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Instinct Quotes

Browse 2328 quotes about Instinct.

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Instinct Quotes

“I was taught that candles are like house cats - domesticated versions of something wild and dangerous. There's no way to know how much of that killer instinct lurks in the darkness. I used to think the house-burning paranoia was the result of some upper-middle-class fear regarding the potential destruction of a half-million-dollar Westchester house the size of a matchbox. But then I realized the fear stemmed from something far less complex: we're not used to fire. Candles are a staple of the Judaic existence and, like many suburban residents before us, we're pretty bad Jews.”

ThinkingKnowsWayUsedHouseResultsExistenceHalfClassMillionsDarknessKnow HowFireMiddleDangerousTaughtCatDestructionDollarsInstinctComplexesSizeJewI RealizedVersionsBurningMiddle ClassCandleKillersMillion DollarsParanoiaResidentsStaplesUpper Middle ClassKiller InstinctMatchboxes
Book:I Was Told There'd Be Cake
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“I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.”

ThinkingShouldWritingBookAchieveProductsInstinctQuittingSurrenderCowardiceDistractedFinishingPerfectionistBook Of DisquietAstoundedFinishing It
Author:Fernando Pessoa
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“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.”

MindFirstsChildrenPastRememberChangeProgressFailingConditionsStageMissingDependsAbsolutesRemainsInstinctImprovementPersistenceRepeatsPerpetualSavagesDistractedInfancyBarbariansFrivolousRemembering The PastStages Of LifeInfancy Is
Book:The Life of Reason: Introduction and Reason in Common Sense
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“And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.”

WorldUsedChristianityGoneWiseToolsInstinctShipsGoldenGoodsSurvivorCrewHauntingWrecksGuardedRelics
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“What are you doing?" "Ya!" said Jane, whirling around, her hands held up menacingly. It was Mr. Nobley with coat, hat, and cane, watching her with wide eyes. Jane took several quick (but oh so casual) steps away from Martin's window. "Um, did I just say, 'Ya'?" "You just said 'Ya,'" he confirmed. "If I am not mistaken, it was a battle cry, warning that you were about to attack me. I, uh..." She stopped to laugh. "I wasn't aware until this precise and awkward moment that when startled in a startled in a strange place, my instincts would have me pretend to be a ninja.”

IfsSaidMomentsHandsEyeStepsLaughingCryStrangeBattleWindowInstinctWideHatsWarningAwkwardMistakenCoatsPreciseJaneCasualNinjaStrange PlacesBattle CryWide Eyes
Book:Austenland: A Novel
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“Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think...of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.”

ThinkingKindTwoLawMoralGoodnessNotesInstinctImpulsePianoTunesOne TimeGood And BadMoral LawRight Conduct
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“My instinct was always have your gun in your hand. Especially when you are telling somebody to do something. But, in fact, the police academy discourages this. They feel your gun should rarely, if ever, be brought out of its holster. Most certainly not when children are involved, which is exactly when I saw myself using my gun most often. A truant teenager loitering outside a movie theater is going to be far more motivated to return to school when he has the barrel of a .45 pressed against his cheek.”

IfsFeelsShouldChildrenFactsHandsSchoolSawsReturnInvolvedGunTheaterPoliceInstinctTeenagerMotivatedCheeksAcademyDiscouragingBarrelsMovie TheaterPolice Academy
Author:Augusten Burroughs
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“If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.”

IfsWorldOpportunityFreedomCouragePossibilityAssumingInstinctGuaranteesNo HopeGuarantees ThatOpportunity To Change
Book:Latin America: from colonization to globalization
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“The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.”

MenNeedsKindDoeSelfPlaySpiritualFormJoyDifficultTasksDestructionInstinctPrivilegeBurdenExperimentsCrushStrongestCheerfulConquestRecreationLabyrinthAsceticismHardnessDifficult Tasks
Book:The Portable Nietzsche
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“Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.”

ThinkingShouldSelfResultsInstinctPreservationLiving ThingsWill PowerCardinalsSelf PreservationDischargeIndirectBeyond Good And Evil
Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche
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“I laughed. It was just like Owen to make excuses for someone else’s shortcomings. Even fictional characters. Owen found my tendency to speak my mind “refreshingly honest,” and hailed Marc’s temper as “a deep protective instinct.” He said Ethan “thoroughly enjoyed life,” and that Parker “really knew how to have a good time.” According to Owen, we were all doing just fine, and all was right with the world.”

WorldMindSaidCharacterFoundSpeakHonestFineInstinctExcuseTendenciesEnjoyedGood TimesLaughedTemperProtectiveHaving A Good TimeShortcomingsFictional Character
Book:Rogue
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“Recipe For Greatness - To bear up under loss; To fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; To be victor over anger; To smile when tears are close; To resist disease and evil men and base instincts; To hate hate and to love love; To go on when it would seen good to die; To look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be. That is what any man can do, and be great.”

