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The term “survival of the fittest” was coined by Herbert Spencer and used by Darwin

• 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
• It was Herbert Spencer, not Charles Darwin, who coined the phrase Survival of the Fittest. John Kenneth Galbraith
• Darwin borrowed the term “survival of the fittest” from English sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer, who first used it in his 1864 book Principles of Biology. (Spencer came up with the phrase only after reading Darwin’s work.) Conor Cunningham
• It cannot but happen that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces? This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest. Herbert Spencer

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The concept of survival of the fittest is used to explain evolution and the fossil record

• Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution. Mark Twain
• This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element. Charles Darwin
• The embryological record is almost always abbreviated in accordance with the tendency of nature (to be explained on the principle of survival of the fittest) to attain her needs by the easiest means.Francis Maitland Balfour

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The concept of the survival of the fittest is seen as synonymous with “the law of the jungle”

• Weak prey didn’t live long. It was the law of the jungle. Jina S. Bazzar
• What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. Rudyard Kipling

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Some argue that the concept of survival of the fittest is a case of circular reasoning and therefore meaningless

• Tautology: The saying of the same thing twice over in different words. Oxford Dictionary
• Some philosophers and scientists have suggested that the notion of survival of the fittest is an example of circular reasoning—that is, a tautology (a statement framed in such a way that it cannot be falsified without inconsistency). In tautologies, any true statements that follow are a matter of definition. Indeed, describing those that survive as the fittest is similar to stating that those that survive survive. Conor Cunningham
• The fittest survive. What is meant by the fittest? Not the strongest; not the cleverest – weakness and stupidity everywhere survive. There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive. ‘Fitness,’ then, is only another name for ‘survival.’ Darwinism: That survivors survive. Charles Fort

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Our modern worldview has been shaped by a bleak story that describes us as isolated beings competing for survival

• The universe can be seen as a chaotic mess of interacting particles and physical forces that lead by trial and error to orderliness as in the evolution of plants, animals and humans. Legality, customs, traditions, and guides to proper manners emerge, but there is also competition with the survival of the fittest, the most knowledgeable, the most aware and alert. Machiavellian-like interpretations might go as far as suggesting you can do what you wish with no preset rules, no design, no law, no accountability. Steal, kill, pitilessly survive, grab, and hoard whatever you can in a ruthless jungle, among hungry sharks, as long as you do not get caught by others, by some legal system, or by a mob in a society that is bigger and stronger than you. Tony Nader
• There was no such thing as a fair fight. All vulnerabilities must be exploited. Cary Caffrey
• The universe runs on the principle that one who can exert the most evil on other creatures runs the show. Bangambiki Habyarimana
• Our worldview has been shaped by a story that describes us as isolated beings competing for survival on a lonely planet in an indifferent universe. Life as defined by modern science is essentially predatory, self-serving, and solitary. This is the dominant worldview of our culture. Joseph P. Kauffman

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This is the result of the concept of survival of the fittest being twisted by a century of economic, political, and scientific interests to promote the exact opposite of Darwin’s original intention…

• What Darwin actually believed has been twisted by a century of economic, political, and scientific interests to promote the exact opposite of his original intention. Despite Darwin’s liberal use of the term “survival of the fittest,” almost immediately the narrower meaning of the metaphor stuck, offering a scientific framework for all the various growing social and economic movements of the day. Most subsequent interpretations of Darwin’s work, even in his lifetime, promoted a vision of all aspects of life as a battle over scarce resources, in which only the toughest and most single-minded survived.  Joseph P. Kauffman
• Carnegie believed in the survival of the fittest. He believed in Social Darwinism. He believed that you had to give an opportunity to the fittest, who were going to survive, to the fittest to rise themselves as high as they could. David Nasaw
• If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I’ll kill ’em, and I’m going to kill ’em before they kill me. You’re talking about the American way – of survival of the fittest. Ray Kroc
• Whoever claims that economic competition represents survival of the fittest in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence of his lack of knowledge of economics. George Reisman

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…through movements like social Darwinism

