"This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
— Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology
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Anime and Manga
"The weak are destined to lie beneath the boots of the strong. If that angers you, overcome your deficits."
— Esdeath, Akame ga Kill!
"Didn't I tell you? People who perish in others' battles are worms. If one can't live life the way they want, they might as well die! Those two didn't have the power to protect themselves from the destruction that I brought. That's all there is to it. If I have to worry about the ants I crush beneath my feet... I couldn't even walk around."
"Without power, neither emotions nor tenacity mean a thing. The weak should be discarded. Overwhelming power is everything."
— Zenon Zogratis, Black Clover
"The world lies. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not cheat, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife: all of these are lies! Mere illusion, nothing more. They don't want to be killed. They don't want to be robbed. Using the twin lies of justice and morality, the weak are endeavoring to protect themselves. But the first truth is that the strong devour the weak. So let us feed, upon people, upon wealth, upon riches and power. We of Brittania shall feast upon the raw flesh of the world itself. We must crush this deception and bring forth the truth. All hail Brittania!"
— Charles zi Brittania, Code Geass
Vicious: The same blood runs through both of us. The blood of a beast who wanders, hunting for the blood of others.
Spike: I've bled all that kind of blood away.
Vicious: THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!
Spike: I've bled all that kind of blood away.
Vicious: THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!
"You misunderstand, Tanjiro. I only despise the weak. I only spit on weaklings. Yes. Weaklings make me sick. It is the law of nature that they be weeded out."
— Akaza, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Gilgamesh: Long ago, I selected ten slaves, with the intent of slaying one that would not be missed. What do you suppose happened, Shinji?
Shinji: ...you killed them all, right?
Gilgamesh: I found that I could not slay any of them. They were simple laborers, but in the old world, none were without value. But this world overflows with the superfluous. I could choose not only ten, but thousands, and I'd not find one amongst them that I could not kill.
Shinji: I don't get what you're saying. What is it that you want?
Gilgamesh: That is simple. Too many of anything is sickening.
Shinji: ...you killed them all, right?
Gilgamesh: I found that I could not slay any of them. They were simple laborers, but in the old world, none were without value. But this world overflows with the superfluous. I could choose not only ten, but thousands, and I'd not find one amongst them that I could not kill.
Shinji: I don't get what you're saying. What is it that you want?
Gilgamesh: That is simple. Too many of anything is sickening.
"This world we live in is a weak place! It doesn't matter how you win. It matters that you DO win!"
— Hougen, Ginga Densetsu Weed
"Today I am giving the student council a fresh start! All students have the right to attack all other students! Secret meetings, scheming, backstabbing, anything goes! Seven days from now, reach the schoolyard alive, and then use your strength to lay claim on your social standing once again! This shall be Honnouji Academy's first naturals election!"
— Satsuki Kiryuin, Kill la Kill
"The law of the universe is the law of the jungle. It's survival of the fittest! Human society cannot be an exception. A society where the number of inferior people has increased beyond a certain level loses vitality and grows weak. I ardently wish for the prosperity of the human race! Accordingly, it is my holy duty as the superintendent of humanity to exclude those elements which weaken humanity."
— Kaiser Rudolf von Goldenbaum, Legend of the Galactic Heroes
"The beginning is upon us! I suggest you prepare. We're drawing close to a new world in which only true pirates can survive. The weak should run while they still can or be swept away by the tides of time, as they roll back to reveal a new era of champions!"
— Donquixote Doflamingo, One Piece
"The weak wear the chains, and the strong wield the whip!"
— Corset, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
"You know what? Hate to break it, but you got it all this whole thing. Ever hear of something called a food chain? Didn't they teach you in school? The witches go and eat weak humans, and then we hunt them down and eat the witches. It's the natural way of things that we gotta give up to the strong!"
— Kyoko Sakura, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
"The flesh of the weak is the food of the strong."
— Makoto Shishio, Rurouni Kenshin
"If you're strong, you live; if you're weak, you die."
— Makoto Shishio, Rurouni Kenshin
Comic Books
Do not beg. If you cannot take what you desire, you do not deserve to have it.
— Tauza, Farscape: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Bokar: [M]any Jedi and Imperial Knights died, Yuln, proving they are weaker than we Sith.
Yuln: Sith perished as well, Bokar.
Bokar: Weaklings! Better they be culled from the ranks of the One Sith!
Yuln: Sith perished as well, Bokar.
Bokar: Weaklings! Better they be culled from the ranks of the One Sith!
You fools are weaker than us in every way! You don't deserve to function!
— Starscream, Transformers (2023)
Comic Strips
"Thus the weak and stupid are weeded out in a heartless, but essential, natural selection, keeping the human population in check. ...at least, that's how it ought to be."
— Calvin while giving a school report on overpopulation, Calvin and Hobbes
Fan Works
"I Loathe This Entire World. Filled With Cowards And Fools. Ruled By The Pathetic Wills Of Ponies Who Cannot See Beyond Their Own Petty Wants. A Kingdom Of Friendship? They Will Never Achieve Such A Thing. All They Are Destined For Is To Be Ruled By The Strongest Hoof, Or Ground To Dust Beneath Mine."
— Nightmare Umbra, Harmony Theory
"My friends died during that!"
"Because their hope wasn't strong enough. It was so despair inducing to watch such wonderful symbols of hope succumb to her... but the end made it all worth it! Their sacrifice-–"
"Don't say that!"
"Because their hope wasn't strong enough. It was so despair inducing to watch such wonderful symbols of hope succumb to her... but the end made it all worth it! Their sacrifice-–"
"Don't say that!"
Slowly, Ozai pulled himself to his feet and stepped towards the bars of the cell.
"My fire has been torn from me. I will never hold the throne again. But as the nation crumbles, and as your precious allies dwindle, you will go to your restless sleep every night, watch the shadows darken, and you'll know, that I was right."
Azula took a deep breath.
"You asked me what I wanted when I came here. And it was partly to let you get that off your chest."
He kept his glare, but Azula could tell that she had caught him by surprise.
"That's your philosophy to the very end. Power and brutality is the only way. Compromise is vulnerability. Weakness," Azula sighed and shook her head once. "I used to agree with you. Honestly, a part of me still does."
And no one else in the world will ever get that admission from me.
"I came here to tell you that this is where it ends. I won't be chained to you, or your views, any more. I've found another way."
Ozai's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing in reply.
Azula turned to leave. Paused, and turned back to look at him again.
"Maybe you'll find one yourself, while you're in here," a shrug. "After all, someone once told me that suffering could be a pretty good teacher."
Without waiting for a reply, she walked out of the cell.
The door slammed shut behind her.
"My fire has been torn from me. I will never hold the throne again. But as the nation crumbles, and as your precious allies dwindle, you will go to your restless sleep every night, watch the shadows darken, and you'll know, that I was right."
Azula took a deep breath.
"You asked me what I wanted when I came here. And it was partly to let you get that off your chest."
He kept his glare, but Azula could tell that she had caught him by surprise.
"That's your philosophy to the very end. Power and brutality is the only way. Compromise is vulnerability. Weakness," Azula sighed and shook her head once. "I used to agree with you. Honestly, a part of me still does."
And no one else in the world will ever get that admission from me.
"I came here to tell you that this is where it ends. I won't be chained to you, or your views, any more. I've found another way."
Ozai's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing in reply.
Azula turned to leave. Paused, and turned back to look at him again.
"Maybe you'll find one yourself, while you're in here," a shrug. "After all, someone once told me that suffering could be a pretty good teacher."