MenLooksHateDiesFightingEvilCan DoLossGriefGreatnessTearsGoes OnBearsDiseaseWeaknessInstinctDefeatLook UpBitternessRecipesEvil Man
Author:Zane Grey
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“It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have a huge variety of needs and dangers.”

NeedsLawPerfectAnimalEnvironmentTroubleDangerHugeHabitIntellectualHarmonyInstinctVarietyAppealsUselessMechanismAdaptationLaws Of NatureCompensationAdaptingTime MachineVersatility
Book:The Time Machine
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“The hand descended. Nearer and nearer it came. It touched the ends of his upstanding hair. He shrank down under it. It followed down after him, pressing more closely against him. Shrinking, almost shivering. He still managed to hold himself together. It was a torment, this hand that touched him and violated his instinct. He could not forget in a day all the evil that had been wrought him at the hands of men.”

MenStillsEndsHandsTogetherEvilForgetHairInstinctTouchedTormentShrinking
Book:White Fang (Arcadia Classics)
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“There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.”

IfsMenWorldGivingEndsMomentsBodySeemsMovingChoicesPassionLosesSinBrainTakenTerribleConscienceMen And WomenInstinctCellsImpulseCharmRebellionFearfulFascinationDisobediencePsychologist
Book:The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)
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“Very much indeed of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion.”

SelfReligiousEmotionMoralSacrificeInstinctSexualityCourageousArtificialSelf SacrificePerversionModificationMoral Education
Book:H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…
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“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

IfsMenWayBelieveReasonFactsHandsTruthActingAcceptingEvidenceInstinctRefuseIntuitionMythOverwhelmingFavouriteScrutinize
Book:Proposed Roads to Freedom
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“Nicole's world had fallen to pieces, but it was only a flimsy and scarcely created world; beneath it her emotions and instincts fought on.”

WorldEmotionPiecesInstinctFallenNicole
Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
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“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.”

InspirationalHopeInspiringCreativityTrustInstinctNever TrustCreative PersonCreativity And InnovationCreative ImaginationCreative IdeasImagination And CreativityIdeas And CreativityInspire CreativityInspiration And CreativityTrust Your InstinctsImagination CreativityTrust IssuesCreative GeniusI Trust YouInstinct IntuitionTrusting YouCreativity And Learning
Book:Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual
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“The best way to make a sort of peace, a fragile armistice to be sure, but precious all the same, with men, officers or not, is to let them bask and wallow in childish self-glorification. There’s no such thing as intelligent vanity. It’s an instinct. And you’ll never find a man who is not first and formenost vain. The role of admiring doormat is about the only one that one man is glad to tolerate in another. With these soldiers I had no need to tax my imagination.”

MenWayNeedsFirstsSelfImaginationRolesTaxesIntelligentInstinctSoldierGladBest WayVanityVainOne ManOfficersFragileTolerateMy ImaginationAdmiringGlorificationDoormatSelf GlorificationArmistice
Author:Louis-Ferdinand Celine
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“Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.”

BelieveStillsRealRomanceFatherGrowsLove IsEmotionMillionsNovelGrowing UpProductsCircumstancesVictimAssumingInstinctResponseRaisedCommittedDivorceContraryConquerErasFragileMentalityRomance NovelPitifulBelieve In LoveLove Conquers AllVictims Of Circumstance
Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel
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“No one expects the rug to be yanked out from underneath them; life-changing events usually don’t announce themselves. While instinct and intuition can help provide some warning signs, they can do little to prepare you for the feeling of rootlessness that follows when fate flips your world upside down. Anger, confusion, sadness, and frustration are shaken up together inside you like a snow globe. It takes years for the emotional dust to settle as you do your best to see through the storm.”

WorldYearsLittlesHelpingFeelingsTogetherCan DoFateSadnessEventsEmotionalInstinctIntuitionStormSnowConfusionDustSettlingLife ChangingFrustrationWarningGlobesFlipUpside DownWarning SignsWorld Upside DownThrough The StormLife Changing Events
Book:Slash: The Autobiography
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“Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.”

JobsMovingLossCryPossibilityEmbraceInstinctDrivenThis LifeGloriousSpiteHopefulShoreTidesFrighteningNew LifeDiagnosisResoluteDebrisTilt
Author:Barbara Kingsolver
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“To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.”

ActionUnderstandingFashionDangerInstinctSakeConformityConformEccentricTaking ActionEccentricity
Book:The Paths of the Dead: Book One of the Viscount of Adrilankha
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