127 Best Survival Quotes to Make You Strong

Survival quotes are really important for all of us to learn because they teach us innumerable things. When confronted with an unexpected survival situation man has the potential to overcome many challenges, beat incredible odds, and come out a survivor. Survival quotes teach us all these things.

But what is survival anyway? Survival is the art of surviving beyond any event. To survive means to remain alive; to live. Survival is taking any given circumstance, accepting it, and trying to improve it, while sustaining your life until you can get out of the situation. And most importantly, survival is a state of mind.

Quotes about survival tell us that survival depends a great deal on a person’s ability to withstand stress in emergency situations. Your brain is without doubt your best survival tool. It is your most valuable asset in a survival situation. It isn’t always the physically strong who are the most effective or better at handling fear in emergency situations.

Survival quotes also shed light on the fact that survival more often depends on the individual’s reactions to stress than upon the danger, terrain, or nature of the emergency. A person’s psychological reactions to the stress of survival can often make them unable to utilize their available resources.

Hopefully you would have got a fair idea of the significance of survival and Survival quotes. If you want to prepare yourself for tough situations you need to learn these survival sayings and act upon them.

Best Survival Quotes All Time

Survival is a basic human instinct. In whatever predicament we find ourselves, the first and foremost thing that we do is survive. Everything else is secondary. We are going to share with you some of the best survival quotes that are going to help you a lot. Try and practically apply these best quotes about survival in your everyday life.

1. Survival can be summed up in three words – never give up. That’s the heart of it really. Just keep trying. –Bear Grylls
2. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. –C. S. Lewis
3. It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. –Leon C. Megginson
4. Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels. –Shari Arison
5. Our pleasures were simple – they included survival. –Dwight D. Eisenhower
6. In the animal kingdom, one of the keys to survival is to outwit your enemies. And when you’re surrounded by carnivores, one of the best strategies is to fade into the background and disappear. –Neil deGrasse Tyson
7. Survival requires us to leave our prejudices at home. It’s about doing whatever it takes, and ultimately those with the biggest heart will win. –Bear Grylls
8. The more we exploit nature, the more our options are reduced, until we have only one: to fight for survival. –Mo Udall
9. Survival is not just a physical thing. It’s a constant mental affair. So, I kind of really draw a lot of power from that word. –Parvathy
10. Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived. –Simon Wiesenthal
11. Connections with other people affect not only the quality of our lives but also our survival. –Dean Ornish
12. Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one’s own genes in the generations to follow. –Lewis Thomas

Famous Survival Quotes

It is a common occurrence that we tend to listen more to the sayings of famous people because we feel we have a special connection with them. Here are some of the famous quotes about survival. Use these famous survival quotes to turn your life around.

1. Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge. –Patricia Cornwell
2. The strong survive, but the courageous triumph. –Michael Scott
3. You have to seed internal disruptors. You need sources of internal disruption. They don’t guarantee your survival, but you have got to try. –Anand Mahindra
4. Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it. –Hunter S. Thompson
5. In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival. –Andrew Young
6. Earth is abundant with plentiful resources. Our practice of rationing resources through monetary control is no longer relevant and is counterproductive to our survival. –Jacque Fresco
7. When you’re placed in a world where survival is the main focus, a lot of that other stuff, like wrongdoings in the past, become obsolete. You have to focus on the here and now. –Alycia Debnam-Carey
8. The key to the survival of liberty in the modern world is the embrace of multiple identities. –Timothy Garton Ash
9. The feat of surviving is directly related to the capacity of the survivor. –Claire Cameron
10. In our struggle to restrain the violence and contain the damage, we tend to forget that the human capacity for aggression is more than a monstrous defect, that it is also a crucial survival tool. –Katherine Dunn
11. Whoever coined the saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” must have been thinking about survival. –Brian Emdin

Inspirational Survival Quotes

Most of the I will survive quotes tell us that one definitely must be in the proper frame of mind to survive an unplanned survival situation. Attitude or psychological state is most certainly number one. It is undoubtedly the most important ingredient of survival. With the proper attitude almost anything is possible. To make it through the worst a strong will or determination to live is needed and to achieve that will power you need to have a number of inspirational survival quotes at your disposal.

