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Instinct Quotes

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Instinct Quotes

“The average beast of prey is a decent creature who merely kills for the sake of food or in a fight against an enemy. It is only man who calls killing "sport" and kills for the pleasure of killing; not for food, not for self-defense, but just to satisfy some primitive instinct, once necessary and now perverted.”

MenSelfFightingSportsJusticePleasureEnemyCreaturesCookingInstinctKillingSakeAverageDefenseBeastDecentHuntingPrimitivePreySelf Defense
Author:Gilbert Murray
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“The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.”

SaidTwoUnderstandingInstinctIntuitionMathOperationsRelyAcquisitionDeductionsHunches
Book:RULES FOR THE DIRECTION OF THE MIND DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD MEDITATIONS ON FIRST PHILOSOPHY OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE MEDITATIONS AND REPLIES THE GEOMETRY
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“There are two types of compassion. One - is faint-hearted and sentimental. Actually, it is nothing more than impatience of the heart, that is hurrying to get rid of that hard feeling when you see other peoples' sufferings; this is not a compassion, but just an instinct will to defence yourself from misfortunes of others. But there is another compassion - real one, that demands for actions, not sentiments, it knows what it wants, and it is full of determination to do everything, what is in human power and even beyond it.”

KnowsWantLoveHumansHeartTwoRealHardFeelingsDreamActionSufferingCompassionTypeDemandDeterminationInstinctSentimentsMisfortunesSentimentalHeartedDefenceImpatienceHurryingReal OnesHuman PowerMisfortunes Of OthersFaint Hearted
Author:Stefan Zweig
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“You can only go so far in analyzing each and every one person's opinion because they are often quite different. You just have to trust your instincts and hope that if someone doesn't like your idea, you can prove them wrong in the final process. In the end, you can please some of the people some of the time, but that's about all you can do.”

PeopleIfsPersonsIdeasDifferentEndsProcessCan DoOpinionLike YouPleaseProveInstinctFinalsAnalyzingTrust Your InstinctsProve Them Wrong
Author:Bryan Singer
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“I think we are drawn to dogs because they are the uninhibited creatures we might be if we weren't certain we knew better. They fight for honor at the first challenge, make love with no moral restraint, and they do not for all their marvelous instincts appear to know about death. Being such wonderfully uncomplicated beings, they need us to do their worrying.”

IfsThinkingKnowsNeedsFirstsMightCertainFightingChallengesMoralWorryDogHonorCreaturesInstinctMaking LoveMarvelousRestraintCanineOld DogDog LoveMan And DogFunny DogInspirational DogTwo DogsFunny PuppyUncomplicated
Author:George Bird Evans
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“Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide, But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries-Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where the genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs.”

MenTryingWholeLyingTurnsFiveTalentDogCryDesignBearsGeniusCreaturesHorseInstinctWideDebateFollyGatesCombatBrutesInclineObstinacyToo Deep
Author:Jonathan Swift
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“So long as a man remains a gregarious and sociable being, he cannot cut himself off from the gratification of the instinct of imparting what he is learning, of propagating through others the ideas and impressions seething in his own brain, without stunting and atrophying his moral nature and drying up the surest sources of his future intellectual replenishment.”

MenLongIdeasBrainMoralLearningCuttingSourceIntellectualMathematicsRemainsInstinctMathImpressionMathematicalGratificationGregariousSociableSeethingStunting
Book:Address Delivered by J.J. Sylvester, F.R.S. (corresponding Member of the Institute of France), Professor of Mathematics, at Johns Hopkins University on Commemoration Day, February 22, 1877
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“One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a mans eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious,of many things we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.”

MenWorldDoeReasonEyeAnimalDogConsciousHorseInstinctTerrorPerceivePrimitiveDeliberateNatural WorldOrderlyHowlShiver
Book:The Cutting of an Agate
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“The varieties of religious belief are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage us to lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are for making a successful appeal to the divine instinct in all of us.”

InspirationalMotivationalOpportunityBeliefReligiousSuccessfulDivineAdvantageInstinctVarietyAppealsDivinitySectsReligious BeliefReligious Life
Book:Prabuddha Bharata: Or Awakened India
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“The other, the other aspect when I say I'm an actor is that as an actor you make this imaginative leap into being somebody else, that's to say the muscle of the imagination is as important as any other of the muscles in your body, and so it is something about this instinct in space and time which for me I associate with being an actor rather than a director.”

ImportantBodyActorsImaginationSpaceDirectorsAspectInstinctTheatreYour BodyMusclesLeapAssociatesTime And SpaceImaginative
Author:Simon McBurney
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“Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life's supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”

IfsMenWorldFeelsMayStillsMatterFactsHandsRealitySufferingCommonForeverRiskMysteryMankindWillingCapacityNo Matter WhatInstinctTheatreSupremeChosenHeroismTolerateFrailty
Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience
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“So many people around the world have used nonviolence as a way to resolve a conflict that they faced in their lives. And they continue to use it everywhere all over the world there. And I think, in a way, nonviolence is our nature. Violence is not really our nature. If violence was our nature, we wouldn't need military academies and martial arts institutes to teach us how to kill and destroy people. We ought to have been born with those instincts. But the fact that we have to learn the art of killing means that it's a learned experience. And we can always unlearn it.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWorldWayNeedsMeanHas BeensArtFactsUseUsedBornTeachViolenceMilitaryOughtConflictInstinctKillingAround The WorldMartial ArtsResolveNonviolenceAcademyInstituteUnlearnInstitutes
Author:Arun Manilal Gandhi
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“One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, - to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary, to collect sagas and heap cairns. This instinct as to the enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization.”

MenMightPastValuesHistoryRecordsCivilizationBasesInstinctEndureDrawingImpulseScratchesDiariesSagaScrapbooking
Book:The Collected Works of John Jay Chapman: Criticism & memoirs
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“I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.”

PeopleIfsMenTryingHas BeensFactsSeemsExistenceHe ManComfortableFemaleInstinctMalesPursuitEaseCurseCharacteristicsJealousApologizingEnviousBendingBending Over
Book:Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's
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“Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterpreted experience, in which body, mind, and nature are the same. This retreat from wonder, the backing away like lobsters into safe crannies, the desperate instinct that our life passes unlived, is reflected in proliferation without joy, corrosive money rot, the gross befouling of the earth and air and water from which we came.”

MindBodyEarthJoyWaterWonderOur LivesAirPureSafeSurvivalInstinctGrantedDesperateRetreatGrossFear Of DeathProliferationLobsterAir And WaterBacking Away
Book:The Snow Leopard
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“When you’re confronted by a really difficult thing in your life, you’re faced with a choice: you can runaway from it, or you can face it, confront it, and work through it. But to work through it, sometimes feels like holding your own head below water when you’re already drowning. Your natural instinct when drowning is to get back up to the surface and give yourself some relief from that terrible situation…you just want to breathe again.”

WantGivingFeelsSometimesFacesChoicesDifficultWaterNaturalSituationTerribleInstinctSurfaceBreatheReliefGet BackDrowningDifficult ThingsRunawayNatural Instinct
Author:Buck 65
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“When corruption is king, there is no accountability of leadership and no trust in authority. Society devolves to the basic units of family and self, to the basic instincts of getting what you can when you can, because you don't believe anything better will ever come along. And when the only horizon is tomorrow, how can you care about the kind of nation you are building for your children and your grandchildren? How can you call on your government to address what ails society and build stronger institutions?”

BelieveKindChildrenSelfGovernmentCareNationsBuildingKingsTomorrowAuthorityStrongerOur ChildrenInstitutionsInstinctDon't BelieveCorruptionYour ChildrenAddressesAccountabilityHorizonUnitsGrandchildrenNo Trust
Author:Nuhu Ribadu
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