c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The determination of the average man is not merely a matter of speculative curiosity; it may be of the most important service to the science of man and the social system. It ought necessarily to precede every other inquiry into social physics, since it is, as it were, the basis. The average man, indeed, is in a nation what the centre of gravity is in a body; it is by having that central point in view that we arrive at the apprehension of all the phenomena of equilibrium and motion.
— Adolphe Quetelet, Treatise on Man & the Development of His Faculties
She resembled the swallow in the fable who once every thousand years transferred a grain of wheat, in the hope of rearing a mountain to reach the moon. Such persons are raised up in every age; they obstinately insist on transporting their grains of wheat and they derive a certain exhilaration from the sneers of the bystanders. “How queerly they dress!” we cry. “How queerly they dress!
— Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Service is one of life's great joys. It's a privilege to be in service. It's a great relief, a gift, to be faced with a job that you know absolutely you must do for the benefit of someone else. As long as you give yourself to it. You don't need to worry about anything but doing that job well, and the satisfaction, when you do, is very beautiful.
— Claire Messud
I believe the devil exists in those little, seemingly unnoticeable moments when we choose to value our own insecurities over the service of others.
— Chris Matakas
Has what you do for God become more important to you than the Lord Himself?
— Colin S. Smith, The 10 Greatest Struggles of Your Life
You reveal your character by what you do with what you have.
— GE Paulus
When leaders reframe customers into guests, and results into experiences, profits escalate.
— Eric Schiffer, Emotionally Charged Learning: Secrets to Competitive Advantages for the Second Half of the Knowledge/Entertainment-Based Economy
If you are benefiting more than those you serve, you are no longer serving.
— A. Hudnall
To Stanley Ager, the gift of human "service" was no one-way loyalty. He clearly gave his all to the families he served but, though he was almost too polite to state this, his expectation of loyalty in return was implicit.
— Stanley Ager, The Butler's Guide to Running the Home and Other Graces
EYou reveal your character by what you do with what you have.
— GE Paulus
We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you cannot serve your wife or husband or child or parent - how are you going to serve society? If you cannot make your own child happy, how do you expect to be able to make anyone else happy? If all our friends in the peace movement or of service communities of any kind do not love and help each other, whom can we love and help?
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation
The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.
— Albert Schweitzer
When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, "whenever man is made the center of things, he becomes the storm-center of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains...You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause... When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy and the work returns to it's purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness. "The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action" writes Mother Theresa. "If we pray the work...if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus... that's what makes us content." Deep joy is always in the touching of Christ - in whatever skin He comes to us in. Page 194
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Love comes into being through useful service to others.
— Emanuel Swedenborg
Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of the Age of Intellect is the unconscious growth of the idea that the human brain can solve the problems of the world. Even on the low level of practical affairs this is patently untrue. Any small human activity, the local bowls club or the ladies’ luncheon club, requires for its survival a measure of self-sacrifice and service on the part of the members. In a wider national sphere, the survival of the nation depends basically on the loyalty and self‑sacrifice of the citizens. The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unselfishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse.
— John Bagot Glubb, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival
The spiritual energy of our time, as I've come to understand it, is not a rejection of the rational disciplines by which we've ordered our common life for many decades - law, politics, economics, science. It is, rather, a realization that these disciplines have a limited scope. They can't ask ultimate questions...they don't begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in life, what matters in a death, how to love, how we can be of service to each other. These are the kinds of questions religion arose to address and religions traditions are keepers of conversation across generations about them.
— Krista Tippett, Speaking of Faith
When in doubt as to what you should do, err on the side of 'giving.
— Tony   Cleaver, A Chain of Flames
the world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
My call to the ministry was not a miraculous or supernatural something. On the contrary it was an inner urge calling me to serve humanity.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
The idea is not to do good because of the praise of men; but to do good because in doing good we develop godliness within us, and this being the case we shall become allied to godliness, which will in time become part and portion of our being.
— Lorenzo Snow
Each of us has the power to take action, to light a fire and be the ignition for others.
