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Instinct Quotes

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Instinct Quotes

“A species has to become pretty intellectually advanced in order to grasp the concept of death in the abstract, and to dream up the idea of immortality. Long before that (in evolutionary terms) all species with brains have the survival instinct in some form. So, I am just saying that there are many existent proofs of species that have one, but not the other.”

“I think the biggest survival instinct that Midwesterners possess is self deprecation, it's almost a Buddha-like sense of humor in anything that is difficult to get through. They would prefer to laugh at difficulties, show their mettle through that, and toughen up and have a beer afterward. That's definitely the characteristic I've carried through me, and hope to never lose.”

“In Cairo, these young men hanging around in the street, we're told these guys are lazy, they're uneducated, they don't care, they don't have any political instincts - just like the working class in America, apparently - and then suddenly what the hell happened? What was that? They changed the world by changing themselves. Now is that over? No. Is the civil rights movement over? No. These movements have not accomplished what they set out to accomplish.”

“I still had the same frustration with trying to play [Edward Cullen], the entire way through, right up until the last shot. It's a strange part because, on the one hand, a lot of the audience projects their idea of Edward[Cullen] onto him. It doesn't matter what he is. They want him to be a certain way. And then, my instincts were to try and play it and to try to find the fallibility in him and the weaknesses.”

“When someone is in a state of flow, that person's brain is not thinking about anything - it's just processing things through chunks at a total instinct level. Athletes in a state of flow describe knowing what will happen just before it does - knowing how a defender will react to a certain move an instant before doing it. Of course, if you know what will happen, you can succeed at doing it, so an athlete in flow has a stand-out game.”

“I certainly wished I hadn't stressed quite as much or had such insecurity at times. I wish I had trusted my instincts on some occasions when I didn't and I wish I had listened to better advice when I didn't. But overall, I have to look at the glass as half full and acknowledge that I am all of the moments of my life, the good and the not so good.”

“We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there's nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution.”

“Let's take Adam Smith, the patron-saint of capitalism, what did he think? He thought the main human instinct was sympathy. In fact, take a look at the word "invisible hand." Which, of course, you learned about, or you think you've learned about. Take a look at the actual way in which he used the phrase. There is almost no relation to what is claimed.”

“My prototypical quarterback is a competitive guy that's a winner, somebody that has great athletic instincts, somebody who is very accurate throwing the football, a quick-minded guy who can think fast on his feet and can make decisions quickly, someone who has leadership ability, an understanding of timing and can make really good decisions.”

“I'm not an intimate of Donald Trump, but I have great instincts about people, and I have fairly good skill at sizing people up, and it's not phony. You can tell when somebody's talking to you and not really hearing you. I've been around powerful people ask me what I think about things, and I can tell they're not really listening. They just asked, to ask, try to score points that way. Trump listens. But you don't get the impression that he's listening from a position of indecisiveness, indecision or confusion. I've never met anybody with the energy this guy's got, either.”