Quotes About Instinct

A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass.

Why do the men come, do you suppose?" asked Fiver. "Who knows why men do anything? They may drive cows or sheep in the fields, or cut wood in the copses. What does it matter? I'd rather dodge a man than a stoat or a fox.

Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again

Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating.

If I knew what was making me do it, I probably wouldn't have to.

My mother used to say, when the time is right, you don't need to have a committee meeting about it.

Trust your intuitive heart. How often have you said to yourself, after the fact, "I knew I should have done that"? How often do you intuitively know something but allow yourself to think yourself out of it?

Mental health has commonly been called conscience, instinct, wisdom, common sense, or the inner voice. We

Don't talk rot, Whitney, said Rainsford. You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?

Instinct is no match for reason.

The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner.

There was something built into the human brain by natural selection which was once useful, and which now manifests itself as religion.

Should we then not expect lions to refrain from killing antelopes, 'for the good of the mammals'?

A male on the other hand can never get enough copulations with as many different females as possible: the word excess has no meaning for a male.

Debemos enseñar a nuestros hijos el altruismo ya que no podemos esperar que éste forme parte de su naturaleza biológica

Here is a list of things defined as rewarding: sweet taste in the mouth, orgasm, mild temperature, smiling child. And here is a list of nasty things: various sorts of pain, nausea, empty stomach, screaming child. If you should happen to do something that is followed by one of the nasty things, don't do it again, but on the other hand repeat anything that is followed by one of the nice things.

Unless otherwise stated, 'altruistic behaviour' and 'selfish behaviour' will mean behaviour directed by one animal body toward another.

Animals therefore go to elaborate lengths to find and catch food; to avoid being caught and eaten themselves; to avoid disease and accident; to protect themselves from unfavourable climatic conditions; to find members of the opposite sex and persuade them to mate; and to confer on their children advantages similar to those they enjoy themselves.

The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life while the fox is only running for his dinner.' My colleague John Krebs and I have dubbed this the 'life/dinner principle'.

The equivalent of the moth's light-compass reaction is the apparently irrational but useful habit of falling in love with one, and only one, member of the opposite sex. The misfiring by-product—equivalent to flying into the candle flame—is falling in love with Yahweh (or with the Virgin Mary, or with a wafer, or with Allah) and performing irrational acts motivated by such love.

Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn on the basis of overt trial and error.

Obviously it was happenstance, but it did change my opinion of human nature. I now saw war as a constant, akin to wildfires. They break out unless you work actively to prevent them. It's an atavistic thing, buried deep in our DNA.

Like all immigrants, he seemed to have an unerring instinct for the oldest, truest words in his new language. The way he said the word, it felt free of the treacherous weight of mate

He was your cobber? Like all immigrants, he seemed to have an unerring instinct for the oldest, truest words in his new language. The way he said the word, it felt free of the treacherous weight of mate.