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Instinct Quotes

Browse 2328 quotes about Instinct.

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Instinct Quotes

“Have not Manet and Monet, Cézanne and Matisse, rendered to painting something of the same service which Keats and Shelley gave to poetry after the solemn and ceremonious literary perfections of the eighteenth century? They have brought back to the pictorial art a new draught of joie de vivre; and the beauty of their work is instinct with gaiety, and floats in sparkling air. I do not expect these masters would particularly appreciate my defence, but I must avow an increasing attraction to their work.”

ArtAirCenturyPaintingMastersAppreciatePerfectionInstinctAttractionLeisureFloatsDefenceSolemnSparklingDraughtPictorialGaietyShelleyMonetMatisseJoie De Vivre
Author:Winston Churchill
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“You see the lighted windows and what you want to think is that there may be many interesting stories behind them, but what you know is that really there are just dull, dull souls, mere consumers of food, who think their instincts are emotions and their tiny lives of more account than a whisper of wind.”

ThinkingKnowsWantMaySoulStoriesInterestingEmotionBehindsWindWindowAccountsMereInstinctWhat You WantTinyConsumersDullInteresting Stories
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl.”

GirlFoundWhiteSawsCuttingHairBirdRedGardenGoldInstinctUnconsciousBreakfastGravityRed HairLilacEarly BirdHair Cut
Book:The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“Everyone is free to set up an opinion and to adduce proofs in support of it. Whether, though, a scientist shall find it worth his while to enter into serious investigations of opinions so advanced is a question which his reason and instinct alone can decide. If these things, in the end, should turn out to be true, I shall not be ashamed of being the last to believe them.”

IfsShouldBelieveEndsReasonLastsScienceTurnsOpinionSupportSeriousScientistInstinctProofBeing TrueAshamedInvestigation
Book:The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Exposition of Its Principles
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“The State has always one purpose: to limit, control, subordinate the individual and subject him to the general purpose Through its censorship, its supervision, and its police the State tries to obstruct all free activity and sees this repression as its duty, because the instinct of self-preservation demands it. The State does not permit me to use my thoughts to their full value and communicate them to other men unless they are its own Otherwise it shuts me up.”

MenTryingDoeSelfStatesUsePurposeValuesIndividualSubjectsDutyActivityDemandLimitsPoliceInstinctCommunicatePermitCensorshipPreservationMy ThoughtsRepressionSubordinatesSelf PreservationSupervision
Author:Max Stirner
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“The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. [...] The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny.”

ShouldParentDifficultRaceOpinionProduceCivilizationMethodInstinctNotionGuidanceTrendsDesirableDeliberateBreedingCompatibleMatingProgenySterilization
Author:Nikola Tesla
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“Myth is the practical metabolism of our soulish life, the logic of our obsessions and oversights for which we have no language or code. Myth is the "morality" that the ineffable puts upon us, our unaccountable imperatives, our inexplicably selective clarity and obscurity, the mortal one-sidedness of our talents and wits, the passion and apathy that make such a transient passage through our hapless minds; that weave a pattern of fatality others will see before we do. Myth is distinctively human or sublime higher-order instinct, the "reason" in culture that reason knows not of.”

KnowsMindHumansReasonPhilosophyOrderCulturePassionLanguageTalentHigherMoralityLogicInstinctPatternsMythWitPracticalsObsessionClarityMortalsCodePassagesApathySublimeImperativesObscurityTransientSelectiveIneffableOversightMetabolismFatality
Author:Kenny Smith
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“Plants don't think. Animals are guided by the power of instinct over which they themselves have no control. Animals have a certain kind of brain that makes it impossible to learn anything except very simple things. No generation of animals ever learns anything from any previous generation. We act like animals when we fail to use this magnificent piece of equipment.”

ThinkingKindUseCertainSimpleAnimalBrainPiecesImpossibleFailingGenerationsPlantInstinctMagnificentEquipmentSimple ThingsPrevious Generations
Author:Sterling W Sill
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“Food and sex have been bound together for a long time. I guess this is due to the intimate connection between the two most powerful instincts that predominate in life: the instinct to survive and the instinct to multiply. Nourishment and sex give us a great sense of pleasure. Having the wisdom to satisfy both desires—for food and sex—is the art of living well. I truly believe that this wisdom lies within us all.”

