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Instinct Quotes

Browse 2328 quotes about Instinct.

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Instinct Quotes

“If you are deemed insane, then all actions that would oherwise prove you are not do, in actuality, fall into the framework of an insane person’s actions. Your sound protests constitute denial. Your valid fears are deemed paranoia. Your survival instincts are labeled defense mechanisms. It’s a no-win situation. It’s a death penalty really.”

IfsPersonsActionFallWinningSoundSituationProveSurvivalInstinctDefenseInsaneDenialProtestMechanismPenaltiesFrameworkDeath PenaltyParanoiaSurvival InstinctActualityDefense MechanismsInsane Person
Author:Dennis Lehane
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“You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong." He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin. "My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe.”

ThinkingFirstsHardBodyHandsLastsFacesGirlVoiceForgetBreakMinesProtectSpringGunSkinsPressesInstinctFingersEdgesSmellBreatheContactKnivesMetalsLast TimeElectricityWrapsChinsProtect YouSqueezingDivergent Series
Author:Veronica Roth
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“I wish I could tell you to always follow your heart, but I think it is bad advice. You have a heart, yes, it is true, but also a brain and also a soul. I've come to believe that we love with our brains as much as our hearts. Real Love is not just instinct, but intent...... From year to year, you may not always be the same Jane. This is perfectly normal. A Jane is many Janes in a lifetime.”

ThinkingYearsBelieveHeartMayRealSoulWishLove IsBrainAdviceNormalInstinctLifetimeReal LoveJaneFollow Your HeartPerfectly NormalBad AdviceAlways Follow Your Heart
Author:Gabrielle Zevin
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“Not evil. Moronic, which isn't quite the same thing. Evil presupposes a moral decision, intention, and some forethought. A moron or a lout, however, doesn't stop to think or reason. He acts on instinct, like a stable animal, convinced he's doing good, that he's always right, and sanctimoniously proud to go around f***ing up ... anyone he perceives to be different from himself, be it because of skin color, creed, language, nationality, or ... leisure habits. What the world needs is more thoroughly evil people and fewer borderline pigheads.”

PeopleThinkingWorldNeedsDifferentReasonEvilLanguageDecisionAnimalMoralColorProudHabitSkinsIntentionInstinctConvincedPerceiveFewerLeisureStableCreedsNationalityDoing GoodMoronEvil PeopleSkin ColorBorderlineForethoughtMoral Decisions
Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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“Alec licked his spoon, then set it on the table and popped his drink open. "Okay, I may be breaking some kind of girl bonding rule or something, but can I offer you a guy's perspective on this?" I frowned, my spoon halfway to my mouth. "Is this gonna make me want to hit you?" He shrugged. "Maybe. But it's the truth. Here goes: kissing back is an instinct. Unless the girl smells like a sewer or has tentacles feeling you up independently, a guy's first instinct is to kiss back. That's how it works. What's important is how long that kissing back lasted. So...how long?”

WantFirstsKindMayLongImportantFeelingsGuyGirlPerspectiveDrinkOffersKissingMouthsOkayTablesInstinctSmellHalfwayWhat's ImportantSpoonsBondingKind Of GirlSewersTentacles
Author:Rachel Vincent
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“She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I had to end it. She was surprised, and asked my why I thought so. I told her it wasn't a thought, more a feeling, like I couldn't breathe and knew I had to get some air. It was a survival instinct, I told her. She said it was time for dinner. Then she sat me down and told me not to worry. She said moments like this were like waking up in the middle of the night: You're scared, your'e disoriented, and you're completely convinced you're right. But then you stay awake a little longer and you realize things aren't as fearful as they seem.”

LittlesSaidEndsMomentsFeelingsSeemsNightRealizingWorryAirMiddleSurvivalWake UpDown AndInstinctScaredDinnerBreatheConvincedAwakeSatWakingFearfulSurvival InstinctMiddle Of The NightRealize Things
Author:David Levithan
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“Giving in to a shrill instinct, she ran around the side of the building. Butch was marching toward his car as if he were carrying an unstable load, and she rushed to catch up with them. “Wait. I need to ask him a question.” “You want to know his shoe size or something?” Butch snapped. “Fourteen,” Wrath drawled. “I’ll remember that at Christmas, asshole.”

