Preserving Life Quotes & Sayings

Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says: It is not wealth but character that lasts.
And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character. Therefore, subjective blessings - a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, mens sana in corpore sano, are the first and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the possession of external wealth and external honor. — Arthur Schopenhauer

All the vital mechanisms, varied as they are, have only one object, that of preserving constant the conditions of life in the internal environment. — Claude Bernard

I don't understand, then, why, in the midst of all this, pregnant women - women trying to make rational decisions about their futures and, usually, that of their families, too - should be subject to more pressure about preserving life than, say, Vladimir Putin, the World Bank, or the Catholic Church. — Caitlin Moran

Books have immortalized great minds. Books have kept ancients secrets alive. A world which least value books, least value the real essence of wisdom and least know how to preserve what is precious! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed — Ambrose Bierce

Joseph spent most of his life not knowing why God had allowed his brothers to sell him into slavery, why he had allowed him to be brought to a foreign land, why he had allowed him to be falsely accused and thrown into prison. From behind bars, it must have all seemed so unjust. But from the summit of understanding that God later granted him, it all made perfect sense (Genesis 50:20). It was there he learned that the seemingly meandering ways of God weren't simply leading to the shaping of his character but also to the saving of his family (a lineage that led to Christ), preserving them through seven years of famine and prospering them for generations to come. — Ken Gire

This is the answer!
The answer is not in getting and keeping, but in getting and giving.
The answer is not in saving and preserving, but in growing and changing.
The answer is not in making things stop, but in making things go.
The answer is not in covering and hiding, but in touching and sharing.
The answer is not in thinking, but in feeling.
The answer is not in death, but love.
Not death, but life.
Not death! — Theodore Sturgeon

[S]aving lives is more important than preserving the quality of life. Quality of life is always amenable to improvement. Death is permanent. — Benjamin Netanyahu

By preventing dangerous asteroid strikes, we can save millions of people, or even our entire species. And, as human beings, we can take responsibility for preserving this amazing evolutionary experiment of which we and all life on Earth are a part. — Rusty Schweickart

Business is a means- the only means- to increase the quantity of goods available for preserving life and rendering it more agreeable. — Ludwig Von Mises

A half century ago Herbert Wechsler could justify the legal right of deadly force self-defense in terms of the "universal judgment that there is no social interest in preserving the lives of the aggressors at the cost of those of their victims." That is not a universal judgment today. — Don Kates

Agrarians are committed to preserving both communities and the material means of life, to cultivating practices that ensure that the essential means of life suffice for all members of the present generation and are not diminished for those who come after. Agrarianism in this sense is, and has nearly always been, a marginal culture existing at the edge or under the domination of a larger culture whose ideology, social system, and economy are fundamentally different. So agrarian writers, both ancient and modern, always speak with a vivid awareness of the threat posed by the culture of the powerful. — Ellen F. Davis

The fundamental principle [of settlement work] remains: that people shall take up their residence in industrial communities, giving what they may have of public spirit, and partaking of the life about them; preserving their identity as individuals and endeavoring to keep the settlement free from the institutional form of philanthropic work ... the relationship is reciprocal ... — Lillian Wald

Because of the terrorist threat, the FBI and CIA have become as important as the military in preserving our freedom. Yet while thanking our military is standard practice in American life, no one thinks of thanking the FBI, the CIA, or the rest of the intelligence community for keeping us safe since 9/11. — Ronald Kessler

The thrust here is that Dostoevsky wrote fiction about the stuff that's really important. He wrote fiction about identity, moral value, death, will, sexual vs. spiritual love, greed, freedom, obsession, reason, faith, suicide. And he did it without ever reducing his characters to mouthpieces or his books to tracts. His concern was always what it is to be a human being-that is, how to be an actual person, someone whose life is informed by values and principles, instead of just an especially shrewd kind of self-preserving animal. — David Foster Wallace

I am working hard to provide solutions to meet a most pressing goal: preserving our way of life for our kids and grandkids. — Mike Pompeo