GivingBelieveWellsLongHas BeensArtTwoTogetherLyingDesireSexPleasurePowerfulLong TimeConnectionsInstinctBoundsDuesIntimateMost PowerfulNourishmentLive WellArt Of Living
Book:The Warrior Diet: Switch on Your Biological Powerhouse for High Energy, Explosive Strength, and a Leaner, Harder Body
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“Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, its first instinct is that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient.”

FirstsDoeSelfStatesCrimeCircumstancesActivityInstitutionsInstinctSakeCommitEnterpriseScopePredatory
Author:Albert J. Nock
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“Ringo, the last to become a Beatle, came into the group not because I wanted him, but because the boys did. To be completely honest, I was not at all keen to have him. I thought his drumming rather loud, his appearance unimpressive, and I could not see why he was important to the Beatles. But again I trusted their instincts and I am grateful now. He has become an excellent Beatle and a devoted friend. Ringo is warm and wry-witted, a good drummer, and I like him enormously. He is a very uncomplicated, very nice young man.”

MenImportantWantedLastsYoungBoysNiceGroupsHonestGratefulInstinctAppearanceWarmExcellentLoudYoung ManTrustedDevotedDrummerVery NiceI Am GratefulDrummingWryUncomplicatedI Like HimRingo
Author:Brian Epstein
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“Every thought which enters the mind, every word we utter, every deed we perform, makes its impression upon the inmost fiber of our being and the result of these impressions is our character. The study of books, of music, or of the fine arts is not essential to a lofty character. It rests with the worker whether a rude piece of marble shall be squared into a horse-block or carved into an Apollo, a Psyche, or a Venus di Milo. It is yours, if you choose, to develop a spiritual form more beautiful than any of these, instinct with immortal life, refulgent with all the glory of character.”

IfsMindArtBookCharacterBeautifulSpiritualFormResultsStudyPiecesFineEssentialsGloryArt IsHorseInstinctWorkersDeedsImpressionBlockImmortalYou ChooseRudeApolloMarbleLoftyFine ArtsFiberVenusImmortal Life
Book:ORISON SWETT MARDEN Premium Collection - Wisdom & Empowerment Series (18 Books in One Volume): Steps to Success and Power, How to Get What You Want, An Iron Will, Be Good to Yourself, Every Man A King, Keeping Fit, Prosperity – How to Attract It, Stepping-Stones To Fame And Fortune...
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“To live in any true sense of the word is to reject others; to accept them, one must be able to renounce, to do oneself violence, to act against one's own nature, to weaken oneself; we conceive freedom only for ourselves - we extend it to our neighbours only at the cost of exhausting efforts; whence the precariousness of liberalism, a defiance of our instincts, a brief and miraculous success, a state of exception, at the antipodes of our deepest imperatives.”

StatesAbleEffortAcceptingViolenceCostInstinctOneselfLiberalismExceptionRejectsMiraculousImperativesNeighbourDefianceExhaustingRenounceAntipodes
Author:Emile M. Cioran
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“I am interested only in the relations of a people to the rearing of the individual man, and among the Greeks the conditions were unusually favourable for the development of the individual; not by any means owing to the goodness of the people, but because of the struggles of their evil instincts.With the help of favourable measures great individuals might be reared who would be both different from and higher than those who heretofore have owed their existence to mere chance. Here we may still be hopeful: in the rearing of exceptional men.”

PeopleMenMayMeanStillsDifferentHelpingMightWould BeEvilIndividualChanceExistenceStruggleConditionsDevelopmentHigherGoodnessRelationMereInstinctIndividualityGreekHopefulExceptionalOwing
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change; Then let it come: I have no dread of what Is called for by the instinct of mankind. Nor think I that God's world would fall apart Because we tear a parchment more or less. Truth is eternal, but her effluence, With endless change, is fitted to the hour; Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect The promise of the future, not the past. I do not fear to follow out the truth.”

ThinkingWorldPastFallHoursSocietyMankindTearsPromiseTruth IsEternalMirrorsInstinctEndlessDreadFalling ApartRottenRipeDo Not FearPromise Of The Future
Book:Poems
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