— Jim Ziolkowski, Walk in Their Shoes: Can One Person Change the World?
I’m growing mushrooms… because I can’t kill them. They just keep multiplying…and it’s like…I’m in service to them.
— Sharon Weil, Donny and Ursula Save the World
She was the kind of shopkeeper who finishes the paragraph she is reading before waiting on the customer.
— Cornell Woolrich, Marihuana
The key ingredient in engaging the power available from service is motive.
— Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret
Of course you could do more - you can always do more, and you should do more - but still, the important things is to do what you can, whenever you can. You just do your best, and that's all you can do. Too many people use the excuse that they don't think they can do enough, so they decide they don't have to to do anything. There's never a good excuse for not doing anything - even if it's just to sign something, or send a small contribution, or invite a newly settled refugee family over for Thanksgiving.
— Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life Book Club
You can get in anywhere if you go to serve.
— Brother Andrew, God's Smuggler
The highest distinction is service to others.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
If our prayer is “Dear God, please use me to be of service,” then that is what we will be. And it is not for us to judge either the size or value of our gifts. Our job is to try to get out of the way, to defer to the spirit moving within us and become open channels for the flow of God’s love.
— Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power Of Intimate Relationships
The oblivion fear is something else, fear that I won't be able to give anything in exchange for my life. If you don't live a life in service of a greater good, you've gotta at least die a death in service of a greater good, you know? And I fear that I won't get either a life or a death that means anything.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
We believe that all those who are served should also spend time serving.
— Mercedes Lackey, Fortune's Fool
As long as there are ways we can serve, then we have a job to do.
— Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles
No time is better spent than that spent in the service of your fellow man.
— Bryant McGill
First, a man may in some ways be superior to his fellows and still serve them, if together they serve a common cause which is greater than any one man. I believe that I serve such a cause, or I would not be doing it.
— Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
It is not about how intelligent you are or how good you score in exam but it is about how helpful you are and how much you made people happy
— Vijay Dhameliya
Let us choose life and love, and happily use our selves up in loving service to one another.
— Doris Haddock
Until you understand your customers - deeply and genuinely - you cannot truly serve them
— Rasheed Ogunlaru, Soul Trader: Putting the Heart Back into Your Business
Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I'll go. And I'll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I'll call it the step of yes.
— Brother Andrew, God's Smuggler
No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy. We do not live alone - in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor's wretchedness. 'Love they neighbor' is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection.
— Thomas S. Monson
Balanced service is a virtue to be cherished. There is to be time in our life to serve God, to serve our family, to serve our country and community, to serve our employer. Wise persons budget available time so that no significant area of one's life falls into a state of neglect.
— Thomas S. Monson
A true Christian does not judge whether a person is worthy of help, but only judges a need and how to best meet that need.
— Toni Sorenson
Those who serve deserve.
— Orrin Woodward, LIFE
I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand-a hand never dirtied by serving-and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.
— Bill Hybels
Intellectual discourse and investigation is admittedly great fun but only truly meaningful when conducted in the service of others.
— Sergio de la Pava, A Naked Singularity
Service is providing what's wanted, not what I'd like to give.
— Brian Klemmer, The Compassionate Samurai: Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World
Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end.
— Thomas Dooley
Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his /pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs/, --- and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure, --- no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinions.
— Edmund Burke
Graciousness in serving and being served marks the lives of leaders who have made the largest impact on my life.
— Sue Mallory, Equipping Church, The
I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.
— Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
We each survive in our own way.
— Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass
If you don't hunt it down and kill it, it will hunt you down and kill you.
— Flannery O'Connor
You don't drown by falling in the water
—  you drown by staying there.
Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.
— Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock
The strong survive, but the courageous triumph.
— Michael Scott, The Warlock
The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.
— Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes
Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest.
— Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places
Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.
— Dorothy Parker
mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.
— Joseph Heller
Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.
— Robertson Davies
If quick, I survive.If not quick, I am lost.This is "death.
