Quotes About Instinct

I felt like an animal, and animals don't know sin, do they?

The sucker has always tried to get something for nothing, and the appeal in all booms is always frankly to the gambling instinct aroused by cupidity and spurred by a pervasive prosperity. People who look for easy money invariably pay for the privilege of proving conclusively that it cannot be found on this sordid earth.

A parent knows better than any book or "expert" what their kid really needs.

Das Wesentliche an der Existenz des Menschen ist ja, dass er sich über das Tierreich und seine instiktive Anpassung erhoben hat, dass er die Natur transzendiert hat, wenn er sie auch nie ganz verlässt.

This need for self-preservation is that part of human nature which needs satisfaction under all circumstances and therefore forms the primary motive of human behaviour.

if you train a dog so that it only eats potatoes, and then after a while you offer it a chunk of meat, it'll still grab it because it's in its nature. And if you offer a man a bit of power, the same thing happens; he'll grab it. It's instinctive, because when it comes down to it, a man is basically a beast, and it's only later that a bit of decency gets smeared on top, the way you can spread dripping on your bread.

In himself man is essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of bread with a little decorum.

Nobody taught us at school how to light a cigarette in a rainstorm, or how it is still possible to make a fire even with soaking wet wood – or that the best place to stick a bayonet is into the belly, because it can't get jammed in there, the way it can in the ribs.

Look, if you train a dog so that it only eats potatoes, and then after a while you offer it a chunk of meat, it'll still grab it because it's in its nature. And if you offer a man a bit of power, the same thing happens; he'll grab it. It's instinctive, because when it comes down to it, a man is basically a beast, and it's only later that a bit of decency gets smeared on top, the way you spread dripping on your bread.

We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation.

we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals.

Látod, ha egy kutyát krumplievésre kapatsz, aztán egy darab húst adsz oda neki, mégiscsak utánakap, mert ilyen a természete. Ha az embernek adsz egy darabka hatalmat, ugyanez történik: utánakap. Magától megy ez, mert az ember magábanvéve elsÅ'sorban vadállat, s tán csak azután kenÅ'dik rá valami tisztesség, mint a zsír a csomagolópapírra.

For instance, if you train a dog to eat potatoes and then afterwards put a piece of meat in front of him, he'll snap at it, it's his nature. And if you give a man a little bit of authority he behaves just the same way, he snaps at it too.

Aber niemand hat uns in der Schule beigebracht, wie man bei Regen und Sturm eine Zigarette anzündet, wie man ein Feuer aus nassem Holz machen kann - oder dass man ein Bajonett am besten in den Bauch stösst, weil es da nicht festklemmt wie bei den Rippen.

How can all the small insects simultaneously know, without a brain, without knowing anything, that today they should visit this meadow, tomorrow that one? It's a question of knowing without knowing, and wanting without wanting. If you want something too intensely, things fall apart in your hands. You start to doubt everything. As soon as you let go, everything comes to you. Then you know, without knowing.

If you had to jump six or seven feet or certainly drown, it's surprising how far even older people will jump.

my heart leapt like a young salmon.

Whether out of professional pique or some instinct of fear, the ship's mascot—a cat named Dowie, after Captain Turner's predecessor—fled the ship that night, for points unknown.

In man there is implanted a sporting instinct to side with the underdog, but this is in man, the individual. Mob psychology is different from individual psychology, and the psychology of the pack is to tear down the weaker and devour the wounded. Man may sympathize with the underdog, but he wants to side with the winner.

We are born to action; and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first." WILLIAM JAMES

We live, he says, in a creation in which the routine activity for organisms is "tearing others apart with teeth of all types—biting, grinding flesh, plant stalks, bones between molars, pushing the pulp greedily down the gullet with delight, incorporating its essence into one's own organization, and then excreting with foul stench and gasses the residue.

To escape from fire men will plunge into boiling water.

We have very primative emotions. It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.

They would hit a man in the water, if they were hungry, even if the man had no smell of fish blood nor of fish slime on him. "Ay," the old man said. "Galanos. Come on galanos.