Best 601 quotes in «instinct quotes» category

If you wish to be happy, listen to your heart.

I have often thought that my instincts were the fools that allowed me to survive so that my "higher functions" could continue. Now I am finding that it is more the other way around. It is my ability to reason that keeps command and allows me to survive, and the things I am surviving for are those that I want by instinct: life, companionship, comfort, play.

...imitation supplements inadequate congenital variations in the direction of an instinct, and so, by keeping the creature alive, sets the trend of further variations in the same direction until the instinct is fully organized and congenital. If both of these views be true, as there seems reason to believe, then imitation holds a remarkable position in relation to intelligence and instinct. It stands midway between them and aids them both. In some functions it keeps the performance going, and so allows of its perfection as an instinct; in others it puts a stress on intelligence, and so allows the instinct to fall away, if it have no independent utility in addition to that served by the intelligence. In other words, it is through imitation that instincts both arise and decay; that is, some instincts are furthered, and some suppressed, by imitation.

Imitation is a real instinct, but it is not always playful; play is a real instinct, but it is not always imitative. There is likely, however, to be a great deal of imitation in play, since the occasion on which a particular play-function develops is often that which also develops the imitative tendency as well — i. e., the actual sight or hearing of the acts or voices of other animals. Moreover, the acquisition of a muscular or vocal action through imitation makes it possible to repeat the same action afterwards in play.

In every problem, there's a concealed solution...locking itself underneath...unlock,peruse,find and solve.

In my fortress, in the Via Appia Antica in Rome, I wrote the first script for my film PAGANINI. It was not a script in the common sense. Not even a testament. And yet it was more than that: A shorthand note, which I had received on a wavelength of an earlier life over the distance of centuries away . For the time being, I did not require more. The structure of my film originated in the instinct: Notes. Notes of music. Notes of captured images (and dialogues). Notes of feelings. Everything else I would decide in the course of the actual shooting.

Instincts are effective tools of survival, but when it comes to finding true answers to real questions, your rational thinking is the person to do the job. That is why seeking truth requires keeping your innate instincts and biases in check.

Instinct was clawing at him like an importuning dog.

Intellect can be helpful, but it needs consciousness to be its master; otherwise it can behave in a very stupid way. It can misunderstand things, it can misrepresent things. It needs a master to guide it, to give it a sense of direction. That master is your being.

Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying.

In the business people with expertise, experience and evidence will make more profitable decisions than people with instinct, intuition and imagination.

In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now in a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness, then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely prescribed to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained thereby much more certainly that it ever can be by reason. Should reason have been communicated to this favored creature over and above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy constitution of its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself thereon, and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive guidance, and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break forth into practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness and the means of attaining it. Nature would not only have taken on herself the choice of the ends but also of the means, and with wise foresight would have entrusted both to instinct.

I try to forget you more often than not but somehow my mind wanders to places my heart feels are oh so very true.

Listen to your instincts; you will make the best-choices.

Listen to your instinct. It is your greatest treasure. Your beauty in the outside reflects your inner beauty.

Love is the path that guides the men to the fields of infinite LIGHT!

Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.

Moths don't need to explain why they're attracted to the light.

My instinct is saying its not over, but your adamant it is, what do I trust?

My mouth hung slightly open, i was getting ready to sat something important. what i wanted to say was: I's so, so sorry. but instead I said, "i love you." Only then, when i said it out loud, did i know that it was true. Carly threaded her fingers through mine and i squeezed her hand. She said it back to me, and i was relieved in a way that i wasn't expecting. i didn't know that i needed her to say it until she did. i was so grateful; i leaned down and kissed her fearlessly, which was unlike me. When she kissed me back, i brought my hand up and cupped the nape of her neck, pulling her hair with clumsy fingers. i tried to back off, to apologize for hurting her, but she kept me close, kissing me softly at first, then hard and fast until the lines between us blurred.

My temperament and my instinct had told me alike that the author, who writes at his own emergency, remains and needs to remain at his private remove. I wished to be, not effaced, but invisible - actually a profound position. Perspective, the line of vision, the frame of vision - these set a distance.

I guess you can't compare humans to birds. Humans are rational beings. They're not just creatures without any sense of responsibility, ruled by drives and instincts, as our teachers at eloi school keep impressing upon us. Human beings are the pinnacle of creation, able to use rational, organized methods to place themselves outside nature, to control nature. But no sooner have they said that than they start evoking what is "natural," and to whom, and how such and such is the "natural order" of things.

Imagination is the sacred intuition.