Without waiting for a reply, she walked out of the cell.
The door slammed shut behind her.
Papyrus: IF I AM TO BE THOUGH A TRUE WARRIOR, I MUST...
Sans: mercilessly slaughter those that are weaker than you?
Papyrus: SILENCE!! ...BUT YES, YOU ARE CORRECT. THE LIVES OF THE WEAK ARE JUST POINTLESS. THEY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT THEY SERVE THE STRONG.
Sans: mercilessly slaughter those that are weaker than you?
Papyrus: SILENCE!! ...BUT YES, YOU ARE CORRECT. THE LIVES OF THE WEAK ARE JUST POINTLESS. THEY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL THAT THEY SERVE THE STRONG.
Paul, having recently defeated the local gym leader and earned his third badge (An orange bell like one), was sipping from a cup of Orange Juice in the Pokémon Centre with a smirk.
That was an easy win if he had ever had one, though at the very least it felt deserved. It was more of a fight than he would have gotten if he had fought those talentless bimbos in Cerulean at the very least.
One did not prove oneself strong by defeating the worst of the worst after all.
Strength was the most important thing, nothing else mattered to a Pokémon Trainer. He realized that long ago.
The problem was that so few Pokémon had worthy strength. Few were worth being trained by someone who aimed for the top.
Most were nothing but cannon fodder meant for cannon fodder, weak Pokémon trained by weak Trainers one walked over during the preliminary rounds of League Tournaments.
He would find the strongest potential Pokémon, and make them his own.
The weak would be tossed aside.
That was an easy win if he had ever had one, though at the very least it felt deserved. It was more of a fight than he would have gotten if he had fought those talentless bimbos in Cerulean at the very least.
One did not prove oneself strong by defeating the worst of the worst after all.
Strength was the most important thing, nothing else mattered to a Pokémon Trainer. He realized that long ago.
The problem was that so few Pokémon had worthy strength. Few were worth being trained by someone who aimed for the top.
Most were nothing but cannon fodder meant for cannon fodder, weak Pokémon trained by weak Trainers one walked over during the preliminary rounds of League Tournaments.
He would find the strongest potential Pokémon, and make them his own.
The weak would be tossed aside.
"Compassion? Empathy towards species outside your own? Ethics? Morals? Laws? Those are things CIVILIZATION invented! You ponies brought them into being when you decided 'I will care about more than whether I live and reproduce.' You decided some things were greater then your own life! You decided some things were greater than passing off GENETIC legacies. You learned what love was when Celestia taught you how to care about something other than your DNA. The natural world? When did you last see parasprites and cockatrices have political debates? Nature's balance doesn't TOLERATE kindness Flutter-girl. The sick and hurt you care for? You go AGAINST nature's will when you step in and tend to them and heal them. They're SUPPOSED to die to make way for the superior survivors. But because you have an empathy sphere larger than the sun, you step in, you CHEAT Fluttershy, you break Darwin The Dragon's law and allow the 'weak' to thrive not making room for the 'strong.' Kindness goes AGAINST nature Fluttershy! You're as unnatural as me."
— Fluttercruel, Pony POV Series
"...And the weak were cast out into the desert. The unfit, the ugly, the frail, the sick, the elderly. Raids were conducted throughout the kingdom, searching for those who might ‘bring down’ the strength of Sanctuary. The land was no longer a haven, instead being a place of fear. And the Malaiki was succeeded by his son, Shujaa. Only more pain and suffering were brought to the lands. He began the greatest abomination the kingdom has ever known: he passed a law that forbade the practice of any religion. Believers were tortured as a public spectacle, made to suffer untold agony, many of them dying from their thirst or their wounds. Those that survived were cast into the desert along with the others, believing that they would only weaken the kingdom."
"My people are not barbarians, Ecco—we realize what you did for this Earth. But, we are of a certain nature. Just because you did a great deed does not mean that you can be exempt from the Law."
"The Law?"
"Dolphins have many laws, killer whales have three. Sharks, little mammal, have only one." Greshruk's jaws parted slightly. "The fittest survive."
"The Law?"
"Dolphins have many laws, killer whales have three. Sharks, little mammal, have only one." Greshruk's jaws parted slightly. "The fittest survive."
— The Tidesinger Trilogy
, by GTK
, by GTK"You wet-behind-the-ears brat! You have no right to dictate what I can and cannot do! I am strong and may do with the weak as I see fit!"
— Graf Johan von Leopold, Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji
Film — Animated
"Gentlemen, there comes a time in the evolution of a colony when the strong are meant to rise above the weak. Now is that time. Below us right now, the weak elements of the colony are being washed away."
— General Mandible, Antz
"You've read Darwin. It's called natural selection. We're just helping it along."
— Commander Rourke, Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Neera: Kron, we've never gone this long without water. If we keep going like this, we'll lose half the herd.
Kron: Then we save the half that deserves to live.
Kron: Then we save the half that deserves to live.
— Dinosaur
"To you, my warlords, I offer dominion over as much of what remains of the planet as each of you can hold, second only to me. Interested?"
— Vandal Savage to the Legion of Doom, Justice League: Doom
"Weakness is for the lower species, not for us."
— Metalbeak, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
"Mufasa has always shown too much restraint when it comes to hunting. When I am king, the mighty will be free to take whatever they want. Because a hyena's belly is never full."
— Scar, The Lion King (2019)
There's a principle of nature
That most every creature knows
It's called "survival of the fittest"
And this is how it goes
The animal that wins has got to
Claw and bite and kick and punch
And the animal that doesn't
Winds up someone else's lunch
A company's an animal
That's trying to survive
It's struggling, and fighting
Just to keep itself alive
That most every creature knows
It's called "survival of the fittest"
And this is how it goes
The animal that wins has got to
Claw and bite and kick and punch
And the animal that doesn't
Winds up someone else's lunch
A company's an animal
That's trying to survive
It's struggling, and fighting
Just to keep itself alive
— The Once-ler, Biggering, The Lorax (2012)
"In order for some to live, others must die. That is the law of nature. From the moment of birth, life is one endless struggle, and only the strong will survive."
— The Wolf, Ringing Bell
Film — Live-Action
"You know, my child, for the good of our Lord, the Church was always on the side of the strong."
— Brother Gaspar de Carvajal, Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Ash: You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor. Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
Lambert: You admire it.
Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor. Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.
— Alien
Ultron: There were more than a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs! When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, he's winding up. We have to evolve. There's no room for... the weak.
Pietro Maximoff: And who decides who's weak?
Ultron: Life. Life always decides.
Pietro Maximoff: And who decides who's weak?
Ultron: Life. Life always decides.
"Who do you think God really favors in the web — the spider or the fly?"
— Eli Damaskinos, Blade II
"I've been doing a lot of reading, you know? Like, online about, like, just evolution and natural selection and how like there's this thing, right? It's called the apex predator, right? And basically what this is, is the strongest animal in the ecosystem, right? And as human beings, we're considered the apex predator but only because smaller animals can't feed on us because of weapons and stuff, right? A lion does not feel guilty when it kills a gazelle, right? You do not feel guilty when you squash a fly... and I think that means something. I just think that really means something."
— Andrew Detmer, Chronicle
"Let's bring it, pig! Where are you, pig? I want your eyes, pig. I want them. You want to go to hell? Huh? Huh, pig? You want to go to hell with me? It doesn't matter, does it? We are the hunters. We kill the weak so the strong survive. You can't stop the New World. Your filthy society will never get rid of people like us. It's breeding them! WE ARE THE FUTURE!"