— Sun Tzu
Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable. It is important that the body survives, but it is more meaningful that the human spirit prevails.
— Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"
One thing you have to realize from now on is that it doesn't matter if this is a dream or not. Survival depends on what you do, not what you think.
— Rebecca McKinsey, Anterria
what you werewill not happen again.the tigers have found meand I do not care.
— Charles Bukowski
I survived, but it's not a happy ending.
— Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried
The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.
— Han Kang, The Vegetarian
A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.
— Chris Cleave, Little Bee
Knowledge is power, community is strength and positive attitude is everything
— Lance Armstrong
We are respecting our parents' wishes....They didn't want to shelter us from the world's treacheries. They wanted us to survive them.
— Lemony Snicket, The End
But part of surviving is being able to move on.
— Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds
Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs. Individuals have morals. Mobs have appetites.
— Rachel Caine, Total Eclipse
SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT THEIR PERSONALITY FAST.
— Jenny Holzer
The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It's what humans and cockroaches are best at.
— Susan Ee, World After
Mother Fuckers. They're going to feel pretty stupid when they fin
— Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Book Six
These are the intensities that one cannot live with, that he has to outgrow if he wants to survive. But who can help grieving for them? If the blood vessels could hold them, how much better to keep those early loves with us?
— Tennessee Williams, Collected Stories
Here is the secret to surviving one of these [airplane] crashes: Be male. In a 1970 Civil Aeromedical institute study of three crashes involving emergency evacuations, the most prominent factor influencing survival was gender (followed closely by proximity to exit). Adult males were by far the most likely to get out alive. Why? Presumably because they pushed everyone else out of the way.
— Mary Roach, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Knowing that this is what it means to live. That this love, this need is what drives us to push and fight and build and grow. That as long as there's hope and love in this world, there will always be the living.
— Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places
Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
The weak fall, but the strong will remain and never go under!
— Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
I remembered my little brother, Allyn, had appeared so innocent and angelic when he slept--similar to Kerrick. It must be a survival tactic. If Allyn hadn't looked so sweet, we would have killed him while he slept. He had been pure evil when he was awake--similar to Kerrick.
— Maria V. Snyder, Touch of Power
Don't play his game. Play yours.
— Rachel Caine, Fall of Night
Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival and endurance.
— Rodney A. Winters
Anyone worth knowing breaks once. Once. No shame, no foul if you survive it. You did.
— Karen Marie Moning, Bloodfever
You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.
— David Mamet
On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars a s beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’.In a few breaths’ time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them as we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means the storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and then she will turn round and smile.
— Chris Cleave, Little Bee
My own survival required me to counterbalance interesting with invisible.
— Rachel Hartman, Seraphina
The one thing I can tell you is that you wont survive for yourself. I know because I would never have come this far. A person who had no one would be well advised to cobble together some passable ghost. Breathe it into being and coax it along with words of love. Offer it each phantom crumb and shield it from harm with your body. As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
You'll beat this. I know it doesn't feel like it, but you will. You're a survivor.""I don't want to survive it.""I know that, too," Nell had said. "And it's fair enough. But sometimes we don't have a choice...
— Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden
We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
— David Mamet
It is true that all of us are the beneficiaries of crimes committed by our ancestors, and it is true that nothing can be done about that now because the victims are dead and the survivors are innocent. These are good reasons for keeping our mouths shut about the past: but tell me, what are our reasons for silence about atrocities still to come?
— Damon Knight, One Side Laughing: Stories Unlike Other Stories
One might accept death reasoningly, with every aspect of the conscious mind, but the body was a brute beast that knew nothing of reason.
— Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky
Bad things can happen, and often do--but they only take up a few pages of your story; and anyone can survive a few pages.
— James A. Owen, The Barbizon Diaries: A Meditation on Will, Purpose, and the Value Of Stories
See, they say it’s ‘survival of the fittest’, but you and I really know that it’s ‘survival of the most heavily armed
— Lia Habel, Dearly, Departed
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.
— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving. I was weeping because ....fill in the blank with whatever/whoever helped you survive... had left me so unceremoniously.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.
— James Clavell, King Rat
Don't worry. You're safe now. You've got nothing left to steal.
— Joan D. Vinge, Catspaw
For the first time in his existence, he knew he was drowning and he wasn't thinking about survival.
— Christine Feehan, Water Bound
Everybody who is alive is a survivor, and everybody who is dead isn't," I said."So everybody alive must have the Survivor's Syndrome. It's that or death. I am so damn sick of people telling me proudly that they are survivors!
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Bluebeard
They want us dead,' said Bond calmly. 'So we have to stay alive.
— Ian Fleming, Moonraker
We all have our personal Andes.
— Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without vicory there is no survival.
— Winston S. Churchill
Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival.
— Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune
A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass.
— Richard Adams, Watership Down
Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
DID is about survival! As more people begin to appreciate this concept, individuals with DID will start to feel less as though they have to hide in shame. DID develops as a response to extreme trauma that occurs at an early age and usually over an extended period of time.
— Deborah Bray Haddock, The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
Lina couldn't sleep at first, thinking of the old songs and what they meant. Someone, long ago, had hoped that at least a few people would survive and had wanted them to remember her city and the treasure it held, the treasure that was most valuable of all - herself, her family, and all of the generations of people who had lived in that secret place, their purpose, though they didn't know it, to make sure that human beings did not vanish from the world, no matter what happened above.
— Jeanne DuPrau, The People of Sparks
If your friend really cared about you he wouldn't let you take such risks.
— Carrie Ryan, The Dead-Tossed Waves
Such beauty, he thought, was too perfect to have come about by mere chance. That day in the center of the Pacific was, to him, a gift crafted deliberately, compassionately, for him and Phil. Joyful and grateful in the midst of slow dying, the two men bathed in that day until sunset brought is, and their time in the doldrums, to an end.
— Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.
— Cody Lundin, When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes
Survival feels like cowardice.
— Ann Aguirre, Aftermath
She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.
— G.K. Chesterton, Manalive
Don't just survive while waiting for someone's revolution to clear your head.
— Hakim Bey, TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone
In the morning she found pieces of a birdchopped and scattered by the fanblood sprayed onto the mosquito net,its body leaving paths on the wallslike red snails that drifted down in lumps.She could imagine the featherswhile she had sleptfalling around herlike slow rain.
— Michael Ondaatje, The Man with Seven Toes
The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, but with its ability to allow any man of any size to survive.
— Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet
I have no language to paint the horrors of our situation. To shed tears was indeed altogether unavailing and withal unmanly yet I was not able to deny myself the relief they served to afford me.
— Owen Chase, The Loss of the Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale
How should a Jew feel? There we went through the seven gates of hell for matzos. Here I stand in matzos over my head. So how should a Jew feel? You are an angel of God, and the Rebbe, he should live and be well, the Rebbe made miracles and wonders for me. At night, I tell myself it is a dream and I am afraid to wake up. If it is a dream, better I should not wake up, better I should die in my sleep.
— Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev
The eye is always half-full.
— Arthur Slade, Jolted: Newton Starker's Rules for Survival
I come from a plane that fell into the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for ten days. I have a friend up here who is injured. In the plane there is fourteen injured people. We have to get of here quickly and we don't have any food. We are weak. When are you going to come and fetch us? Please. We can't even walk. Where are we?
— Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes
I came "here" to get "there." Do I have any fucking clue what "there" is? Hell the fuck no. I'm just trying to live in a world of the dead.
— Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Vol. 26: Call to Arms
While complying can be an effective strategyfor physical survival, it's a lousy one for personal fulfillment. Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those incontrol. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get youthrough the day, but only the latter will get you through the night.
— Daniel H. Pink
There was no such thing as a fair fight. All vulnerabilities must be exploited.
— Cary Caffrey
Here is the vicious circle: if you feel separate from your organic life, you feel driven to survive; survival -going on living- thus becomes a duty and also a drag because you are not fully with it; because it does not quite come up to expectations, you continue to hope that it will, to crave for more time, to feel driven all the more to go on.
