Quotes & Sayings About Animal Instincts
Enjoy reading and share 45 famous quotes about Animal Instincts with everyone.
Top Animal Instincts Quotes
If you don't listen to your animal instincts, you are placing too much importance on knowledge thereby not being wise. — Karen Salmansohn
You can often give a better description of the fight between people, the essentials of it, by means of fantastic animals, the simple, primitive, naked instincts, than by depicting a specific situation. It is not the human animal we should describe, but ourselves as human animals. — Asger Jorn
Everyone gets scared, Princess. Even brave men sometimes run the first time they see battle. In armies, that's why there's so much training. The ones who hold aren't the courageous ones, they're the well-trained ones. We have instincts like any other animal. — Brandon Sanderson
I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time. — Alan Rickman
Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture - one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce - rather than an articulated body of thought. — Thomas Ligotti
I've always felt that if I examine myself too much, I'll find out what I know and don't know, and I'll burst the bubble. I've gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I'd rather keep a little bit of the animal alive. — Clint Eastwood
Human beings, in their natural state, are unpredictable, erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal instincts are controlled that they can be responsible, dependable, and content. — Lauren Oliver
What an immature, self-destructive, antiquated mischief is man! How obscure and gross his prancing and chattering on his little stage of evolution! How loathsome and beyond words boring all the thoughts and self-approval of his biological by-product! this half-formed, ill-conditioned body! this erratic, maladjusted mechanism of his soul: on one side the harmonious instincts and balanced responses of the animal, on the other the inflexible purpose of the engine, and between them man, equally alien from the being of Nature and the doing of the machine, the vile becoming! — Evelyn Waugh
Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us. — Albert Einstein
Well, what if ... " Scarlet listed her head. "You said the control when your animal instincts will overpower your own thoughts right? But fighting and hunting aren't the only instincts wolves have. Aren't wolves ... monogamous, for starters?" Her cheeks started to burn and she had to look away, scratching her fork into a set of initial. "And isn't the alpha male the one who's responsible for protecting everyone? Not only the pack, but his mate too?" Dropping the fork, she threw her hands into the air. "I'm not saying I think you and I are
after just
I know we just met and that's ... but it's not out of the questions, is it? That your instincts to protect me could be as strong as your instincts to kill? — Marissa Meyer
But the process of birthing Claire changed what I wanted to write about. It left me feeling betrayed that I'd been unprepared for the pure animal nature of birth. For the first time, I understood myself to be a mammal with a mammal's instincts and desires beneath the veneer of civilization - a mammal just as much as the opossum with its thirteen nipples. — Beth Ann Fennelly
I can feel the sickening fear inside of me subside as my instincts take over. Inside of me are animal instincts. They were born in a world I wasn't. They take over when I need them to. They've taught me how to survive. I have learned it is the most important part of the world I live in. — Tara Brown
A man recovers best from his exceptional nature - his intellectuality - by giving his animal instincts a chance. — Friedrich Nietzsche
He felt that he had just quaffed an enchanted potion whose venom fanned flickering flames in his veins that burned away all sense of caution and for ever freed him of that restraint which his inner voice so often told him he must obey. Now he was once again that primeval being who knows only how to follow his instincts, the predator who seeks his mate and for whom no obstacle, law or convention will be allowed to obstruct the natural course of his desire, that animal in whom passion rages unchecked and who, if need be, will kill to achieve his object. — Miklos Banffy
For the fundamental fact of human psychology is that society, instead of remaining almost entirely inside the individual organism as in the case of animals prompted by their instincts, becomes crystallized almost entirely outside the individuals. In other words, social rules, as Durkheim has so powerfully shown, whether they be linguistic, moral, religious, or legal, etc., cannot be constituted, transmitted or preserved by means of an internal biological heredity, but only through the external pressure exercised by individuals upon each other. — Jean Piaget
Ultimately the case for shunning animal flesh does not rest on what the Buddha allegedly said or didn't say. What is does rest on is our innate moral goodness, compassion, and pity which, when liberated, lead us to value all forms of life. It is obvious, then, that willfully to take life, or through the eating of meat indirectly to cause others to kill, runs counter to the deepest instincts of human beings. — Philip Kapleau
Most people don't really want to think independently or make decisions; they're herd animals with herd instincts to keep to the middle of the group where it's safest, don't stand out too much, don't move too far away from convention, etc. They want to be led and dictated to. But they're stubborn, mulish animals and they like to think they're independent and free. — Blanche Barton
Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys! Pigs! — Tennessee Williams
Our intellect, our awareness, and our consciousness is the most powerful form of life on this planet. It's totally worthwhile. If our animal instincts stopped, we would die. We don't think about it, but if your consciousness were responsible for all of your bodily functions, you would die. — James McAvoy
On the whole, it was not the crudest, the simplest, the most animalistic and primitive aspects of the human species that were reflected in the natural phenomena. It was, rather, the more complex, the aesthetic, the intricate, and the elegant aspects of people that reflected nature. It was not my greed, my purposiveness, my so-called 'animal,' so-called 'instincts,' and so forth that I was recognizing on the other side of that mirror, over there in 'nature.' Rather, I was seeing there the roots of human symmetry, beauty and ugliness, aesthetics, the human being's very aliveness and little bit of wisdom. His wisdom, his bodily grace, and even his habit of making beautiful objects are just as 'animal' as his cruelty. — Gregory Bateson
There was an idea that God created man different from other animals, because man was rational and animals had drives and instincts. That idea of a rational man that was specially created went out the window when Darwin showed that we evolved from animal ancestors, that we have instincts, much as do animals, and that our instincts are very important. It was a much more sophisticated, nuanced, and rich view of the human mind. — Eric Kandel
