Quotes About Instinct

How so many absurd rules of conduct, as well as so many absurd religious beliefs, have originated, we do not know; nor how it is that they have become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply impressed on the minds of men; but it is worthy of remark that a belief constantly inculcated during the early years of life, while the brain is impressionable, appears to acquire almost the nature of an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct is that it is followed independently of reason.

I've always believed in instinct over intellect. The instinct is what you always knew; intellect is what you figure out.

Generosity is revolutionary, counter-instinctual. Our survival instinct is to care only for ourselves and our loved ones. But we can transform our relationship to that survival instinct by constantly asking ourselves, ‘How can I use my life’s energy to benefit all living beings?

The instinct of interest is the universal instinct of mankind.

The entire history of humanity is marked by a single inexorable movement - from animal instinct toward rational thought, from inborn behavior toward acquired knowledge. A half-grown panther abandoned in the wilderness will grow up to be a perfectly normal panther. But a half-grown child similarly abandoned will grow up into an unrecognizable savage, unfit for normal society. Yet there are those who insist the opposite: that we are creatures of instinct, like wolves.

I had an instinct before and maybe now I don't have that instinct as much as knowing what to do, what shots to hit, where to place the ball, things like that.

The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

Why is it that fools always have the instinct to hunt out the unpleasant secrets of life, and the hardiness to mention them?

The desire for gold is the most universal and deeply rooted commercial instinct of the human race.

I think if you're artistic in any way, you're probably born with it. I guess it's a talent that can be learned here and there, but I think the instinct to tell a story or to create something happens maybe in the womb.

Sometimes I'll read a script and think, "That's not how humans behave," or "I don't understand how to do that and make it seem like I'm not some kind of strange alien or on a sitcom." I don't get it, and when I feel that way, I have to listen to my instinct.

I guess I just don't have the killer instinct that I think makes a great political cartoonist.

I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.

You must trust your instinct, intuition and judgment.

He felt a spasm of excitement because he knew instinctively who it was, or at least knew who it was he wanted it to be, and once you know what it is you want to be true, instinct is a very useful device for enabling you to know that it is.

I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus, they suck the life right out of a party.

Every woman has the instinct, the propensity to profit from her charms, and there's a lot to be said for giving oneself without love, without pleasure.

Mammals are sentient beings that want to live and are afraid to die. Evolution vouchsafed us all with an instinct to survive, reproduce and flourish.

A good man, through obscurest aspirations Has still an instinct of the one true way.

Who can ever be alone for a moment in Italy? Every stone has a voice, every grain of dust seems instinct with spirit from the Past, every step recalls some line, some legend of long-neglected lore.

I know for sure that I have an instinct for color, and that it will come to me more and more, that painting is in the very marrow of my bones.

Looking back, I realize that nurturing curiosity and the instinct to seek solutions are perhaps the most important contributions education can make.

I don't use any techniques; I'm not trained to be an actor. I just enjoy working in films. It's more instinctive rather than anything else. I don't do the calculated rehearsed kind of approach, and I hope that I can continue that because I believe that instinct is much stronger and greater when you are performing on camera.

To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am.

If you're drawing a Western town, you can duplicate that Western town from instinct alone. Some artists may take it from other illustrations or duplicate what you've drawn, but it will never have that gut reality that's instinctive in the artist.

Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.

It [the scene] can be something given to you and you go, "Ah this is a good idea, I can work with this." Sometimes it cuts right across your instinct and that's when I might resist. Even if the director might be insistent, I think it's very important to say, "Look, I'm not feeling this. I'll try to make it work but I got to let you know."

A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.

We are not held accountable for how the economy ravages Congo. Governments aren't held accountable for foreign policies that they exercise there. There are no institutional structures to render justice. The press is very limited. There's very little transparency. You find a symmetry in certain basic human tendencies, and these tendencies are not always noble or beautiful. I think we have an instinct to turn away from that, to not acknowledge it, while it is something that's a part of us. There's a certain tragic and sad side to human nature that, in our quest for beauty, we ignore.

I love musicals and music driven films, and my first instinct is to tell the story. And when music is a big part of the action I can literally make the story sing!

As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Man is man because he chanced to develop intelligence instead of instinct; otherwise he would to this day have remained among the anthropoid apes. He has turned away from nature, become unnatural, as it were, disliked the earth upon which he found himself, and changed the face of it somewhat to his liking.

When one analyzes the pre-conscious step to concepts, one always finds ideas which consist of 'symbolic images.' The first step to thinking is a painted vision of these inner pictures whose origin cannot be reduced only and firstly to the sensual perception but which are produced by an 'instinct to imagining' and which are re-produced by different individuals independently, i.e. collectively... But the archaic image is also the necessary predisposition and the source of a scientific attitude. To a total recognition belong also those images out of which have grown the rational concepts.

The fans [of Vampire diaries] that we have now are the people who will watch it any day of the week. So, my first instinct was a little bit of an ego tap, but the second I processed it, I was fine. The only weird thing will be maybe not having as many people live tweeting because they're actually out doing something more interesting on Friday night. I'm not going to sit at home, reading Twitter on Friday night.

I grew up with some kind of storytelling instinct, and when I write, my default setting is to find a story and then to tell it. It's the only way I know how to write.

There's a natural instinct embedded in friendship, a sympathy that makes us willing to fight for someone we like when they are treated unjustly.

Nast is an artist of uncommon abilities. His works evince originality of conception, freedom of manner, lofty appreciation of national ideas and action, and a large artistic instinct.

My first instinct is to push you until you break just to see how hard I have to press.

I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I've got plenty of gut instinct.

I don't really look at other people's moves because, when I'm on the field, I'm not going to remember them. It's just something that has a lot to do with instinct and vision and all those running back aspects you have. You put them all into a basket, and you just use them on the field and go out there and make plays.

Nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction.

The death sentence is a barbaric act . . . It is a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings.

I've never been trained as an actress, so it's all instinct. I just let myself go into this kind of a free fall. Sometimes I feel scared, or out of my element - like everyone else knows what they're doing but me. I don't know . . . Maybe I function well with fear or I like to be faced with a challenge . . . I think I'm just a work in progress.

The difference between the reason of man and the instinct of the beast is this, that the beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows.

Without the instinct for adventure, any civilization, however enlightened; any state, however well-ordered, will wilt and wither.

I don't follow trends - it's more of an instinct thing. Honestly, I'm kind of my own worst client. I wake up and go, "I have nothing to wear!" But that's what makes it interesting. I ask, what would make me feel good? I think it's a constant challenge because clothes are so personal. For me, my clothes are related to my mood. If I feel like I'm not wearing the right thing, I don't feel confident. I think it's in everybody's psyche.

He is the wise man who has by perfect living gained the instinct of rightness by which he guides himself, whether in thought or action, who has found that centre of balance which is always over his point of contact with circumstances. He is the man whom Nature pours the riches of all her instincts.

I hope to make pictures like I walk in the desert—under a spell, an instinct of motion, a kind of knowing that is essentially indirect and sideways.Of all the things I wondered about on this land, I wondered the hardest about the seduction of certain geographies that feel like home–not by story or blood but merely by their forms and colors. How our perceptions are our only internal map of the world, how there are places that claim you and places that warn you away. How you can fall in love with the light.