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Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.
Frank Herbert
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Survival requires adaptability and resilience in unfamiliar situations.

This quote emphasizes that in order to survive, one must possess the ability to navigate and adapt to challenging and unpredictable circumstances. The metaphor of swimming in strange water suggests that life often presents us with situations that are foreign or uncomfortable, and our success depends on our capacity to adjust and thrive in such environments.

Themes

SurvivalAdaptabilityResilienceChallengesGrowth

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about facing life's challenges.

More from Frank Herbert

My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.
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Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, "I am not the kind of person I want to be." It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.
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To know a thing well, know it's limits; Only when pushed beyond it's tolerance will it's true nature be seen. -The Amtal Rule
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Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.
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It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
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