Quotes About Instinct

Fear is a strong instinctive feeling, though it can be overcome by will-power or strong motives like love, shame or hate, or more usually, by discipline. Even men who have afterwards distinguished themselves by heroic deeds have confessed to having felt something like panic fear, the first time they came under fire.

There was something about the act of killing that could bring out everything primitive and not quite human within a man.

Hero started to say something, then swallowed it. Cousin Victoria's presence in Berkeley Square should have made Hero feel better. She tried to tell herself that her instinctive dislike of the woman was irrational and baseless. But

Current feminism, with its antiscience and social constructionist bias, never thinks about nature. Hence it cannot deal with sex, which begins in the body and is energized by instinctual drives.

The heart wants what the heart wants

The heart wants what the heart wants, she says, somewhat cryptically. I purse my lips in disapproval. You'd think the heart would know better.

In nature violence is pure and purposeful, one species against another in an act of survival!

It's been said that no two species are more alike than wolves and humans. If you watch wolves not just in all their beauty and adaptability but in all their brutality, it's hard to escape that conclusion.

Wolves and humans can understand each other better. That's one reason why we invited wolves, instead of chimpanzees, into our lives. Wolves and dogs and us; it's not surprising that we found one another. We deserve one another. We were made for one another.

I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

We are, almost all of us, descended from people who responded to the dangers of existence by inventing stories about unpredictable or disgruntled deities. For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations [...]. For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods.

Killing an enemy with teeth and bare hands is emotionally far more demanding than pulling a trigger or pressing a button. In inventing tools and weapons, in contriving civilization, we have disinhibited the controls - sometimes thoughtlessly and inadvertently, but sometimes with cool premeditation. If the beasts who are our nearest relatives engaged recklessly in … mass murder they would have rendered themselves extinct. If our non-human ancestors did it, we would not be here.

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations, as in ancient Greece in the time of Homer , where there were gods of the sky and the Earth, the thunderstorm, the oceans and the underworld, fire and time and love and war; where every tree and meadow had its dryad and maenad.

The wolf stands on its hind legs, places its forelegs on the scientist's shoulders, and places its jaws around the scientist's head. This is just the wolf's way of being friendly. If you're an animal who doesn't know how to talk, a very clear signal is communicated: "See my teeth? Feel them? I could hurt you, I really could. But I won't. I like you.

I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both speak eloquently: a proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. —GEORGE SANTAYANA Scepticism and Animal Faith, IX

Birds know, better than humans, not to spoil the nest.

Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it's very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.

Her scent filled his nostrils. He was shocked to feel his throat tighten with a primal hunger. She smelled like her mother, but fresher, sweeter somehow. Some primitive male instinct warned him this was a bloom still on the vine, fragrant and tender and ripe. He scowled. She might be nectar to a another man, but to a MacDonnell, Dougal Cameron's daughter would be more deadly than nightshade.

If you get the urge, then write about it.

Place a loaded pistol in a playpen and the babies will play with it just like any other toy, giggle, and perhaps even place the gun in their mouth. In contrast, put a plastic snake into the playpen; the babies will cower in fear. Show a person of any age a snake —or even a picture of one —and you will elicit a dramatic response, including sweaty skin and an increased heart rate. It doesn't matter whether the person is in America, Europe, Japan, Australia, or Argentina

We are built to pursue happiness as a tool to replicate our genes.

Always listen to the parent who doesn't like who you love. They can smell a mistake.