— The Night Slasher, Cobra
"You must shake up the entire Luftwaffe. Many mistakes have been made, so be ruthless. Life never forgives weakness. This so-called humanity is just priest's drivel. Compassion is a primal sin, compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature. [...] I have always obeyed this law of nature by never permitting myself to feel compassion. I have ruthlessly suppressed domestic opposition and brutally crushed the resistance of alien races. It is the only way to deal with it. Apes, for example, trample every outsider to death. What goes for apes, goes more for human beings."
— Adolf Hitler, Downfall (2004)
"To live is to consume. Now, the human beings on your planet are merely a resource waiting to be converted into capital, and this entire enterprise is just a small part in a vast and beautiful machine, defined by evolution, designed to a single purpose: to create profit. My mother made me understand that every human society is a pyramid and that some lives will always matter more than others. It's better to accept this than to pretend it isn't true."
— Balem Abrasax, Jupiter Ascending
"Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We're just used to being the cat."
— Henry Wu, Jurassic World
"You're weak, son of El. The fact that you possess a sense of morality and we do not gives us an evolutionary advantage. And if history has proven anything, it is that evolution always wins!"
— Faora, Man of Steel
"How will the world finally end? It is my job to predict the unthinkable. To treat the deaths of billions as a game. After 20 years of this, I was numb. Until a new question crossed my mind. What happens after the end of the world? Every two or three million years, some natural catastrophe devastates all life on Earth. But life goes on. And what little remains is made stronger. Put simply, world destruction is an unpleasant but necessary part of evolution. What happens then, I wondered, when mankind faces the next end of the world. I looked to Hiroshima, Nagasaki... thriving cities rebuilt from the ashes, monuments to the unimaginable, dedicated to the concept of peace. It occurred to me here that nuclear war might have a place in the natural order. But only if it could be controlled. Only if it touched every living soul equally. May there be peace on Earth."
— Dr. Kurt Hendricks, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
"The jigsaw piece that I cut from my subjects was only ever meant to be a symbol that that subject was missing something. A vital piece of the human puzzle. The survival instinct."
— Jigsaw, Saw II
Marley: The world is on the verge of new and great changes, Mr. Scrooge. Some of them, of necessity, will be violent. Do you agree?
Scrooge: I think the world is becoming a very hard and cruel place, Mr. Marley. One must steel oneself to survive it, and not be crushed under with the weak and infirm.
Marley: I think we have a great deal in common, Mr. Scrooge.
Scrooge: I think the world is becoming a very hard and cruel place, Mr. Marley. One must steel oneself to survive it, and not be crushed under with the weak and infirm.
Marley: I think we have a great deal in common, Mr. Scrooge.
"My grandmother had an island. Nothing to boast of — you could walk along it in an hour — but still, it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats. They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island, hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait, and the rats would come for the coconut, and thum-thum-thum-thum-thum, they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you've trapped all the rats. But what do you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it. And they begin to get hungry, and one by one... [smacks lips repeatedly] ...they start eating each other until there are only two left. Two survivors. And then what? Do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees. But now they don't eat coconut anymore. Now they only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors. This is what she made us."
— Raoul Silva to James Bond, Skyfall
"Order is the barrier that holds back the flood of death. We must all of us on this train of life remain in our allotted station. We must each of us occupy our preordained particular position. Would you wear a shoe on your head? Of course you wouldn't wear a shoe on your head. A shoe doesn't belong on your head. A shoe belongs on your foot. A hat belongs on your head. I am a hat. You are a shoe. I belong on the head. You belong on the foot. Yes? So it is. In the beginning, order was proscribed by your ticket: First Class, Economy, and freeloaders like you. Eternal order is prescribed by the sacred engine: all things flow from the sacred engine, all things in their place, all passengers in their section, all water flowing. all heat rising, pays homage to the sacred engine, in its own particular preordained position. So it is. Now, as in the beginning, I belong to the front. You belong to the tail. When the foot seeks the place of the head, the sacred line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe."
— Mason, Snowpiercer
"Here's the real truth: there are eight million people in this city, and those teeming masses exist for the sole purpose of lifting the few exceptional people onto their shoulders."
— The Green Goblin, Spider-Man
"I've watched you from deep behind Norman's cowardly eyes, struggling to have eeeeeverything you want while the world tries to make you choose. Gods don't have to choose. We take."
— The Green Goblin, Spider-Man: No Way Home
Gordon Gekko: [at the Teldar Paper stockholder meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me, Mr. Cromwell, as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That's right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.
Cromwell: This is an outrage! You're out of line, Gekko!
Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has thirty-three different vice presidents, each earning over two hundred thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know, is that our paper company lost $110 million last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents! The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book, you either do it right, or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of $12 billion. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms: greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.
Cromwell: This is an outrage! You're out of line, Gekko!
Gordon Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has thirty-three different vice presidents, each earning over two hundred thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know, is that our paper company lost $110 million last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents! The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book, you either do it right, or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of $12 billion. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms: greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.
Literature
To a Dark mage, power is reality. The more power you have, the more you can shape the reality around you. Strength, cunning, influence, whatever, but the one thing they don't tolerate is weakness. Dark mages believe weakness is a sin, something shameful. If you're not strong enough to take what you want, it's your fault.
— Alex Verus: Fated
"Self-preservation is a man's first duty."
— Philip Lombard, And Then There Were None
"This new force, this individual, began to make his presence known in our galaxy. And he had different ideas from ours. He sees a universe of conflict, pain, and terror. He craves fear. Not his own, of course, but the fear of others. He is a strange perfectionist, in a way. He wants a galaxy cleansed of creation. His goal, I soon realized, is to destroy life. His method is to use one species against another, strong destroying weak, and then strong in turn being destroyed by the stronger still. He believes that there should be only one species. A single sentient race, which would be subjugated by him."
— The Ellimist, Animorphs #26: The Attack
"The first thing you got to understand is that all this uplift and flipflop and settlement-work and recreation is nothing in God’s world but the entering wedge for socialism. The sooner a man learns he isn’t going to be coddled, and he needn't expect a lot of free grub and, uh, all these free classes and flipflop and doodads for his kids unless he earns 'em, why, the sooner he'll get on the job and produce — produce — produce! That’s what the country needs, and not all this fancy stuff that just enfeebles the will-power of the working man and gives his kids a lot of notions above their class."
— Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
"The first of 'Goose's Two Laws Of Survival.' It runs thus: 'The Weak are Meat the Strong do Eat.'"
— Dr. Henry Goose, Cloud Atlas
"The law of the jungle says 'Be strong or be dominated.' The law of our world says 'Be strong or be killed.'"
— Ather, Den of Shadows : In the Forests of the Night
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link."
— Asahina Tomiko, From the New World
"The Westergaards are lions, not mice. Hans, you should listen to your brothers. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from them if you stopped acting like you were better than them."
— The King of the Southern Isles to his youngest son Prince Hans, A Frozen Heart
"There is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to seek it."
— Voldemort, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
If you are strong, you have a place, and if you are weak, you are a tool for the strong. This comes in different forms, sometimes: military force, economic coercion, ideological or ethnic purity. There's always someone trying to form a community like that, and they make up a huge portion of the people I tend to bomb when they assemble armies to conquer their neighbors.
They all die.
And not just because of me. Though let's be clear here: I kill a lot of them, and I refuse to feel bad about it.
They die because there are always always always more problems down there than you can survive by being personally strong.
