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Quotations about survival | |
In war, you win or lose, live or die, and the difference is just an eyelash. Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless. Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving. Not only does every animal live at the expense of some other animal or plant, but the very plants are at war....The individuals of a species are like the crew of a foundered ship, and none but good swimmers have a chance of reaching the land. The animal world is on about the same level as a gladiator's show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight -- whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningest live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumbs down, as no quarter is given. |
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