— Alan W. Watts
Escape was not our goal since it was so unrealistic. What we wanted was to survive, to live long enough to tell the world what had happened in Buchenwald.
— Jack Werber, Saving Children: Diary Of A Buchenwald Survivor And Rescuer
The foraging for food and water, the struggle for life in a world without masters, housed in a body that man had made dependent on himself.
— Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories
She lives for this-the fight, the battle for survival. She actually enjoys it.
— Lauren Oliver, Requiem
And in Kandahar he was taught about survival, about fighting and killing and hunting, and he learned much else without being taught, such as looking out for himself and watching his tongue and not saying the wrong thing, the thing that might get him killed. About the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlesness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defenses of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility and good peripheral vision. The many lessons of lessness. The lessening from which growing could begin.
— Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence
I was born with more power inside myself than I ever dreamed. But along with it there came no more sense than any other idiotic kid. Somewhere along in here I need to grow up into a man I can stand to live with. A man who doesn't just survive, but deserves to.
— Orson Scott Card, The Lost Gate
Such is the privilege of survival: to be allowed to fashion the means that fit our ends, to cobble together a narrative that reveals (as by the divine light of illumination) the predestined arc of our days. This is no small gift. With it we can neutralize all but the greatest losses, reduce even the greatest bastards to nothing more than bit actors in the drama of our lives, put on this earth for the sole purpose of forwarding our cause. Blessed are those who can believe their own stories.
— Mark Slouka, God's Fool
These children had never looked death in the face and then chosen to live anyway.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
Survival justifies any means.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
The secret of survival is a defective imagination.
— John Banville, The Infinities
They're both a bit cavalier about the whole thing at first; more than anything, they seem to think that it's going to be a lot of fun. Which it is, of course, but mostly in the way a plane crash is fun to reminisce about after you survive it.
— Josh Gates, Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
He held his head, and he cried for them, and he did not melt into the sea but sat, aching, in the glowing moonlight-for in the end our bodies know only how to carry on surviving.That is our strength, and our tragedy.
— Nick Lake
... Have you considered that maybe this is the birth of a new world, that what happens next is a golden opportunity to change the nature of man in a fundamental way?”“Those are brave words, Tiresias.”“New parents can’t afford to be anything but brave, Eddie.
— Joe McKinney, Dead City
We'll fight,' I interrupt. 'And if we die, that's how it ends. Fighting. With purpose.
— Summer Lane, State of Hope
Outside, the dogs whine over the wind. They sense the wolves - they sense the wild. It calls to them, like it calls to me, and I wonder sometimes if we are the only ones who hear it.
— Summer Lane, Running with Wolves
One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not: we who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them, who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic and above all survivors…we’re not that way from perversity, and we cannot just let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.
— Piers Anthony
If you don't have the physical conditioning necessary to get your self out of trouble, the skills in this book won't do you much good.
— Clint Emerson, 100 Deadly Skills: Survival Edition: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Surviving in the Wild and Being Prepared for Any Disaster
Why waste the space on a stack of half-read books and periodicals, when you could turn your nightstand into a tactical toolbox?
— Clint Emerson, 100 Deadly Skills: Survival Edition: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Surviving in the Wild and Being Prepared for Any Disaster
In the end, what matters is this: I survived.
— Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
I don't think there are any true heroes. Just people who ignore their survival instincts long enough to do something incredibly foolhardy.
— Lauren James, The Next Together
There's nothing special about this place, he thinks. We all forget. Then we forget what we forgot. And that's how we survive.
— Adam Sternbergh, The Blinds
Every time the train stopped at a station, we would all hold our breath, making sure not a single sound drifted out of the closed windows. We were hungry and our throats parched. From inside the train we heard voices travelling up and down the platform, saying, “Hindu paani,” and, from the other side, “Muslim paani.” Apart from land and population, even the water had now been divided
— Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory
Your own hands falling out to catch youbefore you hit the ground. All the waysyou save yourself even when youdon't want to.Love is the way your body fights tokeep you alive.Day after day after day.