A warlord tyrant with a suit of power armor will kill anyone who challenges them, until a nukefire gets them and they have no properly built shelter. A merchant king can live in luxury on the backs of their victims, but a single flesh wasp gets to them, and no one is going to risk helping them carve out the grenade tumors. A demagogue might spin a small cult into unwavering devotion, but when it's reaper bot migration season, no one is going to show up to help defend their walls.
And they all die.
They all die.
And not just because of me. Though let's be clear here: I kill a lot of them, and I refuse to feel bad about it.
They die because there are always always always more problems down there than you can survive by being personally strong.
A warlord tyrant with a suit of power armor will kill anyone who challenges them, until a nukefire gets them and they have no properly built shelter. A merchant king can live in luxury on the backs of their victims, but a single flesh wasp gets to them, and no one is going to risk helping them carve out the grenade tumors. A demagogue might spin a small cult into unwavering devotion, but when it's reaper bot migration season, no one is going to show up to help defend their walls.
And they all die.
— Lily, Kitty Cat Kill Sat
"I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human life... Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong. The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure. I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth: sailors from tramp ships — lascars, blacks, Chinese, whites, mongrels — a thoroughbred horse or hound is worth more than a score of them."
— General Zaroff, The Most Dangerous Game
"Iron sharpens iron, and the sharpest iron takes the throne."
— Praesi proverb, A Practical Guide to Evil
"The big eat the small. The strong eat the weak. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all."
— Wolf Larsen, The Sea Wolf
"Weak bears should be killed before they weaken us all."
—Shoteka, Seeker Bears
"People with weaknesses get killed by the people who lack them. Notice I'm not dead."
— Kerrigan, Sword of Darkness (Lords of Avalon #1)
Jamie: What's your perfect world?
Sylvester: A world where everyone is surrounded by people who are striving to be their best, because we only grow as people when we're around people who are equal to or better than us in intelligence, skill, and industry. It's in stupidity and stagnation that we fail as a species.
Jamie: But ethically? Morally?
Sylvester: I just gave my answer. In a perfect world, we're all different, ethically and morally. We argue, we challenge each other, and everyone is working to make their ideas better and more... more.
Jamie: A lot of hostility, arguments, competition.
Sylvester: Nothing good awaiting us as a species if we lose that. Stagnation.
Jamie: I can't help but notice you haven't mentioned anything about the positive human relationships. Only the confrontational ones.
Sylvester: Humans are a social species. Push us, pressure us, challenge us, and the weak elements will break apart, the stronger elements will band together.
Jamie: Wallace's law, applied to a group.
Sylvester: Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing something where we're all supposed to act like animals, or that we should model ourselves after them. I'm saying humans are humans, and being human means struggling. In the course of those struggles, we form the strongest bonds. Could be us and a life and death struggle with a pair of people who want to stalk and kill us, or two people working in a tea shop in a town that's gotten embroiled in a civil war.
Jamie: Seems like your worldview is a little bit, uh, conveniently you?
Sylvester: Of course it is. I'm eleven. Ish.
Sylvester: A world where everyone is surrounded by people who are striving to be their best, because we only grow as people when we're around people who are equal to or better than us in intelligence, skill, and industry. It's in stupidity and stagnation that we fail as a species.
Jamie: But ethically? Morally?
Sylvester: I just gave my answer. In a perfect world, we're all different, ethically and morally. We argue, we challenge each other, and everyone is working to make their ideas better and more... more.
Jamie: A lot of hostility, arguments, competition.
Sylvester: Nothing good awaiting us as a species if we lose that. Stagnation.
Jamie: I can't help but notice you haven't mentioned anything about the positive human relationships. Only the confrontational ones.
Sylvester: Humans are a social species. Push us, pressure us, challenge us, and the weak elements will break apart, the stronger elements will band together.
Jamie: Wallace's law, applied to a group.
Sylvester: Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing something where we're all supposed to act like animals, or that we should model ourselves after them. I'm saying humans are humans, and being human means struggling. In the course of those struggles, we form the strongest bonds. Could be us and a life and death struggle with a pair of people who want to stalk and kill us, or two people working in a tea shop in a town that's gotten embroiled in a civil war.
Jamie: Seems like your worldview is a little bit, uh, conveniently you?
Sylvester: Of course it is. I'm eleven. Ish.
— Twig
"Silence, whelp. Born of Noble blood as you are, surely you understand us immortals. Life everlasting-it is our duty as those ordained with immortality to live on while crushing those beneath us. That... is the blessing the Sacred Ancestor bestowed upon us."
— Count Magnus Lee, Vampire Hunter D
Darktail: We have developed our own code. After we left the other Clans, SkyClan realized our members were becoming weak, and we decided to make up some new rules. SkyClan rules reward the strong and aggressive—the cats who will best defend the Clan.
Sparkpaw: What about sick cats, then, or elders?
Darktail: They learn to take care of themselves.
Sparkpaw: What about sick cats, then, or elders?
Darktail: They learn to take care of themselves.
Live-Action TV
Morden: It's like knocking over an anthill. Every new generation gets stronger. The anthill gets redesigned, made better.
Sheridan: So that's what the Shadows do. Come out every few thousand years and "kick over all the anthills": start wars, destroy entire races.
Justin: A few get lost along the way, yes, and that's unfortunate. I don't think it was ever easy, but you can't let that get in the way of the dream.
Morden: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond all description. But look at what came out of all of that! We've gone to the stars, split the atom, written sonnets. We never would have come this far, if we hadn't been at each others' throats evolving our way up, inch by inch.
Sheridan: So that's what the Shadows do. Come out every few thousand years and "kick over all the anthills": start wars, destroy entire races.
Justin: A few get lost along the way, yes, and that's unfortunate. I don't think it was ever easy, but you can't let that get in the way of the dream.
Morden: Think about it, Captain. Look at the long history of human struggle. Six thousand years of recorded wars, bloodshed, atrocities beyond all description. But look at what came out of all of that! We've gone to the stars, split the atom, written sonnets. We never would have come this far, if we hadn't been at each others' throats evolving our way up, inch by inch.
"They think they're entitled to victory because their way is 'right' and our way is 'wrong'. But that's not how it works. There are no morals to the story, no happy endings. Life isn't a fairy tale, it's a competitive sport! Right and wrong, there's no such thing. There are only winners and losers. Cobra Kai builds winners, because we're willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top."
The Doctor: He doesn't have to outrun the lion, only his friend. Then the lion catches up with his friend and eats him. The strong survive, the weak are killed. The law of the jungle.
Harvey: Oh, yeah. Very clever.
The Doctor: Yes, very clever, if you don't mind losing your friend. But what happens when the next lion turns up? I think you'd better get your running shoes on, gentlemen.
Harvey: Oh, yeah. Very clever.
The Doctor: Yes, very clever, if you don't mind losing your friend. But what happens when the next lion turns up? I think you'd better get your running shoes on, gentlemen.
— Doctor Who, "Survival"
Danerys Targaryen: I am a queen, not a butcher.
Daario Naharis: All rulers are either butchers or meat.
Daario Naharis: All rulers are either butchers or meat.
— Game of Thrones, "The Gift"
"All is in ruins. A waste. As we welcomed the new world, I judged it fit for the strong alone to survive at the expense of the weak. I believed, wrongly, that those so chosen were the most deserving. After those who believed that the weak were fit only to be hunted ascended as rulers of the Forest, they turned on each other and begun to kill one another. [...] My remaining subjects are the strongest in Femushinmu history...and the most foolish. They have no hope of reviving our civilization. And what about your kind?"
