A Quote by J. R. R. Tolkien

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self-preservation.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Quote Topics

Call Cowardly Faith Greater Living Preservation Self Self-Preservation Something Than

Quote Author

J. R. R. Tolkien
English - Writer
January 3, 1892 - September 2, 1973

People always choose self-preservation over the greater good, most of the time, with the belief that self-preservation is the greater good.

Dana Loesch

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.

Friedrich Nietzsche

As long as I can remember I feel I have had this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.

Bruce Lee

It must not be thought that the cowardly feeling of caution and uneasy self-preservation is innate in the English character. It is the consequence of a corpulence derived from wealth and of the training of all thoughts and passions for acquisitiveness.

Alexander Herzen

The goal of the martial arts is not for the destruction of an opponent, but rather for self-growth and self-perfection. The practice of a martial art should be a practice of love - for the preservation of life, for the preservation of body, and for the preservation of family and friends.

Dan Inosanto

Self-confidence is very important. If you don't think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.

Magnus Carlsen

If the defeated and depressed group of disciples overnight could change into a victorious movement of faith, based only on autosuggestion or self-deception-without a fundamental faith experience-then this would be a much greater miracle than the resurrection itself.

Pinchas Lapide

That is an incredible period I think when you have a near-death experience. You are really understanding that there is a greater self than the physical body, and the cosmic anatomy as I call it is suspended and physical, is almost attached to it but not quite, and you're living in that in-between sphere of apparent reality around you and then the real reality of the infiniteness of it all.

Maya Tiwari

There can be no greater good than the quest for peace, and no finer purpose than the preservation of freedom.

Ronald Reagan

I don't even want to call it God. I just want to call it connecting with something that's greater than I am. So that's the biggest thing from Tennessee - the spirit.

Valerie June

We are morphing as we go through things, and then we're presented with the notion of a soul. A soul implies more than just the preservation of energy. Science will tell you that you can explode a person, but their energy still exists - even if they're decimated, the universe will preserve that in the form of heat or whatever it is. So there's a preservation of our molecules or whatever, but is there a preservation of a thing that's called the self if that thing is not actually ever one thing?

Mike Cahill

In America, the political system just is paralyzed for whatever reason. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, in that it's just become this giant blob bureaucracy, the primary objective is self-preservation, and the definition of self-preservation is don't do anything because then you continue to illustrate where you're needed.

Rush Limbaugh

For those searching for something more than just the norm. We lay it all down, including what others call sanity, for just a few moments on waves larger than life. We do this because we know there is still something greater than all of us. Something that inspires us spiritually. We start going down hill, when we stop taking risks.

Laird Hamilton

There is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the higher emotions of mankind

Theodore Roosevelt

There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.