Terry Pratchett Quotes

It is unfair to blame man too fiercely for being pugnacious; he learned the habit from Nature.

Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

Even if they don't know it, everyone has the instinct to survive.

We're interested in things that have big teeth, and you can see the evolutionary value of that, and you can also see the practical consequences by watching 'Animal Planet.' You notice they make very few programs about gerbils. It's mostly about things that have big teeth.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

I think that's still the most primal fear of all humans: to be eaten.

Man is to man either a god or a wolf.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbor, and yet we herd together.

I have an odd theory on happiness, and it bothers people. My general theory is that happiness is a reward for an animal doing what it should be doing. So if a horse runs, it feels happy. Or if you are too thin, you can't be happy, because evolution wants you to be tense and anxious, trying to wake up in the morning looking for food.

The first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself

Surviving is not something you need to learn. You don't need to learn survival skills; you have them already. That's why we're here, all of us, because it's a game of survival anyway.

Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.

I have one instinct stronger than any other thing in life, and that is the instinct for survival.

The trouble is, the same thing that enabled us to survive evolution is also going to kill us, because in the final analysis, if survival is the primary motivation of every human being, then we will finally be in a situation where might will make right and only one person will survive.

Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.

The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals.

I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, and adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being.

We are not afraid of predators, we're transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness, survival. In a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters.

Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.

Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.

First be a good animal.