"Captain, although your abilities intrigue me, you are quite honestly inferior. Mentally, physically. In fact, I am surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. Oh, there has been technical advancement, but, how little man himself has changed. Yes, it appears we will do well in your century, Captain."
— Khan Noonien Singh, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Space Seed"
The Chancellor: It's not unusual that we televise executions, Mr. Wordsworth. Last year in the mass executions, we televised around the clock. 1300 people were put to death in less than six hours!
Romney Wordsworth: You never learn, do you? History teaches you nothing.
Chancellor: On the contrary, history teaches us a great deal! We had predecessors, Mr. Wordsworth, who had the beginnings of the right idea.
Wordsworth: Yes, like Hitler.
Chancellor: Yes, like Hitler.
Wordsworth: Also Stalin.
Chancellor: Stalin, too — but their error was not one of excess. It was simply not going far enough. Too many undesirables were left around, and undesirables eventually form a core of resistance. Old people clutch at the past and won't accept the new. The sick, the maimed, the deformed... They fasten onto the healthy body and damage it, so we eliminate them. And people like yourself — they can perform no useful function for the State, so we put an end to them.
Romney Wordsworth: You never learn, do you? History teaches you nothing.
Chancellor: On the contrary, history teaches us a great deal! We had predecessors, Mr. Wordsworth, who had the beginnings of the right idea.
Wordsworth: Yes, like Hitler.
Chancellor: Yes, like Hitler.
Wordsworth: Also Stalin.
Chancellor: Stalin, too — but their error was not one of excess. It was simply not going far enough. Too many undesirables were left around, and undesirables eventually form a core of resistance. Old people clutch at the past and won't accept the new. The sick, the maimed, the deformed... They fasten onto the healthy body and damage it, so we eliminate them. And people like yourself — they can perform no useful function for the State, so we put an end to them.
"If the mother can't quiet the child, then the dead will. Natural selection."
— Alpha, The Walking Dead (2010), "Bounty"
Music
In this land of competition
The compassion is gone
Yet we ignore the needy
And we keep pushing on
We keep pushing on
The compassion is gone
Yet we ignore the needy
And we keep pushing on
We keep pushing on
Look out at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don't kid yourself they belong to you
They're the start of the coming race
The Earth is a bitch, we've finished our news
Homo sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay
See their faces in golden rays
Don't kid yourself they belong to you
They're the start of the coming race
The Earth is a bitch, we've finished our news
Homo sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay
— David Bowie, "Oh! You Pretty Things"
I've seen an old man have a heart attack in Manhattan
Well, he just died while we just stood there lookin' at him
Ain't he cute?
I don't care about you!
Ohhhhhhhhh!
I don't care about you!
Well, he just died while we just stood there lookin' at him
Ain't he cute?
I don't care about you!
Ohhhhhhhhh!
I don't care about you!
— F.E.A.R., "I Don't Care About You"
Heavy is the crown only for the weak
A knife in my heart couldn't slow me down
'Cause power is power, my fire never goes out
I rise from my scars, nothing hurts me now
'Cause power is power
Now watch me burn it down
A knife in my heart couldn't slow me down
'Cause power is power, my fire never goes out
I rise from my scars, nothing hurts me now
'Cause power is power
Now watch me burn it down
— SZA, "Power is Power"
Pro Wrestling
Adapt... or Perish.
— Slogan of Evolution
Radio
The Doctor: But here, John, here in Perfugium, you had friends! You had life — something you've denied so many others.
The Master: Those which deserved to die were denied life, yes, of course. The weak shall fall — or follow. You should know all about having the weak follow you, Doctor.
The Master: Those which deserved to die were denied life, yes, of course. The weak shall fall — or follow. You should know all about having the weak follow you, Doctor.
Tabletop Games
Strength Above All: You shall rule until a stronger one arises. Then you must grow mightier and meet the challenge, or fall to your own ruin.
— Oath of Conquest tenets, Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition
In the First Days, lonely witches and lunatic priests walked the midnight paths alone. Most perished there, but those who survived grew strong. In time, other folk followed them and joined their revels. Like mists, these renunciates drifted through the wild lands; like clouds of ink, they sank into the seas. And in time, they spread and prospered. The elder races taught them godly lore; beasts schooled them with open claws; Darkness embraced them as its own, and they became black clouds across the earth, Living Voids who echoed the greater Void beyond.
And sometimes they returned to their old fires with secrets in their hands.
To battle gods, one must be strong. But many men and women were not. In the tribal days, beast-kings, plagues and hunger culled the human flock. But as tribes became towns and towns became cities, the weak ones were allowed to breed. When the fires grew large and bright, they warmed the bones of those who should have perished. Compassion, that noble trait that allowed Man to survive the depredations of the wilderness corrupted these new towns like leprosy. Soon the streets were filled with the ragged and the craven, begging alms from those strong enough to survive. And so, like wolves in the night, the living clouds crossed back into the realms of man and choked the weak ones where they lay.
Thus began the challenge: fight and live or falter and die.
And sometimes they returned to their old fires with secrets in their hands.
To battle gods, one must be strong. But many men and women were not. In the tribal days, beast-kings, plagues and hunger culled the human flock. But as tribes became towns and towns became cities, the weak ones were allowed to breed. When the fires grew large and bright, they warmed the bones of those who should have perished. Compassion, that noble trait that allowed Man to survive the depredations of the wilderness corrupted these new towns like leprosy. Soon the streets were filled with the ragged and the craven, begging alms from those strong enough to survive. And so, like wolves in the night, the living clouds crossed back into the realms of man and choked the weak ones where they lay.
Thus began the challenge: fight and live or falter and die.
— Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade — Infernalism
People confuse "survival of the fittest" between Black and Green. Black's Survival of the Fittest is the idea that the stronger person will get what they want. Might makes right. If you can take something away from someone else, it belongs to you.
Green's Survival of the Fittest is the Darwinian meaning. Things that can survive to mate pass along their genetic traits. Over time the traits that better allow survival will grow while those that don’t will die out — through natural selection.
Green's Survival of the Fittest is the Darwinian meaning. Things that can survive to mate pass along their genetic traits. Over time the traits that better allow survival will grow while those that don’t will die out — through natural selection.
— Mark Rosewater, explaining the difference between Green and Black (and how only one of them fits this trope) in Magic: The Gathering
between Green and Black (and how only one of them fits this trope) in Magic: The GatheringNaturally, the Dark Elves consider all other races inferior. Even those who approach them in skill and intellect, the Naggarothi dismiss as weaklings, sneering at the laws and traditions that waste resources nurturing the weak even as they shackle the ambitions of the strong. The Dark Elves have no such restraint: in Naggaroth, the weak perish, and the strong take whatever they desire.
— Warhammer: Dark Elves Army Book (8th edition)
Living as they do in the shadow of the ever-present threat of starvation, is it at all surprising that the Ratmen are constantly at each others' throats? Theirs is a society of hunger — a world red in tooth and claw — in which each individual must be read to look to his own survival and in which every living thing is automatically judged by its potential as either food or threat; a world without pity, mercy or compassion, where only strength and cunning are respected. A world in which there is only one law, one maxim, which holds any sway. The law that says kill-or-be-killed, eat-or-be-eaten, it's the survival of the fittest. It is the law of the wilderness.
Above all else, it is the law of the rat.
Above all else, it is the law of the rat.
