Quotes about Self-preservation

Our first responsibility in the midst of violence is to prevent it from destroying us.

People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.

In India, I learned a proverb that may seem somewhat heartless: "The tears of strangers are only water." It means we are obligated to help only our own; if others have a problem, we wish them well, but it's their problem.

I've learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.

Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every many for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even you father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations...

If we want recovery and healing we would be wise to take a break or possibly make a clean break from the one wounding us.

To me, Herod symbolizes the terrible destruction that fearful people can leave in their wake if their fear is unacknowledged, if they have power but can only use it in furtive, pathetic, and futile attempts at self-preservation.

Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself, is incapable of taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world.

Fear is a self-protection we use to insulate ourselves from hurt by pulling back. Anger is self-protection we use to insulate ourselves from hurt by striking out.

It's a law of survival, isn't it?—to seek the best. I didn't come for your sake. I came for mine.

A person had to keep herself in one piece when everything around her was falling apart.

The Jews of Europe had been foolish to entrust their safety and security to anyone but themselves. What if they had been organized? What if they had been armed and trained and immobilized? No one could have sent them to concentration camps to perish by the hundreds of thousands.