• Social Darwinism is the idea that those who are the best and smartest earn the most money. Brett Stevens
• Social Darwinism, or the idea that those who are the best and smartest earn the most money, has two holes: first, not all intelligent people opt to chase the money wagon and second, most morons are greedy, and many of them succeed through luck or persistence. Brett Stevens

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been widely used to defend selfishness and greed…

• After reading Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species,” British philosopher Herbert Spencer coined the famous term “survival of the fittest,” and with some convincing, Darwin adopted the term. This became very popular in the world of business, as it provided a philosophy to justify overly competitive and greedy behavior. According to the “survival of the fittest” narrative, an individual or population thrives only at another’s expense. It was this belief that provided the notion of a dog-eat-dog world, a zero sum game where selfishness and greed became the motives for success.  Joseph P. Kauffman

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…and a general lack of empathy

• A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be…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 Sumner

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been used to argue against the upliftment of the weak

• In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. Nikola Tesla
• The biologists are a ruthless bunch, and quite devoid of any particular regard for doctors. In theory they don’t even want a surgeon to patch up a man who has been hit on the head with a brick, the argument being that it is better for the human race to be able to dodge bricks. Which is a correct viewpoint, I suppose, unless it happens to be your head and your brick. Dr. Blake F. Donaldson

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been used to defend violent and ruthless behaviour…

• We’ve taken these metaphors for evolution to heart, reading them to mean that life is a race to kill or be killed. “Darwinian” stands in for “cutthroat,” “survival of the fittest” signifies survival of the ruthless. Kelly Clancy
• Violence has been the sire of all the world’s values. What but the wolf’s tooth whittled so fine the fleet limbs of the antelope? What but fear winged the birds, and hunger jeweled with such eyes the great goshawk’s head? Robinson Jeffers
• That’s what civilization sometimes did to threats, real or perceived. They walled them off. Us against them. Survival of the fittest. You die so I can live. David Baldacci

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…including the waging of war

• The law of the survival of the fittest led inevitably to the survival and predominance of the men who were effective in war and who loved it because they were effective. Elihu Root
• Thus by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in all matters whatever. Herbert Spencer

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The concept of the survival of the fittest has been used to explain our hunting instinct and blood thirstiness

• If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun. William James

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been used to excuse the feeding of the powerful on the powerless

• Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Pope Francis

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been used to defend questionable practices in economics, leading to massive inequalities in wealth

• People like the robber barons assumed that the doctrine of the survival of the fittest authenticated them as deserving power. You know, I’m the richest. Therefore, I’m the best. God’s in his heaven, etc. And that reaction of the robber barons was so irritating to people that it made it unfashionable to think of an economy as an ecosystem. But the truth is that it is a lot like an ecosystem. And you get many of the same results. Charlie Munger
• The ‘survival of the fittest’ is beneficently inevitable; the capitalist is powerless against labor, unless the State . . . steps in, and helps him catch and fleece his victims. The old plea of despotism, that liberty is unsafe, reappears now in the mistaken notion that competition is hostile to labor. Ezra Heywood
• The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth. Rutherford B. Hayes
• While the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Andrew Carnegie
• Capitalism is like the law of the jungle with a few rules. There isn’t another system that works for our society but left unchecked, capitalism can have a dehumanising effect. Mohsin Hamid

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The concept of survival of the fittest has been used to defend class rule and racial discrimination

• Darwinism met with such overwhelming success because it provided, on the basis of inheritance, the ideological weapons for race and well as class rule and could be used for, as well as against, race discrimination. Hannah Arendt

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In the past, the concept of survival of the fittest has been used to support the idea of eugenics

• Eugenics: The selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans. Philip K. Wilson
• The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit. Nikola Tesla
• The logic of survival of the fittest and natural selection was thought to be transferable to humanity. Within the context of the ascendancy of Victorian England (1820–1914), a perspective arose that the more intelligent would rule the less intelligent, or those who were less fit. To realize this perspective, Darwin’s cousin, British scientist Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics (derived from the Greek for “well-born”), established the Eugenics Education Society of London in 1907. Galton, along with many others among the educated classes, hoped to actively discourage the overbreeding of the less fit and so preserve what was best in Victorian society. Conor Cunningham

