100 Quotes About Instinct

Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. Clarence Darrow

Among peoples who possess a highly developed pugnacious instinct we find the greatest progress in the arts, sciences, social and political organization, commerce and industry. The instinct takes the milder form of rivalry which is the motive force of the great portion of the serious labors of mankind. Holly Estil Cunningham

What do you see when you look at me?” My eyes narrowed and I pressed my lips together, weighing my thoughts. All of his bimbo admirers aside, what did I see? What did my gut tell me about this man? What did it say that allowed me to wind up here with him, under such impulsive circumstances?“ You’re a sad man, ” I swallowed. “You’re arrogant and set in your ways, but that creates a fortress for you. It’s your safe haven. Behind the moat is someone who has lost something he loved, only I’m not sure what, or who. You’re afraid of something and your loyalty is hidden away in a cell, wounded by betrayal.” I rested my head on the pillow. “That’s what I see.”“ On second thought, ” he exhaled, letting his head drop next to mine. “You’re psychic. Rachael Wade

As they prepared themselves to go ashore no one doubted in theory that at least a certain percentage of them would remain on the island dead, once they set foot on it. But no one expected to be one of these. Still it was an awesome thought and as the first contingents came struggling up on deck in full gear to form up, all eyes instinctively sought out immediately this island where they were to be put, and left, and which might possibly turn out to be a friend's grave. James Jones

Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh. Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Original sin and conscious awareness of human fallibility is the perpetual agent of transformation in human affairs. Humankind’s behavior is pathological; it is an admixture of instinct and reason, kindness and cruelty, immorality and seeking redemption. Kilroy J. Oldster

The material world is simply an expression of the mind; that's what so many fail to see. We're so dependent on what is before us that we discount our intuition. Yet if one dismisses instinct, how can one understand or believe in a world that exists beyond one's sight? Megan Chance

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable. Yet I must cling with all my might to … my own soul; must hold on to its mischievous, iconoclastic, out-of-step clown-instincts, no matter how great the storm. And if that plunges me into contradiction and paradox, so be it; I've lived in that messy ocean all my life. I've fished in it for my art. This turbulent sea was the sea outside my bedroom window in Bombay. It is the sea by which I was born, and which I carry within me wherever I go. Salman Rushdie

Fighting and writing’s deepest layers of beauty lie not only in the physical and mental realms of what we know, but also as an incognizable instinct, a realm we will never fully know but will forever feel. Cameron Conaway

The difficult thing is not to pick up the information but to recognise it - to accept it into our consciousness. Most of us find it difficult to know what we are feeling about anything. In any situation it is almost impossible to know what is really happening to us. This is one of the penalties of being human and having a brain so swarming with interesting suggestions and ideas and self-distrust. . Ted Hughes

For to have a deep attachment for a person (or a place or thing) is to have taken them as the terminating object of our instinctual responses." Separation anxiety. International Journal of Psycho-Analysts, XLI, 1-25 (1959( John Bowlby

There is a part of us that knows the timing of any relationship. It knows things that we cannot work out. It knows when to say yes. It knows when to say no. It knows when to wait. It knows when something has finished. It knows when something has started. It knows when we have a responsibility to another person. It knows when the ties are untied. It will not betray us or another. Donna Goddard

Original sin is a self-initiating act because it evidences human free will. If humanity were devoid of free will, it would relegate humankind to living by instinct. A person who lives by instinct might survive for an enviable period, but they will never live a heroic existence. Every hero’s story commences with an unsatisfied and optimistic person venturing out from the comfortable confines of their common day world, facing forces of fabulous power, and fighting a magnificent personal battle. The greatest traditional heroes were warriors whom survived on the battlefield and learned valuable lessons of honor, love, loyalty, and courage. Heroic warriors and spiritual seekers undertook a rigorous quest, an enduring ordeal that enabled them to transcend their own personhood’s shallow desire merely to survive. By enduring hardships, experiencing breathtaking encounters with the physical world, and undergoing a spiritual renaissance, the hero gains a hard-won sense self-discovery, comprehends his or her place in society, and accepts their role as a teacher. A hero is a bearer of light, wisdom, and charity. The hero reenters society and shares their culmination of knowledge by devoting their life to teaching other people. Kilroy J. Oldster