The instinctual nature tells us when enough is enough. It is prudent and life preserving....sometimes it is difficult for us to realize when we are losing our instincts, for it is often an insidious process that does not occur all in one day, but rather over a long period of time. Too, the loss or deadening of instinct is often entirely supported by the surrounding culture, and sometimes even by other women who endure the loss of instinct as a way of achieving belonging in a culture that keeps no nourishing habitat for the natural woman. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one's life, one's goods or one's physical integrity; sometimes, even 'til the aggressor's death ... In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one's life or one's goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim. — Thomas Aquinas

Why should I keep myself so safe?" he asked her, but he was almost asking himself. What is there in my life worth preserving? With a good wife back there in the mountains, serviceable as an old spoon, dry in the heart from having been scared of marriage since she was six? With three children so shy of their father, the Prince of the Arjikis, that they will hardly come near him? With a careworn clan moving here, moving there, going through th same disputes, herding the same herds, as thy have done for five hundred years? And me, with a shallow and undirected mind, no artfulness in word or habit, no especial kindness toward the world? What is there that makes my life worth preserving?
"I love you," said Elphaba.
"So that's that then, and that's it," he answered her and himself. "And I love you. So I promise to be careful. — Gregory Maguire

When the function of libraries is put in terms of their contributions to the community, people see their centrality. The challenge to us is to continue to help them see it in those terms to describe our larger purposes. We must assert that libraries are central to the quality of life in our society; that libraries have a direct role in preserving democratic freedoms. Free access to information and the opportunity of every individual to improve his or her mind, employment prospects, and lifestyle are fundamental rights in our society. — Arthur Curley

I can see today that the same sort of issues lie behind taxidermy and photography. Taxidermy consists in preserving a bird in full flight ... In the same way, photography halts and freezes motion and life. — Annette Messager

A Law of Nature, (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept, or general Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. — Thomas Hobbes

A successful local food economy implies not only a new kind of food producer, but a new kind of eater as well, one who regards finding, preparing, and preserving food as one of the pleasures of life rather than a chore. — Michael Pollan

We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide ... t here is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning. — Ronald Reagan

And because the condition of Man, (as hath been declared in the precedent Chapter) is a condition of Warre of every one against everyone; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body. — Thomas Hobbes

Self-slaughter is an extravagant enactment of feeling sorry for oneself. Suicide is stingy act, because no matter how wretched our life may currently be, a person can always rise tomorrow and perform some small act of kindness for other people, care for a pet, or perform some other caring act that works towards preserving nature's graciousness. To die of their own hand is to cheat other people and shortchange Mother Nature; it is taking without giving back in kind. What combats suicide is a sense of gratitude, a willingness to give to other people, and to cease living life as a taker. Without a profound appreciation for all that is living and devoid of a sincere willingness to contribute to the flourishing of all life forms, one can callously write off the value of their own life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I confess that Magic teacheth many superfluous things, and curious prodigies for ostentation; leave them as empty things, yet be not ignorant of their causes. But those things which are for the profit of men
for the turning away of evil events, for the destroying of sorceries, for the curing of diseases, for the exterminating of phantasms, for the preserving of life, honor, or fortune
may be done without offense to God or injury to religion, because they are, as profitable, so necessary. — Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Human beings could be defined as the keepers of a wall of separation dwelling at the threshold between dimensions longing to meet. As long as we insist being attached to the wall, these dimensions will keep on causing destruction and misery in our life. All human pain and troubles are basically due to our stubbornness in preserving this wall. — Franco Santoro

And the touch of her own mask, at first cool and clammy leather, but quickly like a second skin, and the play it gives her, herself a stage, her every breath a performance, and yet (herein lies the magic) also and entirely true. Every game, every lie flirting and cruel - and the house is full of them, games and lies - is real as knives, for the masquerade has come to define the night. The false face of everyday, that hides reality beneath flesh and skin, is itself hidden beneath the fantasy that, because it is a product and reflection of the mind, is an honest facade. Sadie has lived a wary, defensive life, always urged by that self-preserving instinct to stay small, hidden, safe. She did not know she had an imp inside her until she wore it on her face.

