Quotes About Instinct

Gavin de Becker was talking about in his insightful book, The Gift of Fear.

Genes aren't designed to make us happy. They design us to make more copies of themselves.

A moment later, she and The Little Guy disappear into the trees. I didn't know exactly what was going on. I thought maybe she was going to eat him in privacy, because it had crossed my mind to do just that. There wouldn't have been a lot of preparation and very little hair to spit out. Just swing him by the feet, whack him on a rock, and a hot dinner was served.

Killing ain't no good thing, son, unless it's to eat or protect yourself. And you ought never to delight in it.

pheromones, those fascinating chemicals that can initiate mating behavior in certain species

Escribe Murray: "Ser padres de nuevas congregaciones…es el instinto natural de los que han nacido de nuevo por el Espíritu, de los que Él ha reunido en familias locales de cristianos

I believe most people are inherently good, but overcoming our nature is what separates us from the animals.

From the first time Thomas has seen him, he hadn't known who or what Marcus was, just that he wanted him. Wanted to be his. And the fact Thomas has thought of it that way should have given him a clue to the hidden craving in his own makeup. An unexpected sexual preference. Preference. There was a grimly amusing word. As if any need this elemental was a choice.

Finally it is, by the way, obvious that if mathematics can arrogate to itself the privilege of the nobility because of its universal and necessary reliability, then even human reason itself would be inferior to the unfailing and infallible instinct of insects.

It is a natural human instinct to turn our fears into symbols, and destroy the symbols, in the hope that it will destroy the fear. It is a logic that keeps recurring throughout human history, from the Crusades to the witch hunts to the present day.

when they had the financial security that came at the end of the harvest, they were on average thirteen IQ points smarter - an extraordinary gap. Why would that be? Anyone reading this who's ever been financial stressed knows part of the answer instinctively. When you are worried about how to survive financially, everything - from a broken washing machine to a child's lost shoe - becomes a threat to your ability to get through the week. You become more vigilant

I feel instinctively like I've done a good hard day of work when I have been sitting at my laptop, spotlight-focused on tapping out words—at the end of it, I feel a little Puritan rush of pride at my productivity.

We have been animals that move for a lot longer than we have been animals that talk and convey concepts,

The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.

The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.

A hundred times have I seized a dagger, to give ease to this oppressed heart. Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

Life is but a collection of habits.

I just do what feels right. I think the great thing about getting to do what I do is that you can try out being a different person without having to screw up your life to do it.

I think there are times in life where you're automatically drawn to somebody and it's weird - you freak out a bit.

The whole life of instinct serves the one end of bringing about death.

The civilizing process has increased the distance between behavior and the impulse life of the animal body.

And, strangely, this one of the few things in life that the third, the latter, the buy with our eyes closed has actually done better than everybody else.