Jeff Cooper Quotes

Of fight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die.

A man's own safety is a god that sometimes makes very grim demands.

Your body is a battleground.

One of the eternal rights is the individual’s right to live. The strongest of all instincts—self preservation—is an assertion of that right.

If you believe that their real intention is to kill you, it isn't unreasonable to believe that they would lie to you.

The first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself

You don't shoot to kill. You shoot to stay alive.

You grow up rough, you think differently. You think you've got to protect yourself at all times. I didn't want any help. I thought I could do everything by myself, which you can't.

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.

My first instinct is always to fight back because ever since I was a kid, that's what I've always had to do to survive.

When you get hit to the body, you don't even worry about your face no more.

I do what I've got to do to survive, to keep my teeth in my head, and my head on my shoulders. I apologize to whoever can't put that together and understand that.

I don't feel any remorse or guilt after a fight. I can sympathise with an opponent who is getting a beating, but if it is the choice between him and me, it's not gonna be me.

Fighting, you have to be selfish.

If a man puts a lion's family in jeopardy, what would it do? Would it enjoy fighting? Of course it wouldn't, but it's going to fight.

I'm not really a fighter, but I've never backed down from anyone in Paris. I feel I can't. In London, I'll just run because I'm not going to fight 50 Wolverhampton Wanderers fans.

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.

Self-Preservation is a full-time occupation.

What don't kill me... Had better start running!

Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics; they desire our blood not our pain.

Self-preservation is the first principle of our nature.

You too have weapons.

We desert those who desert us; we cannot afford to suffer; we must live how we can.

Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.

The human instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody - I've been reading some philosophy - everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to self-defense. You have the right to survive, if you can.