1. We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward. In times of tragedy, of war, of necessity, people do amazing things. The human capacity for survival and renewal is awesome. –Isabel Allende
2. Change is difficult but often essential to survival. –Les Brown
3. One thing you have to realize from now on is that it doesn’t matter if this is a dream or not. Survival depends on what you do, not what you think. –Rebecca McKinsey
4. Survival is not about being fearless. It’s about making a decision, getting on and doing it. –Bear Grylls
5. The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool. –Jane Wagner
6. Surviving a failure gives you more self-confidence. Failures are great learning tools, but they must be kept to a minimum. –Jeffrey Immelt
7. The requirements for our evolution have changed. Survival is no longer sufficient. Our evolution now requires us to develop spiritually – to become emotionally aware and make responsible choices. It requires us to align ourselves with the values of the soul – harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for life. –Gary Zukav
8. The weak die out and the strong will survive and will live on forever. –Anne Frank
9. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. –Albert Einstein
10. Success is what happens after you have survived all of your disappointments.
11. I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent. –Susanna Kaysen

Short Survival Quotes

If you love reading short quotes we have those for you as well. In the list below, you will find a large collection of short survival quotes. If you like these rules of survival quotes share them with your friends and colleagues as well.

1. Credibility is a basic survival tool. –Rebecca Solnit
2. Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception. –Carl Sagan
3. But part of surviving is being able to move on. –Alexandra Bracken
4. Escapism is survival to me. –Johnny Depp
5. Rule of survival: Pack your own parachute. –T.L. Hakala
6. If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive. –Megan Whalen Turner
7. Survival is a growth strategy.
8. Living in a small town, one of the keys to survival was your imagination. –Nick Nolte
9. Survival is nothing more than recovery. –Dianne Feinstein
10. We each survive in our own way. –Sarah J. Maas
11. To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself. –George Orwell
12. Survival is triumph enough. –Harry Crews
13. I’m a survivor, at least that’s what everyone tells me. –Courtney Love

Funny Survival Quotes

To convey something serious, sometimes we have to adopt funny ways. This is the reason we are going to share with you some funny survival quotes. These I can survive quotes will help you get your message across in a funny way. The listener however will get to the gist of what you are saying.

1. Survival is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid! –Peter Kummerfeldt
2. We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival. –Winston Churchill
3. It’s funny how the world works, how we win and lose, how we can never really know what’s ahead though we never stop planning. How we survive and move on. There’s a sadness that comes with survival, but also more joy to be had. –Anna McPartlin
4. It is meant to be survival of the fittest, not survival of the most floral. –Stephen Herfst
5. Someone once said “The only thing that will be left after a nuclear holocaust is cher and cockroaches.” I think that’s funny, because, you know, I am a survivor. If I am anything, that’s what I am. –Cher
6. Humor is essential to survival. Funny poems are vastly underrated. Very underwritten. –Rachel Zucker
7. We laugh to survive. –Mary Anne Radmacher
8. I have the street smarts and survival skills of, like, a poodle. –Jennifer Lawrence
9. Probably spending 12 years at boarding school – comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty. –Eric Idle

Deep Survival Quotes

There are a number of survival quotes and sayings that have a very deep meaning. When you first come across them you wouldn’t be able to understand what they truly mean. But after sometime if you look closely you will find out that these deep survival quotes have a great amount of wisdom to offer to us. Some of those quotes are given below.

1. It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. –W. Edwards Deming
2. When I worked in the city, it was about survival. Now when I work in the countryside, I feel like I’m truly living. –Li Ziqi
3. It angers me when sustainability gets used as a buzzword. For 90 percent of the world, sustainability is a matter of survival. –Cameron Sinclair
4. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. –Anita Roddick
5. We cannot survive if we are entirely isolated. History tells us we must engage with the outside world. –Paolo Bacigalupi
6. The true survivor isn’t someone with nothing to lose. He has something precious to lose. But at the same time, he’s willing to bet it all on himself. And it makes what he has that much richer. Days stolen are always sweeter than days given. –Laurence Gonzales
7. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away. –Yann Martel
8. The quality of a survival kit is determined how much it can help you when you need to sleep.  If you can sleep well at night, you have it made.  It should also assist you in meeting your water needs. –Mors Kochanski
9. To survive, you must develop secondary emotions that function in a strategic balance with reason. –Laurence Gonzales
10. The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.

