"Self-preservation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he is endowed, and eagerly seizes upon every source of strength within his grasp; and a nation battling for existence, that does not do the same, may well be regarded as neither wise nor obedient to that great law of self-preservation, from which are derived our most urgent and solemn duties. That there exists a prejudice against the employment of persons of African Descent is undeniable; it is, however, rapidly giving way, and never had any foundation in reason or loyalty. It originated ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life beyond the grave. I would defy ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Self-preservation is the first law of nature," cried the inspector, in a calm tone, cocking his pistol; and when he saw an arm raised to hurl another bottle at our heads, he fired. I saw the raised arm fall suddenly, and I fancied that I could hear the pistol ball when ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... majority, in possession of the lawful power of the nation, are bound to vindicate its constitutional authority. If the Union cannot be maintained by force, it ought not to be destroyed by force. The instinct of self-preservation, which is but the impulse of a solemn duty, would necessarily and rightfully lead it to suppress the lawless force that assailed it. If this assault is wholly wrong and unjustifiable, if it is in reality as injurious to the seceding States themselves as to those which remain in the Union, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... determination by the Florida court that "such a belated disclosure" did not spring "from the impulse for truth-telling" and was "the product of self-delusion * * * [and] artifice prompted by the instinct of self-preservation."[941] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... at the beginning. My parents abandoned me. Why? They were starved to it, forced to it. Self-preservation is the first law. I don't clear them, but I understand. They were starving and irresponsible. I merely paid the price of relief, the price society ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... earth and acquired all the arts necessary for its subsistence without possessing a single sensation, idea, or emotion. Natural selection might have secured the survival of those automata which made useful reactions upon their environment. An instinct of self-preservation would have been developed, dangers would have been shunned without being feared, and injuries ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... the spectators roused Juancho from his stupor: he drew hastily back, and waved the scarlet folds of the muleta before the eyes of the bull. The instinct of self-preservation, the pride of the gladiator, struggled in his breast with the desire to watch Militona; a moment's neglect, a glance on one side, might cost him his life. It was an infernal predicament for a jealous man. To behold, beside the woman he loved, a gay, handsome, and attentive rival, while he, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... while his friend stood with his stop-watch in his hand, with a visage lengthened under the influence of these reflections, Sir Bingo, with an instinctive tact, which self-preservation seemed to dictate to a brain neither the most delicate nor subtle in the world, premised his enquiry by some general remark on fishing and field-sports. With all these, he found Tyrrel more than passably acquainted. Of fishing ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... instinct arise. This is a necessary result of the impulsive action of the heart in Leo—the reaction from a state of imperious, defiance. The heat of rage or energy and deathless courage results in the IDEAS of something to be encountered, overcome, and of self-preservation. The dual soul descends still another volve in the spiral of its celestial journey toward ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... "An instinct of self-preservation should prevent such an addition. That might be as injudicious as it would have been for some bright young man in ancient Egypt, five thousand years before the Christian era, to express a doubt concerning the divinity of the sacred ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the American position was right in relation to taxation, the destruction of the tea was warranted by the great law of self-preservation. For it was not possible for them by any other means within the compass of probability to discharge the duty ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... and no wonder!" I exclaimed; and I suppose I must have started and given Sandho a familiar pressure, or else it was the instinct of self-preservation at work in the sensible animal, for he suddenly made a bound forward so unexpectedly that I was nearly unseated; but my arms were now free, and, reaching down and getting tight hold of his leathern breastplate, I held on and let him ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... every family library. The author is connected with the Harvard College Gymnasium, and the contents of the volume are made up of practical talks delivered before the ladies' class of the Gymnasium. His aim is to give such practical information as will aid to self-preservation in times of danger, and to teach a few of the simplest methods of meeting the common accidents and emergencies of life. The illustrations are ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... bare implements, reading, spelling, and penmanship) is led, after a long discussion, to conclude that 'the uniform reply is, Science.' The 'counts' on which he bases this verdict, are, the purposes of self-preservation; the gaining of a livelihood; the due discharge of parental functions; qualification for political responsibilities; the production and enjoyment of art; and discipline, whether intellectual, moral, or religious. Taken at his own showing, Mr. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... income free from serious fluctuations, and the extreme instability of Cyprus is the result of the peculiar uncertainty of seasons which is a special feature in its meteorological condition. It is therefore incumbent upon the government, as an act of self-preservation, to take such measures of precaution as will render certain the supply of water, which is all that is required to ensure the average produce of the soil, and ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... implied power to deal with contempt did not extend to the arrest of a person who published matter defamatory of the House. Both Anderson v. Dunn and Marshall v. Gordon emphasized that the power to punish for contempt rests upon the right of self-preservation; that is, in the words of Chief Justice White, "the right to prevent acts which in and of themselves inherently obstruct or prevent the discharge of legislative duty or the refusal to do that which there is inherent legislative power ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Of course, in this, as in a thousand other matters, Nature will burst out laughing in the face of the would-be philosopher, and bringing forward her town boy, will say, 'Look here!' For the town boys are Nature's boys after all, at least so long as doctrines of self-preservation and ambition have not turned them from children of the kingdom into dirt-worms. But I must stop, for I am getting up to the neck in a bog of discrimination. As if I did not know the nobility of some townspeople, compared with the worldliness of some country folk. I give it up. We are all ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... them, to take part in the elections. Various motives were assigned for this change of front. Did even the Ultra-montanes realise that, since France had repealed the Concordat, they could find their best support in Italy? Or were they driven by the instinct of self-preservation to accept the constitutional government as a bulwark against the incoming tide of Anarchism, Socialism, and the other subversive forces? The Church is the most conservative element in Christendom; in a new upheaval it will surely rally to the ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... a few moments were bludgeoned into numbness by the roar of the sea; his body was sore from the impact of beating water and stinging gravel. He struggled on step by step, feeling his way along the shifting beach, until only the primal instinct of self-preservation was guiding him in the grim game ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... was thus placed in a painful situation. Its sympathies were with the seceding States. Most of its people felt also that if coercion was attempted, the issue would become for Virginia and North Carolina, no less than for South Carolina and Alabama, simply a matter of self-preservation. As early as January, in the exciting days when Floyd's resignation was being interpreted as a call to arms, the Virginia Legislature had resolved that it would not consent to the coercion of a seceding State. In May the Speaker of the ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... of moral anarchy, particularly so in view of the decline of humanitarian ideas and the weakness of the principle of justice already noticeable in our life. For this reason, acting from the mere instinct of national self-preservation, we must emphatically condemn the anti-Semitic movement not only as immoral in itself but also as extremely dangerous for the future ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Frantic energy is the quality most valued, and the man of violence is always trusted. That simplicity which is a chief ingredient of a noble nature is laughed to scorn. Inferior intellects succeed best. Revenge becomes dearer than self-preservation, and men even have a sweeter pleasure in the revenge that goes with perfidy than if it were open." If any reader of the ICONOCLAST desires a splendid picture of this Italy, I refer him to Vernon Lee's "Euphorion," ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... interplay of universal forces starts into vibration a thousand generations of instinctive motherhood. Nor did the little brown baby know aught of this. Moved by the first impulse of Nature which makes every mother a universal mother, the instinct of self-preservation had turned the face of the child to the breast of Mary. Looking about with a glance of apprehension lest she should be discovered in some unworthy act, she hastily moved the infant from her arm and the nestlings from her veil ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... understood the other. Each had a social ideal that was deeper laid than any theory of government or than any commercial or humanitarian interest. Both knew vaguely but with sure instinct that their interests and ideals were irreconcilable. Each felt in its heart the deadly passion of self-preservation. It was because, in both North and South, men were subtly conscious that a whole social system was the issue at stake, and because on each side they believed in their own ideals with their whole souls, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... I think——" Clara began weakly, but stopped as she felt herself being seized by one of the men and lifted roughly to the saddle of a wiry little gray horse which was dancing around in a most disconcerting manner. It was a time for self-preservation and not for protest. She grasped the pommel desperately with one hand and the reins with the other, while her feet were being thrust into the straps of the stirrups—the stirrups ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... general the instinct exists. Such is human nature. And the instinct, it will be admitted, is innocent, and human nature is preserved by our following the lead of its innocent instincts. Therefore, in seeking to gratify this instinct in question, we are following the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... length of a talisman, only not within an arm's length, but which in that state of the public mind, could he but have once grasped it, would have enabled him to blow up Presbyterian and Independent both. If ever a lawless act was defensible on the principle of self-preservation, the murder of Charles might be defended. I suspect that the fatal delay in the publication of