— Warhammer: The Loathsome Ratmen
"Those loyal to the shrunken corpse on Terra still cling to their own processes by which perhaps one in a hundred neophytes may survive to become a battle brother. The methods I have developed over the last millennia are more stringent, for we must be pure in our hatred and hard of heart, body and soul. Fewer than one in every thousand survive, and I strive each day to lengthen these odds still further."
— Fabius Bile, Warhammer 40,000
"It is the fate of the weak to die unknown, and the destiny of the strong to rule for eternity. Give me glory, or give me death!"
— Gauwe Psgas, Warhammer 40,000
"The strong breed. The weak die. Does that sound harsh? That's evolution. We must be stronger than our enemies, especially with the Final Days so close. If we let the weakest rats survive, they'll breed thousands and thousands of even weaker rats. Instinct will tell you to kill, so follow it. You'll also feel an overriding desire to breed — do it. We need an army to overwhelm our enemies. To many of the other Changing Breeds have given up, but we must outnumber and overwhelm anything that gets in our way. Then, when the time is right, the force of the Wyld will overwhelm everything, returning us to the ideals of the Impergium."
— Duke Wades-in-Blood, Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Breedbook: Ratkin
Video Games
"'Tis only survival of the fittest. All of these cretins would do the same in his shoes, given the chance."
— Morrigan, Dragon Age: Origins
"Weak. He's weak. You're strong. Crush him."
— Molag Bal, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
"This world is weak. Soft. We have forgotten what it is to be strong. You know our heroes used to be gods. And now our heroes are godless. Weak, feeble, diseased. We let the weak dictate to the powerful and we are shocked to find ourselves adrift. But history knows the value of sacrifice. Of culling the herd so that it stays strong. Over and over, the lives of the many have outweighed the lives of the few, this is how we’ve survived. And we've forgotten... and now the bill has come due. Now, the collapse is upon us, and this time the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many. And when a nation that's never known hunger or desperation descends into madness, we’ll be ready. We will cull the herd. We will do what needs to be done."
— Jacob Seed, Far Cry 5
"It is only right that I should take your realm. For none among you has the power to stop me!"
— Gaius van Baelsar, Final Fantasy XIV
"I question the way in which our society is designed. No matter what strength a person has, it is the station he is born into that controls his destiny. And you cannot control where you will be born. Do you believe that a person of low birth should simply endure the curse of his station? I think not. If you are stronger than those around you, you should benefit from your strength. This is why I will use my strength to remake this world. Class and rank will not matter. Human and sub-human will not matter. The strong will possess everything. The weak will submit to their will. Is this not the meaning of peace?"
— King Ashnard, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
"Trouble is caused by unemployment, and unemployment comes from poor economic performance and lazy people. If you had job, would you steal a car? Of course not! And if you had a high-rise condo, a mistress, and a seat on the board, would you run around graffitiing your name all over town and making a nuisance of yourself, spinning on your back, and poppin' and lockin'? Not a hope. It's simple: If you don't have a job, starve. Get out of my constituency—by force if necessary—and starve."
— Congressman Alex Shrub, GTA Radio: Pressing Issues
"I do not demand bootlicking from the higher mortal. I wish that he stand tall and forge for himself a path of greatness. You who are unwilling, you will do well to serve your masters — let yourself wear chains and serve a higher purpose, and be grateful. But if you count yourself a superior mortal, stand tall! Yet know that I will not be there to raise you up. You must raise yourself up, on your own terms. You must make yourself great, as I have forged superiority for myself."
Aurelie: This... this is horrible! Don't you even feel remorse for what you're doing?
Darkloft: Remorse? What on Earth for? If these sniveling wretches really cared for their petty little lives, they would have sought out their own power. Instead, they waste their energy, then wail and moan when someone stronger crushes them.
Darkloft: Remorse? What on Earth for? If these sniveling wretches really cared for their petty little lives, they would have sought out their own power. Instead, they waste their energy, then wail and moan when someone stronger crushes them.
Shepard: I still can't wrap my head around that, reading information like you do.
Javik: For my people, it was as natural as breathing.
Shepard: Evolution's an amazing force.
Javik: Our scientists believed it was the only force that mattered. They called it the "cosmic imperative". The strong flourished. The weak perished.
Javik: For my people, it was as natural as breathing.
Shepard: Evolution's an amazing force.
Javik: Our scientists believed it was the only force that mattered. They called it the "cosmic imperative". The strong flourished. The weak perished.
"Evolution requires sacrifice."
— Sigma, Mega Man X
"The world is changing! Therefore, it's only natural that evolution takes its course. Now, line up to be exterminated!"
— Lumine, Mega Man X8
Serpent: By joining us, the weak are freed from their suffering! The chosen one, Mega Man, will save the people! That is the glory of Project Haven!
Aile: Mega Man will save the people!? How is sacrificing the people of this country going to save them!?
Serpent: Precious misguided little girl. It's time for you to come off of your high horse. Our power is the result of many sacrifices. We are the chosen ones. It is destiny for the last of our kind to rule. Model W is not about destruction. It is about rebirth and evolution! I am the giver of meaning to the lives of people who cannot keep up with the tide of evolution.
Aile: The only thing you are is afraid. Afraid of your past. Afraid of yourself and what you've become! Your fear is what drives your desire to rule! You think this is evolution!? Is this really what you want!?
Serpent: You think I'm doing this all out of fear? That's nonsense! The spirits of the people have given me what I need to obtain the power of Model W! Look at you! You're only able to stand before me today thanks to the power of Model Z absorbed from that red Mega Man! Evolution requires sacrifice! The ones who will determine what needs to be sacrificed are the Mega Men!
Aile: Mega Man will save the people!? How is sacrificing the people of this country going to save them!?
Serpent: Precious misguided little girl. It's time for you to come off of your high horse. Our power is the result of many sacrifices. We are the chosen ones. It is destiny for the last of our kind to rule. Model W is not about destruction. It is about rebirth and evolution! I am the giver of meaning to the lives of people who cannot keep up with the tide of evolution.
Aile: The only thing you are is afraid. Afraid of your past. Afraid of yourself and what you've become! Your fear is what drives your desire to rule! You think this is evolution!? Is this really what you want!?
Serpent: You think I'm doing this all out of fear? That's nonsense! The spirits of the people have given me what I need to obtain the power of Model W! Look at you! You're only able to stand before me today thanks to the power of Model Z absorbed from that red Mega Man! Evolution requires sacrifice! The ones who will determine what needs to be sacrificed are the Mega Men!
"When did mankind lose touch with natural selection? No matter how inferior a human's genes are, that person is protected by laws, and can't be killed. Even those incapacitated in accidents or stricken with a serious illness are needlessly kept alive. What a drawn out, wasteful existence. It's this divorce from natural selection that has caused mankind to stop evolving."
— Hans Davis, Metal Gear Ac!d
"I have a dream! That one day every person in this nation will control their own destiny. A nation of the truly free, dammit. A nation of action, not words, ruled by strength, not committee! Where the law changes to suit the individual, not the other way around. Where power and justice are back where they belong: in the hands of the people! Where every man is free to think — to act — for himself! Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers and chickenshit bureaucrats. Fuck this 24-hour Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit! Fuck American pride! Fuck the media! FUCK ALL OF IT! America is diseased. Rotten to the core. There's no saving it — we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. BURN IT DOWN! And from the ashes a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed! The weak will be purged and the strongest will thrive — free to live as they see fit, they'll make America great again! In my new America, people will die and kill for what they believe! Not for money. not for oil! Not for what they're told is right. Every man will be free to fight his own wars!"