Wilderness Survival Quotes

If you ever find yourself alone and lost in an unfamiliar territory it is important that you must have the proper knowledge of what you must do. In wilderness, natural disasters, extreme weather, and accidents all strike without warning, and can lead to serious injury or even death if they’re not responded to properly. Ensure you’ve got the skills to survive – or even thrive – should the worst happen and you’ll be able to navigate yourself and those around you out of a testing situation. This is why wilderness survival quotes are really important for you to learn. These survival of the fittest quotes will teach you all the necessary skills required for surviving extreme circumstances.

1. In a survival situation, it’s do or die. The ones that take action, using knowledge and common sense. –Daniel W. Shrigley
2. Survival is not so much about the body, but rather it is about the triumph of the human spirit. –Danitra Vance
3. I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren’t very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods. –Margaret
4. We are not talking about esthetics. We are talking about life: survival of Man. We must train young people to get another vision of Nature. We call it ‘wilderness,’ and we think it is progress to get further and further away from it. How crazy! Where would we have been if Nature had not built us up? –Thor Heyerdahl
5. Life in the wild, as I’m observing, is about survival as much as pleasure. –Fennel
6. Our inability to think beyond our own species, or to be able to co-habit with other life forms in what is patently a massive collaborative quest for survival, is surely a malady that pervades the human soul. –Lawrence Anthony
7. The trees are aware, and the bushes. The birds and small animals are aware, and they listen, hesitant, suspecting. Awareness of danger is an element of their being. It is like their breathing, like the blood in their veins, and one who lives much with the wilderness become so aware, too. Half of woodcraft is attention, and all of survival. –Louis L’Amour
8. Innate human tendencies were meant to help us survive the wilderness, not make investment decisions. –Coreen T. Sol
9. I didn’t mean to go after him, but no one was doing anything, and I’m probably the only one here who’s actually been in the woods for real. Besides—he’s British. What do they know about camping and wilderness survival and all that? There too busy drinking tea and playing cricket. He would have been lost without me. –Heather Davis
10. Among wilderness survival tips, punching a wild animal in the face probably isn’t on a checklist. –Kat Kruger

Survival Quotes about Life

Let us go through some of the survival quotes about life. Survival is possible in most situations but it demands a lot of a person. Humans can be very brave and resourceful when in emergency situations. The mind is a very powerful force. It has control of the body, its actions, and its reasoning. Life survival quotes teach you that what affects you mentally affects you physically. If you think that you can’t survive, then you won’t try to survive. A commitment or goal to live, refusal to give up, and positive mental attitude greatly increase chances for survival.

1. Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about. –Rollo May
2. Fear is a part of life. It’s a warning mechanism. That’s all. It tells you when there’s danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it. –Jim Butcher
3. There’s a theory that says that life is based on a competition and the struggle and the fight for survival, and it’s interesting because when you look at the fractal character of evolution, it’s totally different. It’s based on cooperation among the elements in the geometry and not competition. –Bruce Lipton
4. In the game of life, less diversity means fewer options for change. Wild or domesticated, panda or pea, adaptation is the requirement for survival. –Cary Fowler
5. Life chips away at us all. Some play the victim. Some choose to be a survivor. And then there are those who choose to conquer.
6. There are all these moments you think you won’t survive and then you survive.
7. Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we’re going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. In that sense, survivors don’t defeat death, they come to terms with it. –Laurence Gonzales
8. Every day is a new day of life, every day is new challenges of life for survival, this is example nothing is permanent in our life. –Sujit Kumar Mishra
9. Fears, insecurities, and the need to please can rule our lives. Our society is economically and socially set up for us to live under these pressures in order to maintain its control and survival. –Tara Stiles
10. Surviving doesn’t just mean staying alive, it means living to your potential.

Survival Quotes in Hard Times

While in your survival situation you will be confronted with many serious problems that you will need to overcome. Your brain will be your best asset but it could also be your most dangerous enemy. This is where quotes about survival in hard times come in very handy. These life is all about survival quotes teach you that you will have to defeat negative thoughts and imaginations, and also control and master your fears. You will need to shift mental processes and adopt that positive and optimistic “can do attitude”.