the 'Icon Basilike' is susceptible of no other satisfactory explanation. In short it is absurd to burthen this act on Cromwell and his party, in any special ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... trickle of dripping water. He hesitated, match in hand, shrinking childishly from the coming revealment of his victim. Yet why should he? Fierce as the struggle had proved, on his part the fight had been entirely one of defence. He had been attacked, and had fought back only in self-preservation. Winston harbored no animosity; the fierceness of actual combat past, he dreaded now beyond expression the thought that through his savagery a human life might have been sacrificed. The tiny flame of ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... that Falk is absolutely true to my experience of certain straightforward characters combining a perfectly natural ruthlessness with a certain amount of moral delicacy. Falk obeys the law of self-preservation without the slightest misgivings as to right, but at a crucial turn of that ruthlessly preserved life he will not condescend to dodge the truth. As he is presented as sensitive enough to be affected permanently by ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... 'No self-preservation like a country life and early rising,' said Theodora, laughing. 'You have not kept yourself as well, Georgina. I am sorry to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... government to the state-Utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual—remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct—that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos. They ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the morning. The pangs of hunger and the torments of thirst were racking me with redoubled vigor. All instinct of self-preservation had left me, and I felt that the hour had come when I must cease to suffer. Just as I was on the point of casting myself headlong into the sea, a voice, which I recognized as Dowlas's, broke ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... "Knowledge which subserves self-preservation by preventing loss of health is of primary importance. We do not contend that possession of such knowledge would by any means wholly remedy the evil. But we do contend that the right knowledge impressed in the right way would effect much; and we further contend that as ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... in her hands upon a chair. The children, alarmed at the scene, began to cry. It was growing dark, and as he looked out of the window, Lansing saw an officer and a number of other persons approaching the house. They were coming to arrest him. Animal terror, the instinct of self-preservation, seized upon his faculties, stunned and demoralized as he was by the suddenness with which this calamity had come upon him. He opened the door and fled, with a score of men and boys yelling in pursuit. He ran wildly, blindly, making incredible ...
— At Pinney's Ranch - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... therefore, a universal law of Nature, and the instinct of self-preservation which leads to struggle is acknowledged to be a natural condition of existence. "Man is a fighter." Self-sacrifice is a renunciation of life, whether in the existence of the individual or in the life of States, ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... my dismissal in the summer of 1918 I spoke in the Herrenhaus on foreign policy, and warned everyone present against trying to undermine the Quadruple Alliance. When I declared that "honour, duty to the Alliance, and the call for self-preservation compel us to fight by the side of Germany," I was misunderstood. It did not seem as though the public realised that the moment the Entente thought the Quadruple Alliance was about to break up, from that moment our cause was lost. Had ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... the necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with full power of self-preservation and ample authority for the accomplishment of its ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... so rapidly that Peter hadn't had time to think of anything but his own danger. He had acted with the instinct of self-preservation, which was almost quicker than his thought, but as he knew now what had happened he realized that he, too, had been tricked by McGuire and that the murderous volley directed at Hawk Kennedy had come perilously near doing for himself. With the calm which followed ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... the impossibility of self-preservation which threatens us; nor is it the unwillingness of the nation to pay the price of the preservation, as she has paid the price of the purchase of our liberties. It is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... trees wrenched and creaked, and above the lashings of their branches the rain could be heard beating with fury upon the tossing foliage. Once in the blackness Lucy stumbled and, following the instinct for self-preservation, put out her hand and caught Martin's arm; then she drew her hand quickly away. They proceeded in silence until they reached the gate at the foot of the long Webster driveway; then the ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... by the destructive conflict of the powers of nature, and that great disasters lead to striking changes in general civilisation. For all that exists in man, whether good or evil, is rendered conspicuous by the presence of great danger. His inmost feelings are roused—the thought of self-preservation masters his spirit—self-denial is put to severe proof, and wherever darkness and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... for sending poison through the mails. Here more ordinary individuals had been acquitted by displaying more skill in the transaction than had been shown by the doctors. Here had been tried all sorts of murder cases, with all sorts of defenses, from self-preservation with an ax to the irresponsibility of a brain-storm. From that old-fashioned witness chair, on its high platform, enough tales of tragedy had been told, if bound in books, to fill a good-sized