("One Of The Hungry Ones") — Holly Phillips

The events of my life are too unimportant, and have too little interest for any person not of my immediate family, to render them worth communicating or preserving. — John Marshall

Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, the state's first instinct is that of self-preservati on. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient. — Albert J. Nock

[I]t is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. — Samuel Adams

You read about me in history books, but now I am dedicated to spreading the truth about preserving the dignity of all human life from natural conception to natural death. — Norma McCorvey

I realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress. — Charles Lindbergh

O Jesus, come back into our society, our family life, our souls and reign there as our peaceful Sovereign. Enlighten with the splendor of faith and the charity of Your tender heart the souls of those who work for the good of the people, for Your poor. Impart to them Your own spirit, a spirit of discipline, order and gentleness, preserving the flame of enthusiasm ever alight in their hearts ... May that day come very soon, when we shall see You restored to the center of civic life, borne on the shoulders of Your joyful people. — Pope John XXIII

In favor of southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life. — Harper Lee

Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor ... The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative. — John Shelby Spong

With our technologies
ones of incalcuable power: earth-restoring, planet preserving
we can rediscover an intimacy, a mutuality with the natural world, that is not primitive (though based in part on fear), but knowing. It might even be possible to relearn a life of awe. And inhabit the landscape without violation. With the least violation. — Janet Kauffman

Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude. — Henri Frederic Amiel

I recognize the need for technology that enriches life while preserving our natural environment. My goal is to stimulate productivity, but use technology to redeem, not to destroy our environment. — Gerald R. Ford

Liberals: Liberty-loving liberals founded our country and enshrined its freedoms. Dedicated, fair-minded liberals ended slavery and brought women the vote. Hardworking liberals fought the goon squads and won workers' rights: the eight-hour day, the weekend, health plans, and pensions. Courageous liberals risked their lives to win civil rights. Caring liberals have made the vulnerable elderly secure with Social Security and healthy with Medicare. Forward-looking liberals have extended education to everyone. Liberals who love the land have been preserving our environment so you can enjoy it. Nobody loves liberty and life more than a liberal. When conservatives say you're on your own, we liberals know we're all in this together. "Liberal — George Lakoff

If, as the dowager had said, we are nothing but gene carriers, why do so many of us have to lead such strangely shaped lives? Wouldn't our genetic purpose - to transmit DNA - be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre, lives? — Haruki Murakami

Anger, resentment and disappointment, in most cases, can not exist in our lives without our expressed permission. An honest and sincere introspection will reveal that all three emotions are centered and rooted in self. They are self preserving reactions sprung to life by our inconveniently unmet expectations. Joy and contentment replaces these emotions when we genuinely put others before ourselves. ~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

I look at the world and through these innocent eyes, all I see is hatred and anger. Corrupting everything, ruining everything, but not preserving anything. What I should be seeing is respect, acceptance and love. But, if that was what these innocent eyes witnessed, they would be seeing and observing a lie. The people in this world are not respectful, theres barely any acceptance in this day and age, and love is an almost silent whisper, slowly fading. These innocent eyes, are now corrupted. No longer innocent as they should be. — Kitauna Roberts

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. The process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course. — Frederic Bastiat

They all agreed, that I could not be produced according to the regular laws of nature; because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth. — Jonathan Swift

Nature is not about preserving old things, but about creating new ones. New life. New ideas. — Gemma Malley

All our lives we are engaged in preserving our experiences and keeping them fresh by artificially sprinkling the water of memory over them. They have ceased to retain their original smell and fragrance. Do you call it life- this effort at the preservation of a phantom freshness in something that is withered and gone? — Vimala Thakar

When he starts to fall asleep, he keeps his arms around me fiercely, a life-preserving prison. But I wait, kept awake by the thought of bodies hitting pavement, until his grip loosens and his breathing steadies.
I will not let Tobias go to Erudite when it happens again, when someone else dies. I will not.
I slip out of his arms. I shrug on one of his sweatshirts so I can carry the smell of him with me. I slip my feet into my shoes. I don't take any weapons or keepsakes.
I pause by the doorway and look at him, half buried under the quilt, peaceful and strong.
"I love you," I say quietly, trying out the words. I let the door close behind me.
It's time to put everything in order. — Veronica Roth

all photographs are about death, really, and time: about preserving a moment in silver and chemicals, when life itself is never preserved, when every cell of everything is already decaying, and being replaced, and decaying again. The subject and the image coexist for the moment that the shutter opens and closes. And then the subject decays but the image lives on unchanged. — Emma Darwin

