Quotes About Instinct

a lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past.

Because human nature never changes.

Civilization is only a pretense; in the crisis, we become mere apes again, forgetting the rational biped of our pretensions and becoming instead the hairy primate at the mouth of the cave, screeching at the enemy, wishing it would go away, fingering the heavy stone that we'll use the moment it comes close enough.

Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned.

Matar es lo primero que aprendimos. E hicimos bien, o estaríamos muertos, y los tigres poseerían la Tierra.

Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't a will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never decide to cease to exist. So if we can we'll kill every last one of the buggers, and if they can they'll kill every last one of us.

Better come with me before your eyes make promises your stomach can't keep.

The limbic node deep in her brain didn't understand that she no longer lived in a tree, no longer had to panic when she felt herself to be falling.

humans will always act to preserve their own lives—except for the times when they don't.

La naturaleza no puede hacer evolucionar a las especies que no tienen un deseo de supervivencia.

I'm a mammal," said Bean. "I try to live forever whether I actually want to or not.

Civilization is only a pretense; in the crisis, we become mere apes again, forgetting the rational biped of our pretensions and become instead the hairy primate at the mouth of the cave, screeching at the enemy, wishing it would go away, fingering the heavy stone that we'll use the moment it comes close enough.

Yes, the bear was smart—for a bear—able to figure out about stone-throwing—he had never seen that behavior on the Discovery Channel.

Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What (women) like is to be a man's last romance.

Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Experience is a question of instinct about life.

After people are clothed and fed, then they think about sex

Do you know the only way you can tell for sure the deer are there? Mel shook his head. By the wolves, he said.

He did not know how hawks mated but he knew that all things fought.

Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet?

Housecats is smart too. Smarter'n a dog or a mule. Folks thinks they ain't on account of you cain't learn em nothin, but what it is is that they won't learn nothin. They too smart.

The more noise you make the more likely you are to be eaten. If you've no way to escape you keep silent. If birds couldnt fly they wouldnt sing. When you're defenseless you keep your opinions to yourself.

The unconscious system of guidance is millions of years old, speech less than a hundred thousand. The brain had no idea any of this was coming. The unconscious must have had to do all sorts of scrambling around to accommodate a system that proved perfectly relentless. Not only it is comparable to a parasitic invasion, it's not comparable to anything else.