library; enough tears had been shed to atone for a thousand crimes; enough ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... brethren, even though the number was not restricted to seven, as in Pharaoh's dream. The value of making oneself as comfortable as possible under adverse conditions cannot be over-estimated, for it not only stimulates the instinct of self-preservation, but renders one in the best condition to face the task ahead. Exposure and fatigue gradually wear down one's powers of resistance and bring with them the feeling that nothing matters. This is to be avoided ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... his novel up and put it down, spend days upon it in vain, and write not any more than he makes haste to blot. Not so the Beginner. Human nature has certain rights; instinct—the instinct of self-preservation—forbids that any man (cheered and supported by the consciousness of no previous victory) should endure the miseries of unsuccessful literary toil beyond a period to be measured in weeks. There must ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a stone in the fields and behold the consternation among the small folk beneath it,—ants, slugs, bugs, worms, spiders,—all objecting to the full light of day, not because their deeds are evil, but because the instinct of self-preservation prompts this course. As I write these sentences, a chipmunk, who has his den in the bank by the roadside near by, is very busy storing up some half-ripe currants which grew on a bush a few yards away. Of course the currants will ferment and rot, but that consideration does not disturb ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... cottage. Possibly, repose had restored Anne's strength. Possibly, the sight of the place had roused the instinct of self-preservation in her at last. To Geoffrey's surprise, she left the cab without assistance. When he opened the wooden gate, with his own key, she recoiled from it, and looked at him for ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... the position she now holds, and what she has gained at the point of the sword must be retained in the same way. The immense sacrifices which the people make to support the army and navy are deemed necessary for self-preservation, and with France on one side and Russia on the other, there really seems to be ample excuse for it. To-day the German army is as ready as in 1870, when Von Moltke walked down the Unter den Linden, the day after hostilities were declared, looking ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... is a demon fierce and ungovernable. It will not listen to reason: it will not be influenced by fear, or pity, or self-preservation. It has no sense of justice. Its energy is exerted in frenzied fits; its forbearance is apathy or ignorance. It is a grievous error to suppose that this cruel, this worthless hydra has any political feeling. In its triumph, it breaks windows; in its anger, it breaks ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... particularize. Why Mr. Heinemann should have supported the Libraries in the private deliberations of the Publishers I cannot imagine. But that is the fault of my imagination. I have an immense confidence in Mr. Heinemann's business acumen and instinct for self-preservation. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... becoming in their turn victims of the outrages they have tolerated. Modern Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a herd of cattle; she cannot continue deaf to the repeated protest of threatened nationalities. She owes it to her instinct of self-preservation to forbid such abuses of her power. She knows too that the unity of France is now, as in the past, a guarantee of the general order of the world, a barrier against the spirit of conquest and invasion. Peace concluded ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... who was Lincoln's contemporary, throve by exuberances quite as startling as this, nor has any English politician found it damaging to be bold. On this occasion indeed (in 1836) Lincoln was far from damaging himself; the Whigs had not till a few years later been induced, for self-preservation, to copy the Democratic machine. But it is striking that the admiring friend who reports this declaration, "too audacious and emphatic for the statesmen of a later day," must carefully explain how it could possibly suit the temper of a time which in a few years passed away. Very soon ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... political systems and forms of law. It is only by force that vast communities, dispersed through great distances of space, can be kept together; but now there was no longer either the necessity of self-preservation or the pride of aggrandisement to make one state desire to preponderate in population ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... boy he rarely thinks of it, but casts about for the best means of saving himself. Nor does—as some imaginative writers have told us—a man's whole past life come before him at such moments. No—the instinct of self-preservation is strongest when a human being is in the direst need, and so it was that in Harry's mind one thought kept hammering away like the strokes of ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... wild and desperate with fear, until I thought that the added weight on the scarce-supported deck would land us all in the bilges. Words fail me when I come to describe the frightful panic of these creatures, frenzied by the instinct of self-preservation. They surged hither and thither as angry seas driven into a pocket of a storm-swept coast. They trampled rough-shod over the moaning heaps of wounded and dying, and crowded the crews at the guns, who were powerless before their numbers. Some fought like maniacs, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rising under the feet of Fracasse's company; the air is split and racked and wrenched and torn with hideous screams of invisible demons. The men stop; they act on the uncontrollable instinct of self-preservation against an overwhelming force of nature. A few without the power of locomotion drop, faces pressed to the ground. The rest flee toward a