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Many have misread what Darwin meant by survival of the fittest

• Well, biology today as I see it has an amiable look – quite different from the 19th-century view that the whole arrangement of nature is hostile, ‘red in tooth and claw.’ That came about because people misread Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest.’ Lewis Thomas
• What Darwin actually believed has been twisted by a century of economic, political, and scientific interests to promote the exact opposite of his original intention. Joseph P. Kauffman

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Survival of the fittest has been misinterpreted to mean that it is only the strongest, most aggressive and most ruthless that survive

• The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever. Anne Frank
• The fittest of the fittest shall survive ! Bob Marley
• This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest. Herbert Spencer
• Only the fittest will survive. Charles Darwin
• He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive. Jack London
• There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark. Eliot Peper
• According to the law of nature, wherever there is an awakening of a new and stronger life, there it tries to conquer and take the place of the old and the decaying. Nature favours the dying out of the unfit and the survival of the fittest. The final result of such conflict between the priestly and the other classes has been mentioned already. Swami Vivekananda

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The truth is that survival of the fittest does not mean this

• The law is the survival of the fittest…. The law is not the survival of the ‘better’ or the ‘stronger,’ if we give to those words any thing like their ordinary meanings. It is the survival of those which are constitutionally fittest to thrive under the conditions in which they are placed; and very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival. Herbert Spencer
• There’s a misconception that survival of the fittest means survival of the most aggressive. The adjective ‘Darwinian’ used to refer to ruthless competition; you used to read that in business journals. But that’s not what Darwinian means to a biologist; it’s whatever leads to reproductive success. Steven Pinker
• In the animal kingdom, alpha males are not necessarily the fittest because they have no peers, thus they can become lonely and develop psychological problems—and the same goes for humans. Brian Hare and Vanessa Goods

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Survival of the fittest is actually survival of those most able to adapt to change

• I’ve come to learn from my own experiences and those around me that it’s not about survival of the fittest but about who can adapt the best to change. Natalya Neidhart
• It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change. Leon C. Megginson
• The key word is flexibility, the ability to adapt constantly. Darwin said it clearly. People thought that he mainly talked about survival of the fittest. What he said was that the species that survive are usually not the smartest or the strongest, but the ones most responsive to change. So being attentive to customers and potential partners is my best advice–after, of course, perseverance and patience. Philippe Kahn
• The survival of the fittest is the ageless law of nature, but the fittest are rarely the strong. The fittest are those endowed with the qualifications for adaptation, the ability to accept the inevitable and conform to the unavoidable, to harmonize with existing or changing conditions.  Dave Smalley
• Survival of the fittest, term made famous in the fifth edition (published in 1869) of On the Origin of Species by British naturalist Charles Darwin, which suggested that organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving and reproducing. Conor Cunningham
• In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. Charles Darwin

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The fittest are often not the strongest but the most lucky

• Survivors aren’t always the strongest; sometimes they’re the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest. Carrie Ryan
• Nature allowed only the fit and the lucky to share this paradise-in-the-making. M.L. Stedman

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Some believe that altruism is opposed to the concept of survival of the fittest

• Loyalty cannot be too liberally insisted upon. Altruism in nature remains an exception. It poses a puzzle, being in prima facie conflict with the survival of the fittest and most selfish. Peter Birks

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However, the truth is that in a social species like ours, the fittest are often those most ready and able to come to each other’s mutual aid…

• In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. Peter Kropotkin
• In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle – has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race. Peter Kropotkin

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…those most ready and able to co-operate with each other…

• My grandmother lived in a universe filled with life. It was impossible for her to conceive of any creature – even the smallest insect, let alone a human being – as insignificant. In every leaf, flower, animal, and star she saw an expression of a compassionate universe, whose laws were not competition and survival of the fittest but cooperation, artistry and thrift. . . . Eknath Easwaran
• Nature’s stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest. Theodosius Dobzhansky
• Evolutionary progress can be propelled both by the competitive struggle to adapt to an environment, and by the relaxation of selective forces. When natural selection on an organism is relaxed, the creative powers of mutation can be unshackled and evolution accelerated. The relief of an easier life can inspire new biological forms just as powerfully as the threat of death. One of the best ways to relax selective forces is to work together, something that mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has called the “snuggle for survival.” New research has only deepened and broadened the importance of cooperation and lifting of selective pressures. It’s a big, snuggly world out there.  Kelly Clancy
• Often it is cooperation that advances a species. Brian Hare and Vanessa Goods