— Darshana Suresh, Howling at the Moon
I realize I was having a conversation in my head that was about three responses ahead of Paul's innocuous quip. I tend to do that -- imagine conversations before they happen. That's why people sometimes have a tough time understanding me and I them.
— Alex Morel, Survive
We would survive even ourselves, as long as we were together.
— Hannah Lillith Assadi, Sonora
You get up each morning and do what you can to survive. Nothing else is true, and nothing else matters.
— Marty Rubin
He considered going for his hammer, which lay just out of reach, or maybe diving for Ganelon instead, since waking the warrior was probably his best hope of survival.
— Nicholas Eames, Kings of the Wyld
Partial skinning may be less painful, perhaps delay unpleasantness, how pain set in breasts, back, and belly offers less agony, some reprieve, while the skinning of fingers, nose, cheeks and lips feels like spears. . .
— Cathleen Margaret, Bebop in the Small of Her Back
Life tries to crush her, but only succeeded in making a diamond.
— John Green
I know that my buddy Jorgeson was a real American hero. I wish that he had lived to be something else, if not a painter of pictures then even some kind of fuckup with a factory job and four divorces, bankruptcy petitions, in and out of jail. I wish he had been that. I wish he had been anything rather than a real American hero.
— Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest
ThatNeed to knowYour enemyTo surviveIs bitter.
— Maud Sulter
We get up in the morning and do what we must to survive. Nothing else is true, and nothing else matters.
— Marty Rubin
After more than five years, some agents might be tempted to become complacent. Catherine would never become complacent. It was one of the reasons she survived when others had been arrested and hanged.
— Daniel Silva, The Unlikely Spy
The old, defiant chant rose in her mind: If I want, I will learn. If I want, I will fight. If I want, I will live. And I want. And I will. This was going to be fun.
— P.C. Hodgell, Seeker's Bane
Coffee first. Save the world later.
— Caroline George, The Vestige
Something deep in the human soul awakens as things fall apart. Something in the soul knows that everything in this world can become lost. And something in the soul knows how to survive periods of devastation, disorientation and loss. Descent and falling is the way of the soul from its beginning. We each fell from the womb of life when the waters of the inner sea broke and it came time for us to breathe on our own.
— Michael Meade, Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss
You look at me and judge me. And I just want to ask, for what? I am in full control. No one has a gun to my head. Why can't this be my profession,one I have chosen for myself? I tell you prostitutes are professional in their skills and practise it like the vocation of true apostles- and why shouldn't they? What's so different from the accountant or the doctor selling his time? I ended up in this profession in the same way someone might end up being a lawyer because the couldn't get into engineering or dentistry,or because they couldn't get into medicine, or even a banker who grew up telling everyone they want to be a soccer player. They do those things because that was what was available for heir talents and their circumstances at that time. But do we pity them? No, because that's lif-
— Panashe Chigumadzi, Sweet Medicine
Love is the most powerful force in the universe we have the ability power to give and receive it.
— Tim Ewell, Gift: Living Inside Out
Dory said, 'Just keep swimming.' But I've learned that if you find yourself overboard, you should just bring your knees into your chest and float to conserve energy. So my resilience tip is that floating works for me. There is wisdom in knowing when to rest and to cease from striving...that is if you want to survive.
— Hayley Solich
The world is a jungle and each of us is alone. Each of us is the hunter and every one is the hunted. Kill or be killed. In this jungle, only the smartest will survive. Your brother is smart, you are not. You are a fool, filled with stupid notions of duty. Unless you cure yourself of this disease, you are doomed.
— Anand Neelakantan, The Rise of Sivagami
Rising from the ashes, I am born again,powerful, exultant, majestic through all the pain.
