„I would rather save the life of one citizen than kill a thousand enemies.“

„Thirty or forty proprietors, with incomes answering to between one thousand and five thousand a year, would create a much more effectual demand for the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, than a single proprietor possessing a hundred thousand a year.“

—  Thomas Robert Malthus, Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VII, p. 374
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

„I think… I would rather recollect a life misspent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.“

—  Neil Gaiman, libro Fragile Things

Fragile Things (2006)

„The China Incident [of 1937 onwards] has resulted in massive loss of life through the mutual killing of neighboring friends. This is the greatest tragedy of the last one thousand years. Nevertheless this is a holy war to save the peoples of East Asia…. Invoking the power of Avalokitesvara, I pray for the bright future of East Asia.“

—  Iwane Matsui Japanese general 1878 - 1948

Quoted in "Zen War Stories" - Page 186 - by Daizen Victoria - History - 2003.

„I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!“

—  Laurence Hope, India's Love Lyrics

Kashmiri Song
Indian Love Lyrics (aka Garden of Kama) (1901)

„One can best be judged by the life they live rather than the words they speak.“

—  RJ Intindola (Gandolfo)

1999

„Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.“

—  Thomas Keneally, libro La lista di Schindler

Origine: Schindler's List

„In the course of my twenty years career as an assailant of special privilege, I have attacked pretty nearly every important interest in America. The statements I have made, if false, would have been enough to deprive me of a thousand times all the property I ever owned, and to have sent me to prison for a thousand times a normal man's life. I have been called a liar on many occasions, needless to say; but never once in all these twenty years has one of my enemies ventured to bring me into a court of law, and to submit the issue between us to a jury of American citizens.“

—  Upton Sinclair, libro The Brass Check

The Brass Check (1919)

„She had made the choice for him - in a moment of flight and panic, but she had made it - not realizing that her Jace would rather die than be like this, and that she'd been not so much saving his life as damning him to an existence he would despise.“

—  Cassandra Clare, The City of Lost Souls

Origine: City of Lost Souls

„I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.“

—  Witold Pilecki World War II concentration camp leader and resistor 1901 - 1948

After the announcement of the death sentence.
Origine: Bartłomiej Kuraś, Witold Pilecki – w Auschwitzu z własnej woli, „Ale Historia”, w: „Gazeta Wyborcza”, 22 kwietnia 2013.

„I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.“

—  Harry Emerson Fosdick American pastor 1878 - 1969

Origine: Riverside Sermons (1958), p. 22

„I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.“

—  Ernesto Che Guevara Argentine Marxist revolutionary 1928 - 1967

„Like me, he would turn to the one thing that had always sustained him through difficult times, the one piece of hide-saving equipment with which the military way of life had vested us:
We could kill people and not care all that much.“

—  Eric Garcia An amazing author who has written several wonderful books! 1972

Origine: The Repossession Mambo (2009), Chapter 4 (p. 55)

„After falling for a very long time, as I surmise after the fact (I was falling so fast that I must have lost track), all I can remember is that I found myself under a tree. I was entangled in three or four rather large branches I had broken in my fall. An apple had squashed against my face and made it all wet with its juice.
Fortunately, as you will soon learn, this place was the Garden of Eden, and the tree I had fallen into was none other than the Tree of Life. You would be quite right to think I would have been killed a thousand times over but for this miraculous good fortune.“

—  Cyrano de Bergerac French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist 1619 - 1655

The Other World (1657)

„The world may be utterly crazy
And life may be labour in vain;
But I'd rather be silly than lazy,
And would not quit life for its pain.“

—  James Clerk Maxwell Scottish physicist 1831 - 1879

Part III Poems, Tune, Il Segreto per esser felice (March 24, 1858)

„Repudiation of the principle of defensive killing and the reliance upon ethical means of resistance are imperative if the vicious circle of taking life in order to save life is to be broken.“

—  Kirby Page American clergyman 1890 - 1957

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

„They called each other family and that’s what they were—sisters. Many people in the world had family of the heart, kin by choice rather than by blood, and hers had come along in her darkest hour and saved her life.“

—  Christine Feehan American writer

Origine: Spirit Bound

„Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.“

—  William Shakespeare, Tutto è bene quel che finisce bene

Origine: All's Well That Ends Well

„In this oneness standeth the life of all mankind that shall be saved.“

—  Julian of Norwich English theologian and anchoress 1342 - 1416

The First Revelation, Chapter 9
Contesto: In this oneness standeth the life of all mankind that shall be saved. For God is all that is good, as to my sight, and God hath made all that is made, and God loveth all that He hath made: and he that loveth generally all his even-Christians for God, he loveth all that is. For in mankind that shall be saved is comprehended all: that is to say, all that is made and the Maker of all. For in man is God, and God is in all. And I hope by the grace of God he that beholdeth it thus shall be truly taught and mightily comforted, if he needeth comfort.

„Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.“

—  Kate Chopin, libro The Awakening

The Awakening (1899)
Origine: The Awakening, and Selected Stories
Contesto: The years that are gone seem like dreams -if one might go on sleeping and dreaming- but to wake up and find -oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all ones life.