self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

The aims of life are the best defense against death.

Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.

Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself.

The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly-that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

I'd like to pass along some of what I've learned about what preserves and protects life. My intention is to create an energy, a life protection energy. That's everybody's job. Everybody that's living now has to work to protect life. What other options do we have? We protect life, or we're indifferent and allow it to be destroyed. We're in a position now to stop life altogether. Our energy and our living have to move towards protecting life.

Whenever human activity is directed exclusively to the service of the instinct for self-preservation it is called theft or usury, robbery or burglary etc

Every person born into this world has a natural right to sustain, preserve, and defend his own life to the best of his ability.

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

Understanding life’s inherent propensity to preserve itself is quintessential to our understanding of even the most modern aspects of healthcare.

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. Extend self-love to others and it is transformed into virtue, a virtue which has its root in the heart of every one of us.

Its purpose is the same as every other organism. To survive.

The wish to preserve oneself is the symptom of a condition of distress, of a limitation of the really fundamental instinct of life which aims at the expansion of power and, wishing for that, frequently risks and even sacrifices self-preservation. It should be considered symptomatic when some philosophers–for example, Spinoza who was consumptive–considered the instinct of self-preservation decisive and had to see it that way; for they were individuals in conditions of distress.