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…those that are, in fact, most ethical and social

• The law of evolution is that the strongest survives!’ ‘Yes, and the strongest, in the existence of any social species, are those who are most social. In human terms, most ethical…There is no strength to be gained from hurting one another. Only weakness. Ursula K. Le Guin

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In a social species like ours, survival of the fittest can actually mean survival of the friendliest

• Chances are, you’ve heard about survival of the fittest. But what about survival of the friendliest? While we often think that the strongest, meanest, and most powerful organisms often prevail as the most fit, it seems that friendship bears the real evolutionary winners. Cydney Livingston
• In the history of evolution, friendliness often proceeds unusual evolutionary success, meaning that friendly species prevail over time. Friendliness is anything that is mutually beneficial between organisms. Cydney Livingston
• If we are the friendliest, then why are we capable of such cruelty and malice? Even though we are extremely friendly to in-group strangers, when our in-group is threatened, we are prepared to defend them against out-group strangers. Cydney Livingston
• We are all capable of dehumanization when we feel that the group that we love … is threatened. Brian Hare

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Civilization and a healthy, functioning society should not be based on the misinterpreted notion of “survival of the fittest”

• Civilization is much more than the survival of the fittest and the unrelenting culling of the weakest members. Civilized people share a value system that extends far beyond doing whatever it takes to survive. Mere barbarians might be devoted to a life of exploitation. In contrast, civilized people value nature and care for the most vulnerable members of their kind. Kilroy J. Oldster
• I know it’s not good to be weak and helpless. But I don’t think it’s good to be too strong either. In our society, they talk about survival of the fittest. But we’re not animals. We’re human. Natsuki Takaya
• We do not accept that human society should be constructed on the basis of a savage principle of the survival of the fittest. Thabo Mbeki

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We have evolved to grow out of the “survival of the fittest” instinct

• The survival of the fittest instinct should end with our generation. We have evolved to grow out of it. There are enough resources out there for us not to kill someone over them. Rajesh
• We believe in encouraging the talented, but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a good working description of the process of evolution, a government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order. Mario Cuomo

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Instead of survival of the fittest, we should embrace our moral nature

• If theft is advantageous to everyone who succeeds at it, and adultery is a good strategy, at least for males, for increasing presence in the gene pool, why do we feel they are wrong? Shouldn’t the only morality that evolution produces be the kind Bill Clinton had – being sorry you got caught? Robert J. Sawyer

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Instead of survival of the fittest, we should move towards greater cooperation

• Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization Peter Kropotkin

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Instead of survival of the fittest, we should move towards survival of the wisest

• Survival of the fittest is over. Get over it. We need survival of the wisest. Deepak Chopra
• Survival of the fittest can take us only so far; competition and aggression have brought us to the brink of self-destruction. What is needed now is survival of the wisest. You can participate in this shift by expanding your own awareness. Deepak Chopra

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• All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad or peculiar. Grace Paley
• He who puts a product upon the market as it demands, controls that market, regardless of color. It is simply a survival of the fittest. George Washington Carver
• Survival of the fittest led to nature red in tooth and claw and this is not sufficiently wishy-washy for modern scientists. Anthony Standen
• We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured. Louis Cozolino
• There’s no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn’t matter whether a solution’s optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative. Peter Watts

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• Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest – then we can all die laughing. Lily Tomlin
• If evolution was worth its salt, it should’ve evolved something better than ‘survival of the fittest.’ I think a better idea would be ‘survival of the wittiest.’ At least, that way, creatures that didn’t survive could’ve died laughing. Lily Tomlin
• The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The survival of the fittest is going to make some man very lonesome some day. Evan Esar
• We are all in the middle of nature beauty contest. Toba Beta