— Senator Steven Armstrong, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
The time has come to an end
Yeah — this is what nature planned
Being tracked by a starving beast
Looking for its daily feast
A predator on the verge of death
Close to its last breath
Getting close to its last breath
RULES OF NATURE
And they run when the sun comes up
With their lives on the line
(Alive)
For a while
(No choice)
Gotta follow the laws of the wild
(Alive)
With their lives on the line
(No choice)
Out here only the strong survive
What’s done is done
Survived to see another day
The game of life
The hunter and the agile prey
No guarantee
Which of them will succeed
Strong or weak
(yell)
Rules of Nature
Rules of Nature!
Yeah — this is what nature planned
Being tracked by a starving beast
Looking for its daily feast
A predator on the verge of death
Close to its last breath
Getting close to its last breath
RULES OF NATURE
And they run when the sun comes up
With their lives on the line
(Alive)
For a while
(No choice)
Gotta follow the laws of the wild
(Alive)
With their lives on the line
(No choice)
Out here only the strong survive
What’s done is done
Survived to see another day
The game of life
The hunter and the agile prey
No guarantee
Which of them will succeed
Strong or weak
(yell)
Rules of Nature
Rules of Nature!
— Lyrics for Rules of Nature, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
"Are you done bitching? You could never shut down the Association. Fighting to be the best is human nature. It's evolution. Who are we to try and stand in its way?"
— Sylvia Christel, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
"Such is the way of the world. The mighty shall build their castles upon the corpses of the meek."
— General Mugen Ku, Octopath Traveler II
"The stronger prey on the weaker. Don't you know? That's biology!"
"Humanity is always being tested. Conflict and war is the crucible by which we evolve. Every battle makes us stronger. Those who fall will be forgotten. Those who rise up, their names will be remembered forever."
— Doomfist, Overwatch
"The weak must be sacrificed for the sake of grand ideals! That is the natural order of this world!"
— Shadow Masayoshi Shido, Persona 5
"That's right everybody, it's that time of year again: Happy Birthday. You know the rules, everybody at the government-mandated maximum age needs to report to an ethnological redundancy associate toute suite. Lookin' through your files here... the following is a complete list of employees who need to snuff it: [ahem] Dorothy Russell, Age 98. End of list. Sorry about that, Dorothy. You had a good ninety-seven years, time to stop hoggin' all the resources. Leave some nutrient paste for the rest of us, why don't you. Cave Johnson — age fifty-one — we're done here."
— Cave Johnson, Portal 2
"Natural selection leaves the survivors STRONGER and BETTER! Humans have escaped this winnowing for FAR TOO LONG."
— Albert Wesker, Resident Evil 5
"My philosophy is 'strength from chaos and adversity'. It is about improving oneself by overcoming obstacles."
"I have observed this world for thousands of years, since what you would call the ancient times... The human spirit was once beautiful. The strong ruled the people, while the people respected the strong, cursing their own weakness. It was thanks to the chaos of that ancient world that the spirits of humans were made beautiful! But the foolish notion of 'order' has caused the human spirit to wither and decay. 'Order' is nothing but comfort of the weak! The weak only deserve the comfort of death!"
— Asura, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
"You must be a straggler who got left behind. The strong will always vanquish the weak. You have only your own frailty to blame."
— Infinite, to the Avatar, Sonic Forces
"Death to the weak. That's the decree of Shadaloo."
— M. Bison, to F.A.N.G., Street Fighter V
"They kill you, they're better. You kill them, you're better."
— Kuben Blisk, Titanfall
"Down here, it's KILL or BE KILLED!"
— Flowey, Undertale
"The old and the weak are doomed."
Visual Novels
"Don't get me wrong, I see the logic, but it's kind of...animal logic. Still, you made your bed. Now you've gotta lie in it. If you're gonna be an animal, be an animal. Own it! The losers, the weak? Throw 'em away! That's how nature works, my friends — that's life at its most pure! You get me?"
— Dio, Virtue's Last Reward
Web Animation
"All protecting kids does is preserve the weak, it produces spoiled brats like all these millennials and brain-dead TikTokers. It degenerates and disintegrates our culture, our gene pool. It makes us pathetic. I'll tell you what, Ahospice, you're an anti-vaxxer, you like quotes from people pretending to be scientists, so here's one for you:
'The law of survival of the fittest was not made by man, and it cannot be abrogated by man, we can only, by interfering with it produce the survival of the unfittest' — William Graham Sutner
And by taking care of these kids, by using your fucking fake science to justify your pseudo-Darwinism, you do nothing but make a mockery of me. You do nothing to produce survival of the fit. And I can't have that."
'The law of survival of the fittest was not made by man, and it cannot be abrogated by man, we can only, by interfering with it produce the survival of the unfittest' — William Graham Sutner
And by taking care of these kids, by using your fucking fake science to justify your pseudo-Darwinism, you do nothing but make a mockery of me. You do nothing to produce survival of the fit. And I can't have that."
— Darwinism, Grej
"Survival isn't a right, it's a privilege. It's earned."
— Felix, Red vs. Blue
Qrow: You should come back, Raven. The only way we'd beat her is by working together. All of us.
Raven: You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them.
Qrow: They were killers and thieves.
Raven: They were your family.
Qrow: You have a very skewed perception of that word.
Raven: I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival.
Qrow: I saw. The people of Shion saw, too.
Raven: The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.
Raven: You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them.
Qrow: They were killers and thieves.
Raven: They were your family.
Qrow: You have a very skewed perception of that word.
Raven: I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival.
Qrow: I saw. The people of Shion saw, too.
Raven: The weak die, the strong live. Those are the rules.
— RWBY
Webcomics
"Here you are, still arrogant fools, still striving to subjugate and destroy all of the world's beautiful monsters! How do you not realize it? How do you not see that monsters are your superiors? Think on it, and you will know — humanity needs monsters! Without monsters, we are the apex predators of the world, and thus we allow ourselves to sink into self-satisfied mediocrity! We need monsters to keep us sharp! To prove our mettle! To cull the herd! Remove the indolent! The weak! The aged and the infirm! Those not worthy to survive! the more dangerous the monsters — the more deadly they are — the stronger the remains of humanity will become, and my beautiful, glorious monsters — they will be the most dangerous — the most deadly — of all! I WILL GATHER MY FORCES, AND UNLEASH A RAVENING HORDE THAT WILL SCOUR THE LAND! THERE IS NO NEED TO THANK ME!"
Web Original
"The message is clear: in this new, dog-eat-dog world, that's all survivors are good for, the food and tools in their backpack.
So, what if it had turned out that guy was himself a badass zombie-killing machine? That'd come in pretty useful, right? Well, maybe they could tell by looking at him that wasn't the case (no visible weapons, not covered in enough zombie blood)... How many people do you know who are truly worthless?"
So, what if it had turned out that guy was himself a badass zombie-killing machine? That'd come in pretty useful, right? Well, maybe they could tell by looking at him that wasn't the case (no visible weapons, not covered in enough zombie blood)... How many people do you know who are truly worthless?"
— Cracked, "Four Reasons The Walking Dead Hates Humans More Than Zombies"
As he notes to Abel, "it's only cannibalism if we're equals." Which is not to say that Hannibal views his victims as less than human; at least, not in the case of his "big ticket" victims. Rather, it's that Hannibal is superhuman... In other words, the reason that Hannibal gets to eat us with impunity is that he's going to enjoy the taste of us much more than we enjoy our lowly little lives.
