodgeroo Noonuccal photo

“I can’t afford the luxury of despair or pessimism. We still have to hope. We’re a timeless people, we’ve lived in a timeless land. We have suffered the invasion of two hundred years, and we’ll go on suffering. But we are going to survive.”

Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920–1993) Aboriginal Australian poet, artist, teacher and campaigner for Indigenous rights

On the Aboriginal people in “‘Recording the Cries of the People’: AN INTERVIEW WITH OODGEROO (KATH WALKER)” http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1725&context=kunapipi in Kunapipi (1988)

Samuel P. Huntington photo

“The survival of the West depends on Americans reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners accepting their civilization as unique not universal and uniting to renew and preserve it against challenges from non-Western societies.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 1: The New Era in World Politics, § 1 : Introduction: Flags And Cultural Identity

Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“Capitalism was founded on an act of robbery as massive as feudalism. It has been sustained to the present by continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege, without which its survival is unimaginable.”

Kevin Carson (1963) American academic

"The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege" (2011)

“Honor was in surviving, not fair play.”

Steve Perry (1947) American writer

Source: Matadora (1986), Chapter 1 (p. 4)

Pierce Brown photo
Pierce Brown photo
Pierce Brown photo

“Nothing beautiful survives the mob.”

Source: Dark Age (2019), Ch. 16: Rider of the Storm; Rhone

Deng Feng-Zhou photo

“Life on Earth is dependent on nature to survive.
Ecological balance comes naturally.
Planting trees and flowers can maintain a good environment.
Reproduction of saplings can benefit the earth.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 萬物依存大自然,平衡動態順其緣。
栽花植樹維佳境,繁殖新生種福田。

"Reproduction" (繁殖新生)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 87.

Deng Feng-Zhou photo

“A baby is born after a ten-month pregnancy, and well taken care of by adults.
Even lowly creatures struggles for survival.
Not to mention we lord of creatures that should make fierce efforts to survive instead of vanishing like a speck of dust.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 十月懷胎孕育身,悉心養護遂成人。
微低動物猶爭度,奮力求生勿化塵。

"Cherish life" (愛惜生命)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 85.

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe — on the contrary!”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

2000s and posthumous publications, 90th Birthday Reflections (2007)