IfsKnowsWantNeedsGivingRememberAsksWaitingSidesCarBuildingInstinctShoesSizeRanLoadWrathFourteenUnstableGiving In
Book:Dark Lover: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
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“A reader's tastes are peculiar. Choosing books to read is like making your way down a remote and winding path. Your stops on that path are always idiosyncratic. One book leads to another and another the way one thought leads to another and another. My type of reader is the sort who burrows through the stacks in the bookstore or the library (or the Web site — stacks are stacks), yielding to impulse and instinct.”

WayBookPathTypeReaderTasteInstinctLibraryImpulsePeculiarSiteBookstores
Author:Jane Smiley
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“Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. However, society always imposes on us a collective ways of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one. Have you ever met anyone is your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not the other?”

PeopleWayShouldHumansFactsHandsFormDesireHuman BeingsPleasureQualityAcceptingWonderParticularAdventureMetsUniqueInstinctAcceptedClockBehaveCollectivesKeyboards
Author:Paulo Coelho
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“For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.”

MenTryingHas BeensStatesLawForceCenturyCrimeClaimsConstantInstinctChecksPenaltiesPersistDeath PenaltyEquilibriumRefinement
Book:Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays
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“If your skin is crawling, pay attention. If something doesn’t feel right, pay attention. If the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, if your gut clenches up, if a wave of wrongness washes over you, if your heart starts beating faster, pay, pay, pay attention. Do not second-guess yourself or rationalize anything that impedes your safety. Our instincts are the animal inside of our humanness, warning us of danger.”

IfsFeelsHeartAnimalPayAttentionDangerHairSkinsSafetyInstinctWaveFasterPay AttentionNecksGutsOver YouWarningFeels RightCrawlingRationalizeHumanness
Author:Inga Muscio
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“We know – it has been measured in many experiments – that children with strong impulse control grow to be better adjusted, more dependable, achieve higher grades in school and college and have more success in their careers than others. Success depends on the ability to delay gratification, which is precisely what a consumerist culture undermines. At every stage, the emphasis is on the instant gratification of instinct. In the words of the pop group Queen, “I want it all and I want it now.” A whole culture is being infantilised.”

KnowsWantChildrenHas BeensWholeSchoolCultureStrongGrowsAbilityCareersGroupsAchieveStageCollegeDependsHigherInstinctPopsExperimentsImpulseQueensInstantGradesDelayEmphasisGratificationDependableGrades In SchoolInstant GratificationImpulse Control
Author:Jonathan Sacks
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“Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the mind’s mysterious instinct to believe that pain is good, or that it cannot be escaped, or that the person deserves it.”

MindBelievePersonsMomentsBodyPainSpiritualSufferingLeftCausesLetting GoDeserveInstinctMysteriousHealedDischarge
Author:Deepak Chopra
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“For the neurotic, the merging of the subconscious and the conscious may be risky, just as it is for the users of drugs. But for the writer who is aware of the way in which this connection exists in reality and nourishes creativity, the sooner he can achieve a synthesis among intellect, emotion, and instinct, the sooner his work will be integrated.”

WayMayRealityEmotionCreativityAchieveDrugConsciousConnectionsInstinctIntellectUsersSubconsciousNeuroticIntegratedSynthesisMerging
Author:Anais Nin
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“Naturally, for a person who finds his identity in something other than his full organism is less than half a man. He is cut off from complete participation in nature. Instead of being a body, he 'has' a body. Instead of living and loving he 'has' instincts for survival and copulation.”

MenPersonsBodyHalfCuttingIdentitySurvivalInstinctOrganismsParticipation
Book:The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
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“Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted”, for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each other’s sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.”

MindHas BeensBodyRealityCultureCenturyMadInstinctMalesSakeDrivenObligationPrimariesExpediencyRefutation
Author:Adrienne Rich
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“An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.”

MenLoveAgeChristianBlackHoursLinesWhiteBrainArmsMen And WomenRedInstinctJewBuddhistBrownOutrageousBlindedPropriety
Book:Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
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