Don t think that you are the only one who wishes to avoid pain and death. Every one does. And as we learn from what he says about compassion, every one does not mean human beings only. The universal kindness that the Buddha commends is quite clearly based on his own deep realisation of the fact that all beings are capable of suffering and any sensitive person is prone by such realisation to do what he or she can to eliminate or minimise such suffering. The point then is not whether we are mechanically going to obey a rule, but whether we can be sensitive, whether we can have that osmotic quality of the heart through which the pains and sufferings of others can seep into our own hearts.
Sensitivity means that their pains and sufferings are also our own.
If we can be sensitive in that way, it is not important whether we recite a precept or not. We will instinctively and of necessity desist from what the precept tries to teach us to avoid. In his own words the world is full of all kinds of persons. Some have more dust on their eyes than others do. It would be fair to say that he tried to rub out some of that dust, though he knew that the full elimination of it can only be by the persons concerned.