Quotes About Instinct

There's a strange something, which without a brain Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain, Planted in man, to bind him to that earth, In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.

Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that diddles but man.

Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.

The family spirit has rendered man carnivorous.

One meal a day is enough for a lion, and it ought to be for a man.

The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct.

Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him in his traps.

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him.

Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

If language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten.

Don't ignore intuitive tickles, lest they reappear as sledgehammers. (from First Rule of Ten)

Writing about the futility of trying to force a wolf into a vehicle, Martino describes the final stage of the conflict. The italics are hers: "But if I continue, perhaps muttering 'Get up you lazy old dusty thing,' The wolf grabs my arm in his teeth, snarling, as if to say, Look, move me where I don't want to go, and we're going to have problems. Your problems will be bigger than mine. He then looks at me with a frank arresting stare, the strength of the mountain rumbling in his eyes.

It's the Whoosh, the visceral reaction that comes up from the feet like a wave washing over your body. I speak of it as our first consciousness, and I divide it into three reactions—fight, flight, or fix.

Flowers don't open to the clock but to the sunshine spontaneous; for modern humans that manner of instinct is now extraneous.

I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, and adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being.

The cameras rolled. Charlie lunged. I cowered.

Crocodiles are easy,' Steve said, 'they try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.

Scratch a schoolboy and you find a savage.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.

Even a mama dog will protect her young to the death. What more of a mother?

To be predictable is to become the hunted.

If we allow ourselves even for a moment to contemplate the vast weight of suffering in the world, we will easily be overwhelmed with grief. This is why we develop the habit and self-protective instinct of overlooking the suffering around us.

A bad man, though raised to honour, always returns to his natural course, as a dog?s tail, though warmed by the fire and rubbed with oil, retains its form.*