Let the advocate of animal food, force himself to a decisive experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth, and plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the steaming blood; when fresh from the deed of horror let him revert to the irresistible instincts of nature that would rise in judgment against it, and say, Nature formed me for such work as this. Then, and then only, would he be consistent. — Percy Bysshe Shelley
What has here happened is that the instinct of cruelty, which has turned inwards, has become self-torture, and all man's animal instincts have been reinterpreted as guilt towards God. Every Nay man utters to his nature, to his real being, he flings out as a Yea, an affirmation of reality applied to God's sanctity — Georg Brandes
Be a good animal, true to your animal instincts. — D.H. Lawrence
Compassion for animals is something that every child has naturally but they are lured away from these instincts by society's nasty habits. — Dan Mathews
What do I want from this life? What makes you happy is not enough. All the things that satisfy our instincts only satisfy the animal in us. I want more. I want to look up to myself and when I die, I want to smile because of the things I have done, not cry for the things I haven't done. — Tom Hurndall
If your skin is crawling, pay attention. If something doesn't feel right, pay attention. If the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, if your gut clenches up, if a wave of wrongness washes over you, if your heart starts beating faster, pay, pay, pay attention. Do not second-guess yourself or rationalize anything that impedes your safety. Our instincts are the animal inside of our humanness, warning us of danger. — Inga Muscio
Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant: Animals have instincts, we have taxes. — Erving Goffman
Only when I heard her bedroom door open and close did I give in to my beast instincts and do a wild animal dance around the room. — Alex Flinn
Few understand that horses are never truly domesticated. Their instincts are always there and readily take over once they are free. They stay or return to us by their choice, not the compulsion forced upon them.
Once realized you must also recognize only kindness will prevail to make a partner of an animal who'd prefer only the company of his kind and the freedom of wide open spaces. Any other relationship is based on the inadequacies of the tormentor on the tormented. One will lose. It's always the horse, for even if he wins his defensive battle the mark of rogue will remain.
It's been witnessed how a mustang will give up his life if his freedom can't be regained when in the grip of adversity. There's so much for us to learn from this, if we'd only learn to listen to their message. — Judith-Victoria Douglas
Be a good animal,true to your instincts. — D.H. Lawrence
It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another ... we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria. — Charles Darwin
Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior. — Charlie Chaplin
The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable - namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. — Charles Darwin
the subject of free will another debated topic
do we or don't we have the ability to pick?
greatly controlled by mind at lower levels of consciousness
almost non-existent, one's free will is notably less
at this level one's actions are purely reactionary
lacking self-awareness, animal instincts are primary
not going along with the mind, free will increases
then higher up, it's surrendered until it ceases
thus, there both is and is not the capacity to choose
even when we do it's limited by one's views
choosing alternatively, with a mind conditioned and bound
free will, then, is at best constrained and drowned — Jarett Sabirsh
At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism). — Viktor E. Frankl
Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior according to the methods developed by animal and infant psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts, automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals, railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have produced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the automatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting atoms. — Ludwig Von Mises
I felt confident that his inherited knowledge and instincts would soon assert themselves, given the chance, and in spite of his [lion] breeding. I must admit that I did not feel the same confidence about his two owners, when I heard they would accompany Christian [lion] and stay a few weeks at my camp. I was lead to believe they were very 'mod' with long hair and exotic clothing. — George Adamson
Man is not, like the animals, an obsequious puppet of instincts and sensual impulses. Man has the power to suppress instinctive desires, he has a will of his own, he chooses between incompatible ends. — Ludwig Von Mises
But there are thoughts we think in the forward part of our brains, and then there are those whose origins are much deeper, in the animal part, the part that remembers the terrors of the open savanna at night, the oldest part that was there before the primordial voice that spoke the words I AM. — Rick Yancey
I was now privy to how a calm, average , peace-loving individual can suddenly get infected with a special kind of crazy. Higher reasoning is replaced with killer animal instincts. — Dan Skinner
Supposing that what is at any rate believed to be the 'truth' really is true, and the meaning of all culture is the reduction of the beast of prey 'man' to a tame and civilized animal, a domestic animal, then one would undoubtedly have to regard all those instincts of reaction and ressentiment through whose aid the noble races and their ideals were finally confounded and overthrown as the actual instruments of culture; which is not to say that the bearers of these instincts themselves represent culture. Rather is the reverse not merely probable - no! today it is palpable! These bearers of the oppressive instincts that thirst for reprisal, the descendants of every kind of European and non-European slavery, and especially of the entire pre-Aryan populace - they represent the regression of mankind! These 'instruments of culture' are a disgrace to man and rather an accusation and counterargument against 'culture' in general! — Friedrich Nietzsche
When my animal instincts desire the forbidden, I feel pleasure in seeking them without constrictions placed by laws, worldly or religious — Rochelle Magee
Action helps you think and raises your self-esteem. Good luck happens when you're in action. Ask yourself, "Does this go toward or away from what I want?" There's an animal in us, and it has great instincts. Scan for a desire and follow it. Set a goal, any goal, and start doing everything you can think of to achieve it. — Barbara Sher
You've got to struggle against the pollution of intelligence in order to become an animal with very sharp instincts - a sort of intuitive medium - so that to photograph becomes a magical act, and slowly other more suggestive images begin to appear behind the visible image, for which the photographer cannot be held responsible. — Robert Doisneau