I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas. — Ron Paul

Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life. — Ayn Rand

As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once
that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Many act as if they feel their work is over when they lead lost souls to Christ and open confession of Him. This is an important step, but only the first step. When their souls are saved then the important work of saving, preserving and utilizing life begins. "Grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour" (2 Peter 3:18) is God's spiritual order at the doorway of the new life. — L. R. Scarborough

The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible. — Edward O. Wilson

You may feel like your future is slipping from your grasp, that if you don't rush now to greet your dreams you might lose out on them, but please wait. If you are coming from an unsupportive environment with regards to your sexual orientation, the best thing to do is to establish your independence. Make sure you have a support network of loving and loyal friends. Make sure you have somewhere to live. Make sure you have an income to sustain you. Place a premium on your life. Always, always place a premium on your life.

When all these elements have been configured and your psychic compass is at the ready, go forth in the knowledge that you've created a self-preserving future for yourself. Go forth in the knowledge that you have a safe space to call home. Go forth in the knowledge that not only are you kicking ass but you are kicking ass on a major scale. Go forth in the knowledge that not only are you winning at life but you have already won. — Diriye Osman

Political parties were established in European public life partly as an inheritance from the Terror, and partly under the influence of British practice. The mere fact that they exist today is not in itself a sufficient reason for us to preserve them. The only legitimate reason for preserving anything is its goodness. The evils of political parties are all too evident; therefore, the problem that should be examined is this: do they contain enough good to compensate for their evils and make their preservation desirable? — Simone Weil

Every piece of legislation which came to my desk in the coming years as the governor, I came down on the side of preserving the sanctity of life. — Mitt Romney

It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. — Charles Darwin

I wrote MARCH FARM because I fell in love with the farms of Bethlehem when I moved here in 2000. I became passionate about preserving farms for many reasons: to secure the open spaces vital for wildlife habitat, to support my community by maintaining its rural beauty, and to honor a way of life that has deep roots in our cultural psyche. — Nancy McMillan

What I'm saying is simply that every totalitarian society, no matter how strict, has had its underground. In fact, two undergrounds. There's the underground involved in political resistance and the underground involved in preserving beauty and fun
which is to say, preserving the human spirit. — Tom Robbins

4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life- preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live - that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. — Friedrich Nietzsche

As you learn to fight, you learn to defend yourself from physical harm. You acquire a powerful self-preserving skill set, and a specific attitude. This attitude carries across to other aspects of your life. So that you can defend yourself from other less tangible but far more dangerous things that can break you - not just your body, but your spirit. Things such as deception, corruption, disparagement, coercion, false accusation and persecution. Subtle evil things that undermine you. — Vera Nazarian

. Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? Because, I mean - mending old things, preserving them, looking after them - on some level there's no rational grounds for it - "
"There's no 'rational grounds' for anything I care about — Donna Tartt

Faith, not cowardice, takes the step into unknown territory for the sake of Jesus Christ and His church. Love, not self-preserving protectiveness, sacrifices its own life that others might live. Hope of new life, not resignation to inevitable decline, yields itself up in the quest for a better future. — Darrin Patrick

our threshold of survival-prone behavior is so high it takes the prospect of total extermination to activate modes of placation and compromise, may there not be other processes, equally life-preserving, which can similarly be triggered off only at a far higher level of stimulus — John Brunner

Heavenly Father, we thank You for preserving Jayden's life," Telford prayed. "Heal him physically and heal him spiritually as well. Jayden's a good child, but his heart is prone to wander. Even though he hasn't yet believed in You, we know that He's Yours. Help us as his friends and family to help him through his confusion and pain. However, we can't save him - only You can do that, and so we pray that You'll open his eyes and heart to Your love. Have him to — Juliette Duncan