shoulder of the slope through the instinct that leads a hunted man in a street into an alley. In a confusion of arms and legs, pressing one on the other, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... know," said Alick, thoughtfully; then, as Rachel looked up with a smile of amazement, "Oh, you mean this; but it was mere self-preservation. I could hardly even have bolted, for I was laid up with fever, and was very shaky on ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brought me, at different times, three distinct species of birds as the Uira-para, I gave up the story as a piece of humbug. The simplest explanation appears to be this: the birds associate in flocks from the instinct of self-preservation in order to be a less easy prey to hawks, snakes, and other enemies than they would ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... measures have been adopted with an intention of remedying this evil, though the origin of it is beyond the reach of decree. It originates in that distrust of government which reconciles one part of the community to starving the other, under the idea of self-preservation. While every individual persists in establishing it as a maxim, that any thing is better than assignats, we must expect that all things will be difficult to procure, and will, of course, bear a high price. I fear, all the empyricism of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... his property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, or held them as slaves without coveting them? Why do they take from them their time, their labor, their liberty, their right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience, to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies? Why do they take them, if they do not desire them? They COVET them for purposes ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... never knows just how much he can endure or what he can do until he is making his last stand in the fight for self-preservation. Ward had no mind to lie there and die of blood-poisoning, for instance, and broken bones do not set themselves. So, sweating and swearing with the agony of it, he set his leg and bound the splints in place, and thanked the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... in trap robbing, which appeals so strongly to the coyote, held no fascination for Shady. She was vastly trap-wise but used her knowledge solely for self-preservation. Every scrap of meat on the range represented possible pain or death to her and she found no sport in close investigation with its attendant risks. She was entirely dependent upon Breed, feeling a sense of security in his nearness, but weighed down by the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... like a bird hopping from the compelling gaze of a snake. He was not quite sure that he was acting correctly in allowing his sister to roam at large among the somewhat Bohemian surroundings of a training-camp, but the instinct of self-preservation turned the scale. He had breakfasted early, and if he did not eat right speedily it seemed to him that ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... know what the president wants him to say. It is a sort of begging the question. The average college student is apt to have too much respect for the president's feelings to be frank in such a case. He likewise has a keen sense of self-preservation. He does not want to incur the displeasure ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... kindness and the desire of restoring him to health seemed to absorb all regard for their own situation. I witnessed with peculiar pleasure this conduct, so different from that which they had recently pursued when every tender feeling was suspended by the desire of self-preservation. They now no longer betrayed impatience or despondency but were composed and cheerful and had entirely given up the practice of swearing, to which the Canadian voyagers are so lamentably addicted. Our conversation naturally turned ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Guilelessness and harmlessness are their weapons. But 'be ye wise as serpents' is equally imperative with 'guileless as doves.' Mark the fine sanity of that injunction, which not only permits but enjoins prudent self-preservation, so long as it does not stoop to crooked policy, and is saved from that by dove-like guilelessness. A difficult combination, but a possible one, and when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... and mating calls, seem only to be intelligible to birds of the same race, yet each bird takes warning with equal quickness from the danger-cry of every other. Here is, at least, an avian "Volapuk," a universal language understanded by the freemasonry of mutual self-preservation. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Are you not here to give judgment in a cause based on an indictment by a secret tribunal, where ex parte testimony was alone received, and the voice of defence could not be heard? The law infers that the keen instinct of self-preservation will force the accused to secure the strongest possible legal defenders; and failing in this, the law perfunctorily assigns counsel to present testimony in defence. Do the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... find its parallel in suddenness of collapse. But whether this prove to be the fact or not, nay, even if the reestablishment of the Union had been hopeless from the first, a government which should have abandoned its capital, which should have flinched from the first and plainest duty of self-preservation, which should have admitted by a cowardly surrender that force was law, that treason was constitutional, and fraud honorable, would have deserved and received the contempt of all civilized nations, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... which was to make him in after years a leader and a teacher: to strive with all his strength for the conservation of all that, was best in the ancient life, and to fearlessly oppose further introduction of anything not essential to national self-preservation, or helpful to national, self-development. Fail he well, might, and without shame; but he could hope