...because you have been purifying your fields for many incarnations so you no longer belong in the heavy density of the third dimension and you find it difficult to tolerate. But you have one last mission here and you are on the verge of knowing…follow your heart and your instincts. Unknown

The subject of free will another debated topicdo we or don't we have the ability to pick?greatly controlled by mind at lower levels of consciousnessalmost non-existent, one's free will is notably lessat this level one’s actions are purely reactionarylacking self-awareness, animal instincts are primarynot going along with the mind, free will increasesthen higher up, it's surrendered until it ceasesthus, there both is and is not the capacity to chooseeven when we do it's limited by one's viewschoosing alternatively, with a mind conditioned and boundfree will, then, is at best constrained and drowned . Jarett Sabirsh

What do you call yourself?" the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had! " I wish I knew! " thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, "Nothing, just now."" Think again, " it said: "that won't do." Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly, "I think that might help a little."" I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on, " the Fawn said. "I can't remember here." So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn! " it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me, you're a human child! " A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. . Lewis Carroll

My sister, the one who knows everything and pulls out facts out of a bottomless hat, told me people aren't afraid of snakes or water upon birth. It is only once we hear the snake and water stories, she says, once we are exposed to fear, that we deny our primal instincts and make room for the dread to take root and mature. Tania Aebi

You can love her with everything you have and she still wont belong to you. She will run wild with you, beside you with everystep but let me tell you something about women who run with wolves, their fierce hearts dont settle between walls and their instinct is stronger than upbringing. Love her wild or leave her there. Nikki Rowe

A tingling in her spine warned her the path that lay ahead was dangerous, but her curiosity placated her, driving her onward against her instincts. Kayla Krantz

To be a seed in a world, is to remain safe almost unharmed living within a shell to protect you from the exterior world, what a risk it was to chose to bud and prosper into a little sprout unaware of what you will become, yet fearlessly ready to trust the process along the way. Nikki Rowe

The longer you resist the calling of your soul the harder it is to find your way back. Intuition isn't instilled in us for nothing, it's the movement inside us that we must listen to if we want the void to vanish. Nikki Rowe

My body's been touched a thousand or more times but I am craving something so much deeper than that ~ I desire to be felt, right down to the core of my soul and the corners of my heart. That's what love is about isn't it ~ cracking yourself open to the possibility that it could change your life. Nikki Rowe

Facts and intuition are false opposites. Leaders should listen to their intuition and instincts and allow others to do the same because they are sub-conscious, fast ways of processing, aggregating and then accessing evidence to reach a swift conclusion. Trust your gut. Phil Dourado

In art as in love, instinct is enough. Anatole France

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. George Bernard Shaw

The best people are always the worst. They drive everyone mad by being so good at second-guessing everything bad. Criss Jami

To be intuitive is to possess a godly characteristic: to be bad at second-guessing the good. Criss Jami

Intelligence is just one dimension of ability. Don't limit yourself to it. Open up to instinct, intuition, creativity and thus possibility Rasheed Ogunlaru

If my 'mind' don't mind, I don't mind. Amit Kalantri

[On Schopenhauer in Black and White] Schopenhauer's views of love are flawed. Love can't be merely an illusion of the mind to aid in procreation, but the path to redemption for an otherwise violently selfish species. Past human greatness has proven that when challenged, love can overpower impulsive instinct, and in essence, the vilest aspects of our nature. Tiffany Madison

Instinct is all of our humanity being deliberately honest with all of life. Craig D. Lounsbrough

Of course there are mothers, squeezing their breastsdry, pawning their bodies, shedding teeth for their children, or that’s our fond belief. But remember - Hanseland Gretel were dumped in the forestbecause their parents were starving. Margaret Atwood

The instinct of self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at the bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them nonexistent, and a warning such as mine against cheap optimism was bound to prove particularly unwelcome at a moment when a sumptuously laid supper was awaiting for us in the next room. Stefan Zweig

In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby much more certainly that it ever can be by reason. Should reason have been communicated to this favored creature over and above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance, and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness and the means of attaining it. Nature would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends but also of the means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct. Immanuel Kant

Time spent in one place deepens this interaction, creating a melding and meshing that can feel a bit like love. In the drowsy light of the coming evening I not only see where I've walked before, but who I was when I walked there. What I was feeling; what I was thinking. And isn't this how we navigate this sphere? Creating fusions of human and place, attaching meaning and emotions, drawing cognitive maps that make scenes of the realm beyond our comprehension? Our connection to the world is always two things at once: instinctive and augmented. . Rob Cowen

Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other until that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I would go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us. . Arthur Conan Doyle

Divine self exist in love, in faith and in purity. Lailah Gifty Akita

Opinions of others may temporary influence your decisions. But you ought to follow your own inner voice. Lailah Gifty Akita

Be true to what you feel in your heart. Lailah Gifty Akita

Any advice which does not lead to self-improvement is misleading. Lailah Gifty Akita

Freedom is the courage to live your dreams. Lailah Gifty Akita

The heart is the only sacred home. Lailah Gifty Akita

If you wish to be happy, listen to your heart. Lailah Gifty Akita

Your voice is yours, how dare you let another speak for you. Your heart is yours, how dare you give it away, so freely to another you hardly know. Your soul is yours, how dare you ignore its instinctual truth. Your mind is yours, don't let the world make it negative. You are the master of your fate, you are the creator of your destiny, don't hand the keys to anyone, rather open the door and welcome them to taste your paradise within. Nikki Rowe

They'll come a time - in fact many times - when all the tools & techniques will fail you or desert you. Then - at last - is the moment to trust, use & follow your heart Rasheed Ogunlaru

At the end of the day, it’s your life. If you turn out good, the world celebrates you and with you (not minding how you achieved it). If bad, they abandon you (even if they gave you the advice that led you to doom). Just be you and follow your heart. Omoakhuana Anthonia

We can make detours with our mind but we can't distract the truth from our heart. Nikki Rowe

The mind is weak, and it must be mastered, controlled. The body, it knows no master save for instinct and, unfortunately, it is built for terminal suffering. Jennifer Arnett

I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out. Criss Jami

Creative minds don't follow rules, they follow will. Amit Kalantri

He who discovers the light, discovers life. He who discovers the dark, discovers death, Neither are wrong and neither are right; your perception is what will guide your path. Our minds are our tools, our hearts our truth and our instinct our guidance, don't let them fool you. Nikki Rowe

My mouth hung slightly open, i was getting ready to sat something important. what i wanted to say was: I's so, so sorry. but instead I said, "i love you." Only then, when i said it out loud, did i know that it was true. Carly threaded her fingers through mine and i squeezed her hand. She said it back to me, and i was relieved in a way that i wasn't expecting. i didn't know that i needed her to say it until she did. i was so grateful; i leaned down and kissed her fearlessly, which was unlike me. When she kissed me back, i brought my hand up and cupped the nape of her neck, pulling her hair with clumsy fingers. i tried to back off, to apologize for hurting her, but she kept me close, kissing me softly at first, then hard and fast until the lines between us blurred. Anna Jarzab

He was ruled by the tyranny of instinct, by passion and the instant legislation of a simple heart. Pat Conroy

We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived. Will Durant

Don't starve an instinct with a lie on, Never hit or deceive a wounded lion. He heals faster than you can imagine And hurts even more when in famine. Ana Claudia Antunes

In order to survive in a world of instinct, its' alternative is to hunt or being hunted. Reject this, then be prepared to be hunted. Toba Beta

Life was complicated, I thought. Not just the living but dealing with the realities and the instinct for order that other people have, that I didn't always grasp. Peter Akinti

You ought to follow your inner voice. Lailah Gifty Akita

I do not like the situation but must endure to fulfil the dream. Lailah Gifty Akita

This boy - his name was Eric - said he thought it disgusting the way all the girls at my college stood around on the porches under the porch lights and in the bushes in plain view, necking madly before the one o'clock curfew, so everybody passing by could see them. A million years of evolution, Eric said bitterly, and what are we? Animals. Sylvia Plath

Don't stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby. Go to your baby a million times. Demonstrate that people can be trusted, that the environment can be trusted, that we live in a benign universe. Peggy OMara

Human history is the ancient story of the umbilical conflict between a lone individual versus a cabalistic society. A love-hate relationship defines our personal history with society, where the suppression of individuality for the sake of the collective good battles the notion that the purpose of society is to enable each person to flourish. A conspicuous feature of cultural development involves societies teaching children the sublimation of unacceptable impulses or idealizations, consciously to transform their inappropriate instinctual impulses into socially acceptable actions or behavior. The paradox rest in the concept that in order for any person to flourish they must preserve the spiritual texture of themselves, a process that requires the individual to resist societal restraint, push off against the community, and reject the walls of traditionalism that seek to pen us in. The climatic defining event in a person’s life represents the liberation of the self from crippling conformism, staunchly rebuffing capitulating to the whimsy of the super ego of society. Kilroy J. Oldster

He took the woman from her bed, pretending not to notice the question posed in his mind: Why do you always experiment on women? He didn't care to admit that the inference had any validity. She just happened to be the first one he's come across, that was all. What about the man in the living room, though? For God's sake! he flared back. I'm not going to rape the woman! Crossing your fingers, Neville? Knocking on wood? He ignored that, beginning to suspect his mind of harboring an alien. Once he might have termed it conscience. Now it was only an annoyance. Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic. Makes a good excuse, doesn't it, Neville? Oh, shut up. Richard Matheson

Nature can be cruel. Predators are everywhere. Those who don't need to be protected from outside forces often need to be protected from themselves. In society, women are referred to as "the fairer sex". But in the wild, the female species can be far more ferocious than their male counterparts. Defending the nest is both our oldest and strongest instinct. And sometimes, it can also be the most gratifying. . Emily Thorne

Trust what your instincts are telling you, it's your souls voice pointing you in the right direction. Nikki Rowe

People exercise the freedom to present themselves from a vast array of precepts. The modern human mind can engage in reflective thought and selectively determine how to organize the elements of perception. We can consciously elect to depart from stereotypical behavior and transcend the heretofore-established biological behavioral preferences. People can elect to hold prejudices or not, can make rational or irrational decisions to engage in war or not, and can take deliberate steps to arrest destruction of the ecosystem or not. Holding ourselves in check by placing a brake upon the human propensity to strike out in instinctual behavior is a distinct human quality. Restraint from instant gratification of strong impulses represents a unique human behavior trait. By intentionally refraining from committing an instinctual action, humankind asserts its sovereignty from its biological constitution. Unbound from the limitations of its biological nature, a person can employ the mind to devise alternative behavioral choices and the results of numerous behavioral choices culminate to provide a person with a sophisticated definition of the self. Kilroy J. Oldster

I try to forget you more often than not but somehow my mind wanders to places my heart feels are oh so very true. Nikki Rowe

The instinct, quiet inner voice is the voice of the Holy Spirit. Lailah Gifty Akita

Now that this destiny was about to happen, every instinct within him fought against it, realizing he had been fetishizing suicide. Thomm Quackenbush

Rarely did events play out as imagined, in any case. The order of future events was transient. In the same way that the past was reconfigured by selective memory, future events, too, were moving targets. One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action. James Luceno

To horses, everyday is a new day to survive. It's a natural instinct. They don't think of the past or the future, only the present. So in terms of trying to teach your horse or build a special bond, patience is the key to every stall's door. Unknown

The inner voice is divine voice of God. Lailah Gifty Akita