#preservation

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task. ↗

— Diogenes

#former #friends #good #good friends #him

I better go," Carter squeezed me once more and stood, grabbing his wallet from the coffee table. "I need to hit up the lottery if I want to get you out of this mess. Will you let me buy a monkey if we win, though?" "Only if you buy me an island off the coast of Fiji." "You crazy-ass woman. A monkey is so much cooler than an island." "How about a monkey IN Fiji?" "Now there's a woman after my own heart," Carter slapped his hand to his chest, sighing dramatically. "I'll let you know if we win." He started for the door. "Uh huh." "You'll know if we do. I'll be the one streaking on Pike Street. ↗

— Rachael Wade

#contemporary-romance #friendship #kate #preservation #rachael-wade

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. ↗

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

#general #impulses #organized #our #preservation

Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others. ↗

— Elihu Root

#among #conception #constitutional #constitutional government #duties

Self-preservation is the first responsibility. ↗

— Margaret Anderson

#responsibility #self-preservation

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged. ↗

— William Robertson Smith

#break #community #did #domestic #end

With the dreary season in which we travelled part of the route; with our minds much more actively employed in forming resources for our preservation from famine. ↗

— Zebulon Pike

#dreary #employed #famine #forming #minds

I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation. ↗

— Strom Thurmond

#black #black americans #contributions #creation #development

Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#garden #gardening #nature #nonconformity #preservation

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war. If it is held that the instinct for preserving the species should always be obeyed at the expense of other instincts, whence do we derive this rule of precedence? To listen to that instinct speaking in its own case and deciding in its own favour would be rather simple minded. Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case. If we did not bring to the examination of our instincts a knowledge of their comparative dignity we could never learn it from them. And that knowledge cannot itself be instinctive: the judge cannot be one of the parties judged: or, if he is, the decision is worthless and there is no ground for placing preservation of the species above self-preservation or sexual appetite. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#morality #self-preservation #values #self-knowledge