— El Sandifer on Hannibal, "Meat is Murder"
Web Video
Ludwig: Be it mice or men, sheep or ram, slave and master... there is an order of things. We do not dictate it, we cannot control it, but there is always one above. Life is but a pyramid.
Hyzenthlay: And who's at the top?
Ludwig: ....Me.
Hyzenthlay: And who's at the top?
Ludwig: ....Me.
Western Animation
Princess Bubblegum: You see this fat bee? It's gentle and makes the flower happy, and pollinated. They both get what they need and that's how leaders should be.
Goliad: No, Princess. Bee cares not for flower. If getting pollen hurts or kills flower, bee would not care. Bee is stronger than flower. Goliad is stronger than bee. Goliad is stronger than all.
Goliad: No, Princess. Bee cares not for flower. If getting pollen hurts or kills flower, bee would not care. Bee is stronger than flower. Goliad is stronger than bee. Goliad is stronger than all.
— Adventure Time, "Goliad"
"You're weak! Just like the rest of your people. They did not deserve to exist in this world, in my world. Prepare to join them. Prepare to die!"
— Fire Lord Ozai, Avatar: The Last Airbender, "Into the Inferno"
Prince Edgar: Why should only penguins survive?
Sunny: Yeah, what's wrong with being a duck?
King Charlatan: They're weak!
Sunny: Yeah, what's wrong with being a duck?
King Charlatan: They're weak!
"The weak have no place for Aku."
— The High Priestess, Samurai Jack
Real Life
Oh, why are you men so foolish,
You breeders who breed our men,
Keep breeding and breeding again?
As we breed the human family,
The worst is as good as the best.
Go to the house of some farmer,
Look through his barns and sheds,
Look at his horses and cattle,
Even his hogs are thoroughbreds.
Then look at his stamp on his children,
Bred true to Mendel's law.
Go to some homes in the village,
Look at the garden beds,
The cabbage, the lettuce, and turnips,
Even his beets are thoroughbreds.
Then look at the many children,
Bow-legged, flat-headed, and foolish,
Bred true to Mendel's law.
This is the law of Mendel,
And often he makes it plain,
And the insane breed insane.
Oh why do we allow these people,
To increase our country's burdens,
Oh, you wise men take up the burden,
And make this your loudest creed,
And our men and women be blessed,
Not apish, repulsive, and foolish,
For the best will breed the best.
—Joseph DeJarnette, "Mendel's Law: a plea for a better race of men".
"The weak are meat, the strong eat."
—Japanese idiomnote
"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
—Thucydides, the Melian dialog
"We must, if we are to be consistent, and if we're to have a real pedigree herd, mate the best of our men with the best of our women as often as possible, and the inferior men with the inferior women as seldom as possible, and bring up only the offspring of the best."
—Plato, The Republic, Book V, Pt. VI
I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousins, then my cousins and I against strangers.
—Bedouin saying (probably overquoted by non-Bedouins)
"Let it be understood that we cannot go outside this alternative: liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members."
—William Graham Sumner
"The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God."
—John D. Rockefeller, Address to Brown University students (1904)
"This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."
—Adam Smith, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"
“Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?”
"I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race."
—Bertrand Russell, Education and the Social Order
"It was inevitable, and in the highest degree desirable for the good of humanity at large, that the American people would ultimately crowd out the Mexicans... It was out for the question for [the Texans] to submit to the mastery of a weaker race."
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate...it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
—Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon advising President Hoover on how best to treat The Great Depression
"The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel... He who wants to live must fight, and he who does not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle does not deserve to live."
"I do not apologize for the takeover of the region by the Jews from the Palestinians in the same way I don't apologize for the takeover of America by the whites from the Red Indians or the takeover of Australia from the blacks. It is natural for a superior race to dominate an inferior one."
"We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
—George Kennan
"The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive."
—John F. Kennedy, address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4.20.61
"What is good?—Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.
What Is Evil?—Whatever springs from weakness.
What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtù, virtue free of moral acid).
The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak— Christianity…"
What Is Evil?—Whatever springs from weakness.
What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtù, virtue free of moral acid).
The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak— Christianity…"
—The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche—note that Nietzsche wrote this while in the middle of a severe mental breakdown
Not content with mere conquest, the Germans placed the survivors in concentration camps, built their colony with slave labour and then shipped off thousands of heads belonging to the dead to Berlin — for the totally barbaric aim of proving the inferiority of the defeated Africans in dubious medical experiments.
—BBC.com, African viewpoint: Remembering German crimes in Namibia
"When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."
"The central question that emerges—and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal—is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race."
—William F. Buckley on the Civil Rights Movement, National Review (1975)
"I could never find two people who are perfectly equal: one will always be more valuable than the other. And many people, as a matter of fact, simply have no value."
— Pentti Linkola, Can Life Prevail? A Radical Approach To The Environmental Crisis
"...America has always believed that those who have money are good people and those who lack it are bad people. At a deeper level, our conservatives are true Darwinians and think that the weak and the poor ought to die off, leaving the spoils to the fit. Certainly a do-gooder is the worst thing anyone can be, a societal pervert who would alter with government subsidy nature's harsh but necessary way with the weak."
I have known people who... radiate vulnerability... Their facial expressions say "I am afraid of you." These people invite abuse... By expecting to be hurt, do they subtly encourage it?
—Ted Bundy
"It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it... From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!'"
—Whittaer Chambers on Atlas Shrugged, "Big Sister is Watching You"
"Anyone who believes that the theory of evolution implies moral darwinism, and who also believes in the theory of gravity, has a moral duty to go jump off a cliff."
— Ari Rahikkala
"The message is simple. You have a free choice: the labor market, the workhouse prison, death, or go somewhere else...It is returning to its origins today as the prospects for rollback improve, narrowing substantially the choices for the growing population who lack rights by doctrinal decision — termed 'science' or 'natural law.'"
—Noam Chomsky, "On Humanism and Morality"
"It is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe our an excess of population and to bring numbers into line with the available land resources...the people whose children had to walk barefoot to school killed the people who could buy shoes for theirs."
—James Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
"When I was a young man, I found out that if you hurt somebody bad enough, they'll leave you alone. When I tried to leave everybody alone and just do my own thing, everybody just wanted to hurt me. Until one day I just decided, well, I've had enough of this picking. And there were like six young men still figuring they were going to mess with my head. And we went to war. To their surprise, I was no longer taking the beating, I was giving it."
—Richard "Iceman" Kiklinski, convicted contract killer
"Don't forget this — it's the law of the universe that the strong shall survive, and the weak must fall by the way. And I don't give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that."
—Walt Disney, addressing his unionizing staff
"Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: 'I think I'll just kick it.'"
"In the past, humans hesitated when they took lives, even non-human lives. But society had changed, and they no longer felt that way. As humans grew stronger, I think that we became quite arrogant, losing the sorrow of 'we have no other choice.' I think that in the essence of human civilization, we have the desire to become rich without limit, by taking the lives of other creatures."
I need you to know: I hated that I needed more than this from him. There is nothing more humiliating to me than my own desires. Nothing that makes me hate myself more than being burdensome and less than self-sufficient. I did not want to feel like the kind of nagging woman who might exist in a sit-com.
These were small things, and I told myself it was stupid to feel disappointed by them. I had arrived in my thirties believing that to need things from others made you weak.
These were small things, and I told myself it was stupid to feel disappointed by them. I had arrived in my thirties believing that to need things from others made you weak.
— CJ Hauser, "The Crane Wife"
""It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
— Leon C. Megginson, showing that the rest of them fail to understand what Darwin was truly trying to say.