— Shannon  Perry, Ad Eundum Quo Nemo Ante iit:: A Carmina Collectio
Survival in scarcity dictates nastiness with a rival clan, but also dictates goodness towards our own clan whose support is vital to acquire or defend the necessary scarcities.Man’s nastiness or goodness is not his fault or merit;They both create the vital coping mechanism to his environment of scarcity.
— Haroutioun Bochnakian, The Human Consensus and The Ultimate Project Of Humanity
Bigotry and sexism destroy the unity needed for a nation to live.
— DaShanne Stokes
Everything is wrong.I am alive.
— Victoria Aveyard, Red Queen
In the struggle for survival, the cutest win out at the expense of the less cute because they appeal more to celebrities and, through them, to a live television audience.
— Garson O'Toole, Hemingway Didn't Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations
And so in time the rowboat and I became one and the same-like the archer and his bow or the artist and his paint. What I learned wasn't mastery over the elements; it was mastery over myself, which is what conquest is ultimately all about.
— Richard Bode, First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living
Nothing comes easy in life even heart has to beat 72 times in a minute to keep you alive.
— K Sajwan
Honor,” I said with a snort. “Honor has no place in survival.
— Veronica Roth, Carve the Mark
The lucky ones died in the blasts. They were spared the fate of starvation, cannibalism, rape and slaughter. Where a man could be killed over half-eaten can of corn.
— Joe Reyes, Aftermath
Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.
— Audre Lorde, I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings
There are no rules when it comes to survival
— Mary E. Pearson, The Heart of Betrayal
Philosophy and religion - what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
— William Golding, Rites of Passage
Survival, my only hope.Success, my only revenge.Sarcasm, my only weapon.Bravery, my only shield.
— Faria Rehman
If you're not learning how to live off the land, then you're only learning how to survive in the short-term. (During a conversation with someone in regards to surviving a zombie apocalypse, 2017)
— J. N. Morgan
Survival wasn't nearly as hard as he'd thought once he left decency behind.
— Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows
The thing I always wanted to say is that surviving abuse sucks. But it's also a choose-your-own-adventure story.
— Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Daddy," she says again, this time putting more of a needy whine into her voice. It is the thing that has swayed him, these times when he has come near to turning on her: remembering that she is his little girl. Reminding him that he has been, up to today, a good father.It is a manipulation. Something of her is warped out of true by this moment, and from now on all her acts of affection toward her father will be calculated, performative. Her childhood dies, for all intents and purposes. But that is better than all of her dying, she knows.
— N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate
Humanity is becoming hopeless, everyone is looking to something with internet capability for everything, heck some people have gone as far as finding someone to love through the internet, if we were to lose electricity forever, I doubt that many people would survive, because people would just be helpless, because they can't look up how to survive on their phone, and they don't even know what a book is, so they can't go and find one about survival, and if they do know, they wouldn't know how to use it because they are used to touching their screens and the book turning the pages, and when the food in stores would go bad, they wouldn't know how to fend for themselves, or how to skin animals, or find good edible plants, so we must pray that we will never lose our electronics, or humanity is doomed.
— Satuin Segi
....not today, not tomorrow....
— The Walking Dead
When we die, we go into the arms of those who remember us.
— Rosie Malezer, Change Your Name and Disappear: A terrifying true tale of survival
The tradeoff between what you pay and what you receive may hardly make sound calculations in life situations), but survival has a cost.
— Girdhar Joshi, Some Mistakes Have No Pardon
Um, are you writing one of those isekai (Another World) novels? What’s the title?” Yuichi asked.Kanako: “Um, the title is My Demon Lord is Too Cute to Kill and Now the World is in Danger!”Yuichi: "I can’t really imagine what that would entail..." Yuichi felt a little disappointed. He’d been hoping she might have written something a little cuter.
— Tsuyoshi Fujitaka, My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World: The World's Strongest Little Brother?!
For a kid in crisis, there is no "make it happen," only "survive today." Who am I to have the cojones to think my "critical questions" are the most important thing in this kid's life? I think of the times I was in crisis and failed to pay attention to the manila folders on my desk as an adult.