Imagine how fluid life would be if we each had an advisor who, with our best interest at heart, provided clear, objective and decisive guidance. When we trust our instincts, we do.

...in order to trust my instincts I must first respect them.

Insanity is intuition.

In solitude, you listen to the sacred voice.

In solitude, you listen to sacred voice.

Instinct's aware of reflex when mind ain't yet.

Instinct tells me to close my eyes and I plunge myself back into the darkness, back to my world of being seen but not heard.

Instynkt życia najtrudniej zabić. Widziałem ludzi, którzy im głębiej staczali się w upodlenie, tym gwałtowniej pragnęli przetrwać wszystko i ocalić siebie.

Intelligent men never do a business; only a fool kills his own beautiful instincts for the sake of a word profit.

In this way, reason represented by your knowledge, and experience represented by instinct -will start to conflict. Eventually, one will lose, and confusion sets in.

Intuition is the nose of the heart.

I treat my thoughts like an old person treats their valuables: I cannot for the life of me proceed to throwing them out.

… It’s the gut you have to listen to, boy. That’s your instinct, that's what tells you the things you can’t see or feel. A million billion years of evolution telling you what is and what isn’t.

It takes effort to say no when our heart and brains and guts and, most important, pride are yearning to say yes. Practice.

I want to be spontaneous like a wild animal.

Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed," he said. "And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot out their excuses." "Excuses, eh?" Well, if this ain't cynicism, what is?" Erens snorted. "Yes, excuses," he said, with what Erens thought might just have been a trace of bitterness. "I strongly suspect the things people believe in are usually just what they instinctively feel is right; the excuses, the justifications, the things you're supposed to argue about, come later. They're the least important part of the belief. That's why you can destroy them, win an argument, prove the other person wrong, and still they believe what they did in the first place." He looked at Erens. "You've attacked the wrong thing.

My body's been touched a thousand or more times but I am craving something so much deeper than that ~ I desire to be felt, right down to the core of my soul and the corners of my heart. That's what love is about isn't it ~ cracking yourself open to the possibility that it could change your life.

My sister, the one who knows everything and pulls out facts out of a bottomless hat, told me people aren't afraid of snakes or water upon birth. It is only once we hear the snake and water stories, she says, once we are exposed to fear, that we deny our primal instincts and make room for the dread to take root and mature.

None of my mental activities for the past twenty-four hours might be called thinking. I had allowed my body to take charge. It knew far more about escaping and healing than I did.

Nature can be cruel. Predators are everywhere. Those who don't need to be protected from outside forces often need to be protected from themselves. In society, women are referred to as "the fairer sex". But in the wild, the female species can be far more ferocious than their male counterparts. Defending the nest is both our oldest and strongest instinct. And sometimes, it can also be the most gratifying.

Now that this destiny was about to happen, every instinct within him fought against it, realizing he had been fetishizing suicide.

Once we’ve had time for reflection, instinct leads to insight. Insight tells us more than that which is visible on the surface. It is complex.

One's instinct is at first to try and get rid of a discrepancy, but I believe that experience shows such an endeavour to be a mistake. What one ought to do is to magnify a small discrepancy with a view to finding out the explanation.

One thus gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature or civilization itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed. And in fact it is not difficult to indicate those defects. While mankind has made continual advances in its control over nature and may expect to make still greater ones, it is not possible to establish with certainty that a similar advance has been made in the management of human affairs; and probably at all periods, just as now once again, many people have asked themselves whether what little civilization has thus acquired is indeed worth defending at all. One would think that a re-ordering of human relations should be possible, which would remove the sources of dissatisfaction with civilization by renouncing coercion and the suppression of the instincts, so that, undisturbed by internal discord, men might devote themselves to the acquisition of wealth and its enjoyment. That would be a golden age, but it is questionable if such a state of affairs can be realized. It seems rather that every civilization must be built upon coercion and renunciation of instinct; it does not even seem certain that if coercion were to cease the majority of human beings would be prepared to undertake to perform the work necessary for acquiring new wealth. One has, I think, to reckon with the fact that there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti-cultural, trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behavior in human society.

Opinions of others may temporary influence your decisions. But you ought to follow your own inner voice.

Our ‘learned instinct’ is also called ‘consciousness’, ‘voice of conscience’, ‘inner voice’ or the ‘voice of the soul’ or simply ‘common sense’. Our conscience is thus not a mystical entity, but something which is developed due to the environment of our upbringing.

People talk about fight or flight? That's nonsense. It's fight and flight.