at least to save something of worth from the drift of wreckage. The wastefulness of Western life had impressed him more than its ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... the instincts and to sustain the resolution of his whole army. It is not from the enemy he has most to fear. A time comes in all protracted operations when the nervous energy of the best troops becomes exhausted, when the most daring shrink from further sacrifice, when the desire of self-preservation infects the stoutest veterans, and the will of the mass opposes a tacit resistance to all further effort. "Then," says Clausewitz, "the spark in the breast of the commander must rekindle hope in the hearts of his men, and so ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... representing the very remarkable preservation of the crew of a vessel on the coast of Newfoundland. In this instance man availed himself of the instinct which ever prompts the brute creation to self-preservation. The ship was freighted with live cattle; in a dreadful storm she was dismasted, and became a mere wreck. The crew being unable to manage her, it occurred to the captain, whose name was Drummond, as a last resort, to ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... stronger. A mile, and I had almost come up with him. He doubled cunningly and dashed into a brake that extended into a small canon. I crashed through this after him, and in five minutes had him cornered in an angle of insurmountable cliffs. There his instinct of self-preservation steadied him, as it will steady even animals at bay. He turned to me, quite calm, with ...
— Options • O. Henry
... what you refer to. Yes, she told me, of that unfortunate incident, and spoke of it with deep regret. The poor girl simply lost her head; for a moment she could think of nothing but self-preservation. Put yourself in her place. She saw utter ruin before her, and was driven almost crazy. I can assure you that she was not responsible for that piece of disloyalty. I am afraid not many girls would have been more heroic in such a terrible situation. You, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... and the wounded anxiously looked around for some humane friend to help them, but their cries were lost in the air. No one had leisure to attend to his dearest friend—self-preservation, the first law of ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... he worked like a Trojan to make the affair go, still kept himself personally in the background. He consorted with Captain Stinson and Mathews, middle-aged individuals who were considered out of the running. It was not so much shyness now, as an instinct of self-preservation. "She'll be gone in a week," he told himself. "You mustn't let this thing get too strong a hold on you, or life here after she has gone will be hellish. You've got to put her out of your mind, my son—or just keep her as a lovely dream not to be taken in earnest. Hardly likely, after seeing ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... was overhung by bushes, and shut from view in the direction of the mouth of the bayou by trees and branches just blown down. Throughout the disastrous half-hour, only Dr. Deville thought less of self-preservation than of the safety of others. Constantly he tried not to lose sight of his daughter and of Evaleen, and he felt sure he had seen the girls going ashore in a skiff, rowed by two men. The boatman, who escaped by swimming when his ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... subtle. In the last analysis most common things will be found to be highly complicated. Some men of science do indeed get over the difficulty by dealing only with the easy part of it: thus, they will call first love the instinct of sex, and the awe of death the instinct of self-preservation. But this is only getting over the difficulty of describing peacock green by calling it blue. There is blue in it. That there is a strong physical element in both romance and the Memento Mori makes them if possible more baffling than if they had been wholly intellectual. No man ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... by founding the famous college at Jabneh, kept alive the Jewish spirit after the fall of the nation. For him surrender was a valid means to the preservation of the nation. The action of Josephus hardly bears the same justification. His desire for self-preservation was natural enough, but his manner of effecting it was not honorable. He was a general who, having taken a lead in the struggle for independence, had seen all his men fall, and had at the end invited the last of his comrades ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... nations, and especially so for Italy, she not only did not govern well, but governed badly; and there was a great power which was deeply, vitally interested—moved by the all-controlling principle of self-preservation—in watching all her movements, and in finding occasion to drive her out of Italy. She was not content with upholding misgovernment in Naples, Rome, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and elsewhere, but she meant to subvert the constitutional polity established ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... mentioned that it was largely the acquirement of social foresight which made the first step in a moral advance which finally won the day. In this whole matter the first ethical instruction may well be based upon the idea of self-preservation—after all the backbone of much of our morals. When it comes to specific details of treatment these must be educational, alterative, and constructive. In Cases 1 and 3 under treatment we know that when the lying was discovered or suspected the ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... of self-preservation, she forcibly summoned back her composure. She knew with whom she had to deal. She must guard ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance. Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... humanity and self-interest, to the hounds, only by a compact accepted at a time when its consequences could not possibly be foreseen. I do not doubt that the North, on the surface of its will, sincerely desired to keep this compact; but the South, with an instinct which was really that of self-preservation, looked, as I am trying to look, beneath the conscious surface to the unconscious sweep of current. It is not with reference to the struggle for Western expansion that I call the South the conservative and constitutional ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... felt her humiliation too deeply not to be inspired, like Prussia, with an instinct of self-preservation. The imperial dignity and catholicism were here closely associated with the memory of the Middle Ages, whose magnificence and grandeur were once more disclosed to the people in the masterly productions of the writers of the day. Hence the unison created by Frederick Schlegel ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... is the instinct of self-preservation in literature; and, consciously or unconsciously, the Italian poets of the last hundred years constantly inspired the Italian people with ideas of liberty and independence. Of course the popular movements ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... the Apes in all his savage life had never been accustomed to pause in argument with an antagonist. The primitive instinct of self-preservation acknowledges many arts and wiles; but argument is not one of them, nor did he now waste precious time in an attempt to convince the raiders that he was not a wolf in sheep's clothing. Instead he had ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... estimate the value of the several elements composing the fabric of society, it is easy to ascertain the dominating idea on which all forms of society are based. That dominating idea, if it may for the moment be called such, is the instinct of self-preservation, and it exercises just as great a power in determining the formation and play of the social organism as it exercises in determining the attitude of the individual to the world around him. In working out the idea of self-preservation ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... unless he knows, as well as can be known, the simple or constituent laws. All the elements of human character crop up in men's social relations; in the foreground are their self-interest or sense of self-preservation, together with their social and anti-social promptings; a little farther back are their active energy, their intelligence, their artistic feelings, and their religious susceptibilities. Now all these should be broadly examined as elements of the mind, without an immediate ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... marriage with a woman exceptionally sensitive in the matter of colonial climate, besides other limitations testifying to the delicacy of her nature—and her tastes. Though he judged his alarm sardonically he did not dismiss the improper thought from his mind. The instinct of self-preservation was strong within him. On the contrary, he repeated it mentally with profane emphasis and a fuller precision: "Damn it! If that infernal Heat has his way the fellow'll die in prison smothered in his fat, and ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... to dictate the distance over which shots should be exchanged and if mounted with a superior weapon would be able to keep beyond the range of A's guns while at the same time it would keep A within range of its own gun and consequently rake the latter. In the interests of self-preservation A would be compelled to change its course; in fact, B would be able to drive it in any direction he desired, as he would command ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... bold and brave a seaman as ever stepped; but he knew full well that killing an official of the Inquisition in the execution of his duty, would make the country too hot for him. The instinct of self-preservation was as strong with him as with most men. He considered how he could avoid the consequences of his act. There was a large cupboard in the room. He dragged the body in, and locking the door put the key in his pocket. The wound had not bled much, and he was able to get ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... ballot-box at all; and they reject the Phantasm species of Captains: one wishes much some other Entities—since all entities lie under the same rigorous set of laws—could be brought to show as much wisdom, and sense at least of self-preservation, the first command of Nature. Phantasm Captains with unanimous votings: this is considered to be all the law and all the prophets, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... gaze from them and bent over his dials in a last frantic effort to get his motor started. The instinct of self-preservation was dominant now—and to his joy, suddenly the powerful little engine ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... tradition were on the side of the Advocate and the States' right party. The instinct of national self-preservation, repudiating the narrow and destructive doctrine of provincial sovereignty, were on the side of the States-General and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... first instance, not through the lust of killing but because he was prompted to do so by the instinct of the hunter who lives upon the product of his weapons. In this far northern land it is the instinct of self-preservation to kill, for here if man would live he ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... of Hades are visited by none with pleasure,' answered Gyges. 'It is sweet to enjoy the pure light of day; and the heroes themselves who dwell in the Fortunate Isles would gladly return to their native land. Each man has the instinct of self-preservation, and since blood must flow, let it be rather from the veins ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... among the masses, the most influential element in their character, is the religious element. It is as instinctive and elemental as the law of self-preservation. It informs the whole intellect and personality of ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... his sense of self-preservation still being strong, fled with more speed than might have been looked for in ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... cold and snowy darkness, when men's faculties grow torpid with cold, and their safety among the grinding cables depends more upon the alert supervision of the First Lieutenant than the mere instinct for self-preservation, "Jimmy the One" was credited with powers allied to those of the high Gods. "'Tween decks," where the comfort and cleanliness of close on eleven hundred men was mainly his affair, they abused, loved and feared him with whole-hearted affection. ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... States, its adversaries would have some ground for their objection; though it would not be difficult to show that if they were abolished the general government would be compelled, by the principle of self-preservation, to reinstate ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... warning against challenging his own happiness—that was the way she had put it. Perhaps he was galled the less because others had striven for the same prize, and had been thrust back, with an almost tender misgiving as to their sense of self-preservation and sanity. Some of them were eligible enough, and all were of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to the wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute to all that she would distinguish no particular ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... so it is, too, with the thunderstorm, with illness, with death, with the myriad phenomena and accidents of life. It would seem as though the true alarm of our soul, the great fear which stirs other instincts within us than that of mere self-preservation, is only called forth by the thought of a more or less determinate God, of a mysterious consciousness, a permanent, invisible justice, or a vigilant, eternal Providence. But does the "interpreter of life," who succeeds ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... characteristic method of making her tell her story: and show herself, as she may easily have been, not altogether bad; though a woman of weak maternal instincts, and one whose nature was powerless against the fear of pain, and the impulse to self-preservation. She describes with appalling vividness the experiences of the night: the moonlit forest—the snow-covered ground—the wolves approaching with a whispering tread, which seems at first but the soughing of a gentle wind—the wedge-like, ever-widening ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... The instinct of self-preservation, it is called by the learned, but it needs a stronger name. It is more than an instinct. It is the very ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... national defences and offering a bridge to invasion. The danger of the thing is in her making her territory foreign under any circumstances; and it is a danger which the government must prevent, if only for self-preservation. Within the limits of the constitution two sovereignties cannot exist; and yet what practical odds does it make, if a State may become sovereign by simply declaring herself so? The legitimate consequence ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... reassuring. He made a brief prowl then through the main sections of the level. Evidence everywhere of a short and furious struggle, a struggle between men panicked and enraged almost beyond any regard for self-preservation. It must have been over in minutes. He found that the big hall portal to the ground level had been sealed, whether before or after the shooting he couldn't know. There would have been around twenty members of the ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... not severely, for the weight which he attached unduly to her personal interests; yet she owned that, since it had been the pleasure of Heaven to combine those interests with the weal of her subjects, she did only her duty when she adopted such measures of self-preservation as circumstances forced upon her; and if the council in their wisdom should be of opinion that it was needful to continue some restraint on the person of her unhappy sister of Scotland, she trusted they would not blame her if she requested ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... haunts. My mother suffered, and expected ruin, for I took no trouble to conceal anything; I boasted of dissipations. But there was no need for fear; I was naturally endowed with a very clear sense indeed of self-preservation; I neither betted nor drank, nor contracted debts, nor a secret marriage; from a worldly point of view, I was a model young man indeed; and when I returned home about four in the morning, I watched the pale moon setting, and repeating ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... bold, and completely possessed of his presence of mind, Albert Lee, who had been from the loopholes a watchful observer of every measure which had been taken by his besiegers, had resolved to make one desperate effort for self-preservation. While the head of the sentinel on the opposite platform was turned from him, and bent rather downwards, he suddenly sprung across the chasm, though the space on which he lighted was scarce wide enough for two persons, threw the surprised soldier from his precarious stand, and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... existed as a beneficent agent, a matter of self-preservation on the part of the tribe. The King-God's functions were divine; to make magic for the victory of his warriors and principally to make rain, on which, of course, the alimentary needs of his subjects depended—an ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... in our own times one-tenth part of the human species, could avoid remarking that the reality was less suited to impress by its actual presence, than the record by its touching pictures and its affecting appeals? The reality appealed to but the fears of men through the instinct of self-preservation, and even this languidly in some cases, leaving the imagination unimpressed; whereas the wild scenes of Defoe filled the whole mind, and impressed vividly through the influence of that sense of the poetical which, in some degree at least, all ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller |