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. — Samuel Adams

We have reached a new milestone as a human family. With seven billion of us now inhabiting our planet, it is time to ask some fundamental questions. How can we provide a dignified life for ourselves and future generations while preserving and protecting the global commons - the atmosphere, the oceans and the ecosystems that support us? — Ban Ki-moon

I've noticed that most people tend to go through life preserving their differences from others. — Sue Monk Kidd

The wooing of the Earth thus implies much more than converting the wilderness into humanized environments. It means also preserving natural environments in which to experience mysteries transcending daily life and from which to recapture, in a Proustian kind of remembrance, the awareness of the cosmic forces that have shaped humankind. — Rene Dubos

Of course, preserving the American dream has always meant creating opportunity for the most recently arrived Americans - those who have come here from other parts of the globe to work hard and build a new, better life. — Nydia Velazquez

Where's the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly. I've seen too many estates not to know that. Idolatry! Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another? Because, I mean - mending old things, preserving them, looking after them - on some level there's no rational grounds for it - ... fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn't be an object. It'd be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag.
- Hobie, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt — Donna Tartt

The only mental games in ski racing is the mental game against yourself. Is the whole goal of life preserving your life as long as you can? No. The goal is to enjoy your life, challenge yourself, to sometimes make stupid decisions-which are sometimes fun and sometimes idiotic and sometimes just a big fat mistake you regret. — Bode Miller

Cookery, or the art of preparing good and wholesome food, and of preserving all sorts of alimentary substances in a state fit for human sustenance, or rendering that agreeable to the taste which is essential to the support of life, and of pleasing the palate without injury to the system, is, strictly speaking, a branch of chemistry; but, important as it is both to our enjoyments and our health, it is also one of the latest cultivated branches of the science. — Friedrich Accum

Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one's own life and that of the other fellow. It was typical to hear the prisoners, while they were being herded back to camp from their work sites in the evening, sigh with relief and say, Well, another day is over. — Viktor E. Frankl

Untrained warriors are soon killed on the battlefield; so also persons untrained in the art of preserving their inner peace are quickly riddled by the bullets of worry and restlessness in active life. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Readers," continued Miss Winter, "are fools. They believe all writing is autobiographical. And so it is, but not in the way they think. The writer's life needs time to rot away before it can be used to nourish a work of fiction. It must be allowed to decay. That's why I couldn't have journalists and biographers rummaging around in my past, retrieving bits and pieces of it, preserving it in their words. To write my books, I needed my past left in peace, for time to do its work. — Diane Setterfield

For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. — Barack Obama

Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. — Ambrose Bierce

He [Aldo Leopold] recognized that industrial-age tools were incompatible with truly wild country - that roads eventually brought with them streams of tourists and settlers, hotels and gas stations, summer homes and cabins, and a diminishment of land health. He sort of invented the concept of wilderness as we now understand it in America: a stretch of country without roads, where all human movement must happen on foot or horseback. He understood that to keep a little remnant of our continent wild, we had no choice but to exercise restraint. I think it's one of the best ideas our culture ever had, not to mention our best hope for preserving the full diversity of nonhuman life in a few functioning ecosystems. — Philip Connors

And preserving our open spaces or having them there for recreational purposes is one of the things that contributes to the high level of quality of life that we offer in Pennsylvania, and that also translates into economic benefits. — Ed Rendell

A habit of finding pleasure in thought rather than action is a safeguard against unwisdom and excessive love of power, a means of preserving serenity in misfortune and peace of mind among worries. A life confined to what is personal is likely, sooner or later, to become unbearably painful; it is only by windows into a larger and less fretful cosmos that the more tragic parts of life become endurable. — Bertrand Russell

The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live - that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Many politicians and preachers defended slavery, citing the Bible's approval of the practice, the inferiority of the African race, the value of preserving the southern way of life, and a paternalistic concern that freed slaves could not survive on their own. — Steven Pinker

Thereby men do not flee from being deceived as much as from being damaged by deception: what they hate at this stage is basically not the deception but the bad, hostile consequences of certain kinds of deceptions. In a similarly limited way man wants the truth: he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Reason exercises merely the function of preserving order, is, so to say, the police in the region of art. In life it is mostly a cold arithmetician summing up our follies. — Heinrich Heine