"Self-preservation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves with terrible force on my memory, so that I could hardly keep from repeating them aloud like a dull, miserable, unconscious echo; but my brain was numb to the sense of what they said, unless I myself were named, and then, I suppose, some instinct of self-preservation stirred within me, and quickened my sense. And how I strained my ears, and nerved my hands and limbs, beginning to twitch with convulsive movements, which I feared might betray me! I gathered every word they spoke, not knowing which proposal to wish ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... cunning and deceit, but the higher reason is to these as a woman's love—look is to the glitter of ice. The higher reason is not alone intellection, it is also intuition and harmonic assurance—what religious thought calls faith. The higher reason declares self-preservation to be the first law of life, and then, just because this is true, it cares for self and trusts the White Universe to assist. I really do not see what a human soul need actually fear when that soul and the White Universe are bent on the same ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... tolerance, the civil forms, which are broad enough to suit the common people, must be nearly as broad as truth itself, and therefore as unconquerable. But the broader they appear, the more must they be offensive to the orthodox and conventional, who by the instinct of self-preservation will be impelled to attack them. There was never a more obvious chain of cause and effect than that which is revealed in the history of the United States; and having shown the conditions which led to the planting in the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Cromwell to rule with a parliament; or, as his advocates say, to restore the constitution of his country. It was plain that there was too much party animosity and party ambition to permit the protector, shackled by the law, to carry out his designs of order and good government. Self-preservation compelled him to be suspicious and despotic, and also to prohibit the exercise of the Catholic worship, and to curtail the religious rights of the Quakers, Socinians, and Jews. The continual plottings and political disaffections ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... I know? Well, I do know. Instinct, I suppose. The instinct of self-preservation which nature gives hunted animals. I can't think of a single man in the world—except your Marvin, of course—who wouldn't do anything for money." She ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
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