Quotes About Instinct

I believe the subconscious always knows what is best. It is our conditioned, vastly overrated rational mind which screws everything up.

It was like trying to hand-feed a grizzly bear.

As to the properties we call occult in a number of things, like the magnet's ability to attract iron, is it not likely that there are sensitive capacities in nature fit for judging and perceiving them, and that the lack of such capacities produces our ignorance of the true essence of such things? It is perhaps some particular sense that lets cocks know the hour of morning and of midnight, and moves them to crow

Gurdjieff put considerable emphasis on what he called the "instinctive sensing of reality," weak in many of us but not irretrievably so.

After 15 years living in Paris, I felt myself growing old and stagnant—similar to stagnant water sitting in a bowl; cats have a survival instinct not to drink this water. They can sense when it's old and may be carrying air-borne germs. After 15 years in Paris, I no longer felt drinkable.

Religious violence is not alien to Hinduism despite the modern myth that the Hindus are by instinct and religion a non-violent people.

Survival is an instinct, not a choice.

Most people instinctively follow a dominant trend in an organization or community, without critical evaluation of its merits. The herd instinct is strong.

Almost instinct, the way an animal knows the members of its pack, a baby knows her mother, two people flood with a mysterious urge to embrace as lovers.

If I feel by intuition that he doesn't love me anymore, I will immediately fly away like a stricken bird

There's a word for your impulse, Louise. Cacoëthes,' I said to her. 'The urge to do something somewhat wrong. Not something unspeakable or horrific. Just something you know is a bad idea.

What is the difference between the influence of instinct upon a wolf and history upon a man? In both cases, justice is prey to unknown dreams.

What was it, to be dreamed of by a bear?

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.

Ce qu'est beau dans le monde animal c'est qu'ils savent sans se dire, tout et tout !... et de très loin ! à vitesse-lumière !... nous avec la tête pleine de mots, effrayant le mal qu'on se donne pour s'emberlifiquer en pire ! plus rien savoir !... tout barafouiller, rien saisir !... si on se l'agite! la grosse nénette !... pas un mili d'onde !... tout nous frise !... file !...

There's no such thing as intelligent vanity. It's an instinct. And you'll never find a man who is not first and foremost vain.

Two years is the time it takes to perceive at one glance, a glance as sure as instinct, the ugliness that can come over a face, even one that was delicious in its day.

I stared into the lion's eyes and knew that he could take me down so easily. He'd swipe me with his curved claws, clamp his fangs around my throat or my skull, kill me in an instant.

The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have and reject nothing to which he is naturally drawn.

At times, when a deer saw a man walking in a forest, he might prick his ears up and stand still as a statue. Waiting. Wary. Meaning no harm. What are you? asked his ears. And oh. What am I? Sometimes the answer was, You're dead. And the deer crumpled to his knees.

At times, when a deer saw a man walking in the forest, he might prick up his ears and stand still as a statue. Waiting. Wary. Meaning no harm. What are you? asked his ears. And oh. What am I? Sometimes the answer was, You're dead. And the deer crumpled to his knees.

He was a firm believer in that old saying, a skunk smells it own hole first.

Do not expect me to apologize for going what I had to, to survive. A lion doesn't feel guilty for eating a zebra.

I want to be able to hump people's legs and have them do nothing about it.