Samuel Johnson
Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it."
Survivor quotes
Survivor
197 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Viktor E. Frankl
Psychiatrist, Neurologist
"As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable."
Patricia Buckley
Author
"Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I have been through. I said it's because no matter what, I AM a SURVIVOR, NOT a victim."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
"Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."
Keith Moon
Musician, Drummer
"I was a rust repairer. I was a rust repairer and full-time survivor. I survived all the major earthquakes, and the Titanic, and several air crash."
Explore further
Topics related to Survivor
Browse quotes that often appear alongside survivor — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Survivor quotes (page 1 of 10)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done- of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time."
Read quote
16 likes
"Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know."
Read quote
12 likes
"Never trust a survivor until you know how they survived."
Read quote
11 likes
"When a honeybee dies it releases a death pheromone, a characteristic odour that signals the survivors to remove it from the hive. The corpse is promptly pushed and tugged out of the hive. The death pheromone is oleic acid. What happens if a live bee is dabbed with a drop of oleic acid? Then no matter how strapping and vigourous it might be, it is carried kicking and screaming out of the hive."
Read quote
10 likes
"I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach, you just can't get rid of me."
Read quote
10 likes
"It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning."
Read quote
8 likes
"This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world."
Read quote
8 likes
"You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that's something that we should think about."
Read quote
7 likes
"There is no shame in being a survivor of sexual violence. The shame is on the aggressor."
Read quote
6 likes
"What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?"
Read quote
6 likes
"Me: Well, you see, I, uh, I'm a cancer survivor. Person #1: And how's that working out for you? Me: Well, you see, I, uh, used to have leukemia. Person #2: Dude, how come you're not, like, BALD? Me: Well, you see, I, uh, I had acute lymphocytic lymphoma when I was five. Person #3: Whoa. THAT must'a sucked. I once had my tonsils out."
Read quote
6 likes
"If you're passionate, be passionate enough to fail. Fail small, accept responsibility, repeat. The people who make change are the survivors of serial failure."
Read quote
5 likes
"i am like a survivor of the flood walking through the streets drenched with God surprised that all of the drowned victims are still walking and talking"
Read quote
4 likes
"First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor."
Read quote
3 likes
"Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners."
Read quote
3 likes
"Manhattan was a no-man's land, empty, an unofficial demilitarized zone between Partials and the human survivors. No one was supposed to be here, not because it was forbidden but because it was dangerous. If something happened to you out here, either side could get you, and neither side could protect you."
Read quote
3 likes
"Many stroke survivors look back on their attack as a stroke of luck. Of course, by luck they mean horrible paralysis."
Read quote
3 likes
"The dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors."
Read quote
3 likes
"Justice is for the victim.” Kick. “Vengeance is for the survivor."
Read quote
3 likes
"[T]he commitment of time, money and man power necessary for a capital case is enormous and it takes from other cases. But I think what bothers me most is that it offers to the families of the victims and the survivors a false sense of closure."
Read quote
3 likes