1. At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved. –Nina Simone
2. Fear is always there; it’s a survival instinct. You just need to know how to manage it. –Jimmy Chin
3. Survivors aren’t always the strongest; sometimes they’re the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest.” Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. –Winston Churchill
4. The human being is very resourceful. When you fight for survival, you don’t think much; you just do. If you think too much, you sink. –Frank Lowy
5. Confidence, courage and determined spirit are vital for surviving hard times. –Lailah Gifty Akita
6. Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it. –Bill Cosby
7. The more survival skills an individual has that have been practiced physically and otherwise, the better odds they have for those skills coming to the forefront during a stressful emergency. –Cody Lundin
8. Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor. –Stephen Hawking
9. Difficult times don’t come your way just so you can survive them; God uses these times in your life to form and refine you. –Joel Osteen
10. We don’t develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity. –Barbara De Angelis
11. Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive. –Cassandra Clare

Survival Quotes in English

It’s time that we share you the survival quotes in English. You must know this thing when placed in an unexpected survival situation you will be forced to rely upon your own resources; improvising needs and solving problems for yourself. If you want to survive then you must ultimately decide to take care of yourself and to not count on others to help you. This is the lesson we learn from most of the quotes about survival of the fittest.

1. Humor is one of the best ingredients of survival. –Aung San Suu Kyi
2. I’ve come to learn from my own experiences and those around me that it’s not about survival of the fittest but about who can adapt the best to change. –Natalya Neidhart
3. There’s nothing wrong with struggle. Anytime I look back at a difficult phase of my life and see what grew out of it, the creative survival tactics, I think that the good is way better than the bad. –Esperanza Spalding
4. And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department. –Andrew Carnegie
5. The rules of survival never change, whether you’re in a desert or in an arena. –Bear Grylls
6. Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival. –David Perlmutter
7. It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. –Arthur C. Clarke
8. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. –Charles Darwin
9. I think I’m a survivor. I could have suffered at least 100 professional deaths, I could come up with a list of the 100 times I’ve come closest to death, from having pneumonia as a child to car crashes. –Craig Venter
10. Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe. –Germaine Greer

Survival Quotes for Instagram Captions

If you want survival quotes for your Instagram profile we are here to help you out. We have an amazing collection of survival sayings to share with you that you would absolutely love. These quotes are really diversified in nature and will definitely decorate your Instagram profile.

1. A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived. –Chris Cleave
2. Survivors aren’t always the strongest; sometimes they’re the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest. –Carrie Ryan
3. In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival. –Stanislav Grof
4. She lives for this-the fight, the battle for survival. She actually enjoys it. –Lauren Oliver
5. People will do amazing things to ensure their survival. –Patricia Briggs
6. I am someone who always gets up again, even if there are setbacks. I have a survivor instinct. I’m not sure where it comes from, but probably from all the little things that make you into who you are. –Heidi Klum
7. It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts. –Robert H. Schuller
8. We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving. –José Ortega y Gasset
9. Your clothing is the most important survival tool you have.  Dress properly and any emergency you may have to endure becomes more manageable. –Mors Kochanski
10. The instinct to survive will never change, neither will the human body’s amazing ability to endure. –John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman

More Survival Quotes and Sayings

Survival sayings emphasize upon this point that always remember to keep positive mental attitude. Don’t add any extra burden to yourself by falling into a destructive mental state like feeling self-pity or hopelessness. Remember the important aspects of your life and don’t let the image fade. If you want to learn some inspirational surviving quotes go through the list below.

1. We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth. –Virginia Satir
2. I fight on emotions. When I don’t fight on emotions, I don’t fight well. I fight on emotion, because I’m in for survival. –Tito Ortiz
3. Your biggest fears are completely dependent on you for their survival.
4. To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival. –Wendell Berry
5. Beliefs have evolved based on survival value.
6. Certain belief systems have been more conducive than others to people living long enough to reproduce, and having a high rate of reproduction.
7. It’s that basic. –Jonathan Lockwood Huie
8. Adaptability and constant innovation is key to the survival of any company operating in a competitive market. –Shiv Nadar
9. Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender. –Henri Frederic Amiel
10. For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants. –Jimmy Carter

Final Thoughts on Survival Quotes

Thank you for going through this article on survival quotes. It is hoped that you would have learnt a number of surviving skills from these survival sayings. We live in a world marked by modern conveniences, which is totally fine, most of the time. But, every once in a while, disaster strikes.

Whether there’s a horrendous storm that knocks out your power or you just get lost by wandering too far off the trails, a very bad situation can be mitigated exceptionally if you just know a few basic survival skills. In order to help you be a little bit more prepared for whatever might befall you, we’ve put together this list of survival quotes that every man should know.

From making fire, to building shelter, to binding your wounds – these quotes about survival will teach you all the talents that, when properly practiced and honed, can make all the difference between being utterly without hope and coming out the other side a victorious survivor.