Survival Mentality Quotes

It is not enough that I succeed. Everyone else must fail.

Look what happened when I fought Anderson Silva. It can't possibly get worse than that. I've already seen the bottom and it wasn't that bad. I made it through. I survived. It's fighting. It's not the end of the world.

'Il faut vivre' might almost be the French national motto from 1940 to June 1944, but who is to say ours would have been any different if the Germans had paraded victoriously through London and Generalfeldmarschall Von Runstedt made his headquarters at Claridge's?

I'm a guy who has problems with moderation. All or nothing. Binge and purge. Kill or be killed. Gray is not a color I wear well. I should be dead. I know that. I should not be successful. I know that too. My daily existence is a toss of the coin - one side, fear, the other side, gratitude.

Never thoughts of suicide, I'm too alive. But I still treat it like it's do or die.. even though dyin' isn't in the plans, but neither was makin' it and here I am

I have a real dog-like mentality, in that it's like, 'Where is my next meal coming from? Am I ever gonna eat again? Will I ever write another song again? Will anyone show up for tour?' I think it comes from being really poor as a kid.

I was born in 1954. My parents were brought up in the war years, and life was hard.

My dad was raised hard. His own dad's mentality was, 'If you're not dead, you can work. If you're not dead, you're all right.'

And if you had an, an opportunity to have a hot meal, you did. That was the cook. But you didn't stop and say, This is dinnertime and Oh wait it's five o'clock, it's time to eat for supper.

I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came from, because everybody was doing it. So I wasn't prepared for America, where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food.

No, scratch the word "career." Careers are for people who wish to advance. I only want to survive, draw a paycheck.

Both my parents lived through a world war. My grandparents lived through two world wars. And they didn't go around saying, 'Look for happiness.'

Coming from the south side of Atlanta, Georgia, everyone has a chip on their shoulder. That's how competitive it is. It makes athletes great who come from there.

Growing up in Chicago is hard. I'd say 80 percent of the people ain't really got no daddies. Their household wasn't right. All they know is the streets and getting some money to support each other and support their family.

People say we are survivors but I don't see us as survivors of anything. We are still here, there's nothing that's come and tried to dislodge us. We just go about our business.

I eat an egg every morning, and when I'm done, I almost always have the thought: 'There. Now even if I'm captured and starved, I'll be able to live off the protein of that egg for a while.'

When you grew up in a household where mom would keep the extra ketchup packets from McDonald's and keep them in a drawer just in case there came a day when you couldn't afford to buy ketchup anymore, that gets ingrained in you.

I want us all to face our fears and stop behaving like our goal in life is to merely survive. "Surviving" is for wimps and game show contestants stranded in the jungle or on a desert island. You are not stranded. You own the store....You deserve better.

I come from a poor family, so really, the culture I know best is the street, TV, school.

I've survived quite a few generations. That's because I never lost my enthusiasm. I wake up every morning like on Christmas Day, waiting for the gifts.

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn't have anything. It's influenced the way I look at the world.

This generation has given up on growth. They're just hoping for survival.

It was good fortune to be a child during the Depression years and a youth during the war years.

I ain't going to sit here like, 'My neighborhood was hard, and I had to get out there and grind.' We made it hard for ourselves. We chose to stay on the streets.

We are in a survival mentality, and that's hard-wired into our humanity, because we are the winners of an evolutionary struggle of millions and millions and millions of years.