— Dawn Casey-Rowe
I become a horn to be heard over whistles.
— Krysten Hill, How Her Spirit Got Out
Activism” is not just what we see on the streets or on the Internet or in the news; sometimes, “activism” is the simple act of doggedly, determinedly surviving.
— Barbara Gurr, Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Health Care for Native American Women
I’m not sure what to say about struggle except that it feels like a long, dark tunnel with no light at the end. You never notice until it’s over the ways it has changed you, and there is no going back. We struggled a lot this year. For everyone who picked a fight with life and got the shit kicked out of them: I’m proud of you for surviving. This year I learned that cities are beautiful from rooftops even when you’re sad and that swimming in rivers while the sun sets in July will make you feel hopeful, no matter what’s going on at home. I found out my best friend is strong enough to swing me over his shoulder like I’m weightless and run down the street while I’m squealing and kicking against his chest. I found out vegan rice milk whipped cream is delicious, especially when it’s licked off the stomach of a boy you love. This year I kissed too many people with broken hearts and hands like mousetraps. If I could go back and unhurt them I would. If I could go back even farther and never meet them I would do that too. I turned 21. There’s no getting around it. I’m an adult now. Navigating the world has proved harder than I expected. There were times I was reckless. In my struggle to survive I hurt others. Apologies do not make good bandages. I’m not sure what to say about change except that it reminds me of the Bible story with the lions’ den. But you are not named Daniel and you have not been praying, so God lets the beasts get a few deep, painful swipes at you before the morning comes and you’re pulled into the light, exhausted and cut to shit. The good news is you survived. The bad news is you’re hurt and no one can heal you but yourself. You just have to find a stiff drink and a clean needle before you bleed out. And then you get up. And start over.
— Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers
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, Dead Toad Scrolls
You can survive up to three weeks without food. You can only survive for three days without water. No one knows how many days you can survive without caffeine.
— Andrew Shaffer, How to Survive a Sharknado and Other Unnatural Disasters: Fight Back When Monsters and Mother Nature Attack
It's just something I'll have to live with... The possibility of getting sick. Not knowing if I'll live another two years or forty years. I keep telling myself, I could walk outside and get hit by a bus. That's the way life is. Just surviving another day comes with its own risk.
— Tess Gerritsen, Life Support
Only the strong will remain, all the weak will be consumed by fire
— Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity
Yet all three animals were keyed to a tenseness of living that was almost painful, and scarcely ever would it come to them to be more alive than they were then in their seeming petrifaction.
— Jack London, White Fang
You had to make your choice between survival and efficiency, though in the long run survival was optimum efficiency, no matter how much time and effort it took.
— Philip José Farmer, The Dark Design
Martha," she said. "Just let it go." "I'm trying," I said. I want to explain to her that this was like telling someone who has been mauled to death by a bear to let the animal go while it was still worrying what was left of her leg. I didn't have my situation; it had me. There was nothing I wanted more than to let go of it, but I didn't know how. I eventually figured it out, but the method that works for me proved to be exactly the opposite of what Debra intended. She meant that I should never tell the story, but telling the story is the only way to let go of trauma. Letting it go is precisely what I am doing now, in the hopes that it will help others in similar situations find the courage to tell their stories, but I sincerely doubt that Debra will approve.
— Martha Beck
There is no reason to assume our species will survive itself.
— Clifford Cohen
We live by choice and by necessity. We choose the mechanisms that are essential to ensure satisfaction of our baseline survival. What labor we willingly endure in order to meet our minimalistic subsistence requirements and what activities we elect to pursue in order to mollify our desire for living joyfully and attain self-realization defines our essential self’s core personality.
— Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls
Sauve qui peut. To survivewe’d all turn thiefand rascal, or so says the fox,with her coat of an elegant scoundrel,her white knife of a smile,who knows just where she’s going:to steal somethingthat doesn’t belong to her -some chicken, or one more chance,or other life.
— Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House
Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things.
— Bellamy Blake