64+ Best Survival Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Survival depends a great deal on a person’s ability to withstand stress in emergency situations.  Inspirational survival quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.

If you’re searching for top encouraging quotes and famous keep going quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of famous self control quotes, inspiring grit quotes and powerful mediocrity quotes.

Most Famous Survival Quotes

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions. Lao Tzu

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. John F. Kennedy

In the real world, all rests on perseverance. Johann Wolfgang

We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome. Isabel Allende

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th. Julie Andrews

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. Nikola Tesla

The more we exploit nature, The more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival. Mo Udall

The requirements for our evolution have changed. Survival is no longer sufficient. Our evolution now requires us to develop spiritually to become emotionally aware and make responsible choices. It requires us to align ourselves with the values of the soul harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life. Gary Zukav

Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels. Shari Arison

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. Victor Hugo

It angers me when sustainability gets used as a buzzword. For 90 percent of the world, sustainability is a matter of survival. Cameron Sinclair

That survival instinct, that will to live, that need to get back to life again, is more powerful than any consideration of taste, decency, politeness, manners, civility. Anything. It’s such a powerful force. Danny Boyle

Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counterproductive to our survival. Jacque Fresco

There’s a theory that says that life is based on a competition and the struggle and the fight for survival, and it’s interesting because when you look at the fractal character of evolution, it’s totally different. It’s based on cooperation among the elements in the geometry and not competition. Bruce Lipton

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. Henry David Thoreau

I’m a believer in belief. Faith is something that works it causes people to do things, it has results. It’s an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival. Tommy Lee Jones

By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water. Aeschylus

The mountain gorilla faces grave danger of extinction primarily because of the encroachments of native man upon its habitat and neglect by civilized man, who does not conscientiously protect even the limited areas now allotted for the gorilla’s survival. Dian Fossey

They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. Sitting Bull

Well it seems to me, that all real communities grow out of a shared confrontation with survival. Communities are not produced by sentiment or mere goodwill. They grow out of a shared struggle. Our situation in the desert is an incubator for community. Larry Harvey

Raising awareness on the most pressing environmental issues of our time is more important than ever. Leonardo DiCaprio

When we understand the connection between how we live and how long we live, it’s easier to make different choices. Instead of viewing the time we spend with friends and family as luxuries, we can see that these relationships are among the most powerful determinants of our well being and survival. Dean Ornish

We are using resources as if we had two planets, not one. There can be no plan B because there is no planet B. Ban Ki

The human young must learn to perceive these affordances, in some degree at least, but the young of some animals do not have time to learn the ones that are crucial for survival. James J. Gibson

Be happy if you’re not even happy, what’s so good about surviving? Tom Stoppard

High Romanticism shows you nature in all its harsh and lovely metamorphoses. Flood, fire and quake fling us back to the primal struggle for survival and reveal our gross dependency on mammoth, still mysterious forces. Camille Paglia

Humor is one of the best ingredients of survival. Aung San Suu Kyi

I think that intelligence is such a narrow branch of the tree of life this branch of primates we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can’t be all that important for survival, because there are so many animals that don’t have what we call intelligence, and they’re surviving just fine. Neil deGrasse Tyson

Escapism is survival to me. Johnny Depp

Values based business behavior is no longer simply an interesting option it’s crucial to your survival. Once you understand your mission and values, you have a strong basis for evaluating your practices and aligning them accordingly. Ken Blanchard

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor. Stephen Hawking

Probably spending 12 years at boarding school comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty. Eric Idle

Survival is not about being fearless. It’s about making a decision, getting on and doing it, because I want to see my kids again, or whatever the reason might be. Bear Grylls

The juke joint, the honky tonk, and the ballroom also represent one more thing, anthropologically speaking a ceremonial context for the male with female duet dance flirtation and embrace, upon which the zoological survival of the human species has always been predicated. Albert Murray

Living in a small town, one of the keys to survival was your imagination. Nick Nolte

The human race’s prospects of survival were considerably better when we were defenceless against tigers than they are today when we have become defenceless against ourselves. Arnold J. Toynbee

To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. Wendell Berry

When most of us hear the phrase, survival of the fittest, we assume it originated with Charles Darwin. It did not. The phrase doesn’t exist anywhere in Darwin’s first edition of Origin of the Species. Joel A. Barker

In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival. Stanislav Grof

Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. Simon Wiesenthal

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all important word, is as difficult as ever and as all important to a writer. Ernest Hemingway

Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one’s own genes in the generations to follow. Lewis Thomas

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late 40’s and early 50’s was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival. Angela Davis

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival. Andrew Young

It was a matter of survival for the local people, but it was the most violent scene I have ever witnessed. The people in my group, feeling helpless, were all spellbound and aghast at the same time. I became a vegetarian shortly after that. Wendie Malick

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Charles Darwin

Well I think on a simple ecological level that the diversity of this planet is important for our survival, that all of our different cultures, people are important to the health of the whole the same way that a species of animal should be saved and at a simple ecology level. Richard Gere

Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive. Cassandra Clare

When the world is in the midst of change, when adversity and opportunity are almost indistinguishable, this is the time for visionary leadership and when leaders need to look beyond the survival needs of those they’re serving. Chip Conley

We each survive in our own way. Sarah J. Maas

Even though Prequelle is a record about death, essentially, it’s a record about survival, and I think that that is something that’s gone through all the records. Even back to ‘Opus Eponymous, there was a double meaning to things that doesn’t necessarily have to do with evil sermons out of some old grimoire somewhere how to summon the devil. Tobias Forge

People will do amazing things to ensure their survival. Patricia Briggs

There’s a misconception that survival of the fittest means survival of the most aggressive. The adjective Darwinian used to refer to ruthless competition; you used to read that in business journals. But that’s not what Darwinian means to a biologist; it’s whatever leads to reproductive success. Steven Pinker

If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive. Megan Whalen Turner

Israel is now sustaining a war for its own existence. A nation defending its citizens against terrorist bombings and a military and diplomatic onslaught by an array of Arab foes is practicing survival, not genocide. Jack Schwartz

The secret of survival is a defective imagination. John Banville

I learned how to comport myself among trolls, elves, hobbits or goblins. I learned that a friend can be lost to greed and avarice. I learned that solving riddles may be as important a survival skill as bowmanship. I know how to talk to a dragon, and that it’s best not to. Karen Joy Fowler

We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving. José Ortega y Gasset

As we get older, we become more political in terms of survival. We realize a certain amount of cunning is necessary and that you just end up a victim when you are totally honest in an environment where those around you arent. It’s a matter of remaining true to yourself while continuing to move forward. Pernell Roberts

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. Albert Einstein

For me, riding a two wheeler bike was very risky. Counting the pedal strokes before turning a corner and learning to hear the sounds coming from buildings, grass and the climbing frame made all the difference to basic survival and ensured that I didn’t end up head-first in the sandpit. Andrea Bocelli

We cannot survive if we are entirely isolated. History tells us we must engage with the outside world. Paolo Bacigalupi