Quotes & Sayings About Instincts

She had barely talked to Jamie about his school days, and she wondered whether this was another area of experience that was for some reason out of bounds. Had he been happy? Who had his school friends been? She had no idea. There must be a reason why he had decided not to attend his ten-year class reunion; normally Jamie's instincts were social. If invited to a party, he went, and usually enjoyed himself; perhaps this did not apply to reunions. — Alexander McCall Smith

Feelings could override facts, as facts could alter feelings. Choose the truth first, rather than following after feelings. — Anthony Liccione

And human instinct is ancient and reliable, utterly mysterious and possibly capable of great genius. I believe that refined, fluent instincts are a person's most valuable asset. My own instincts have repeatedly guided me against the grain of logic and probability. When I have trusted and followed their direction, they have never been wrong. I don't know how or why. But I know that every significant experience-positive or negative-sharpens them and makes them more accurate. — Augusten Burroughs

Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years. — Hamdi Ulukaya

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

People who choose to earn money first, people who put off their real plans until later, until they are rich, are not necessarily wrong. People who want only to live, and who reckon living is absolute freedom, the exclusive pursuit of happiness, the sole satisfaction of their desires and instincts, the immediate enjoyment of the boundless riches of the world [ ... ] such people will always be unhappy. It is true [ ... ] that there are people for whom this kind of dilemma does not arise, or hardly arises, either because they are too poor and have no requirements beyond a slightly better diet, slightly better housing, slightly less work, or because they are too rich, from the start, to understand the import or even the meaning of such a distinction. But nowadays and in our part of the world, more and more people are neither rich nor poor: they dream of wealth, and could become wealthy; and that is where their misfortunes begin."
-from "Things: A Story of the Sixties — Georges Perec

They trust me, and they've forgotten how to rely on their own instincts, because I lead them to nourishment. — Paulo Coelho

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

I would like to believe that there is a resolution in the human tragedy and that order can be reimposed upon the earth in the same way it occurs in the fifth act of the Elizabethan drama that supposedly mirrors our lives. My experience has been otherwise. History seldom corrects itself in its own sequence, and when we mete out justice, we often do it in a fashion that perpetuates the evil of the transgressors and breathes new life into the descendants of Cain. I would like to believe the instincts of the mob can be exorcised from the species or genetically bred out of it. But there is no culture in the history of the world that has not lauded its warriors over its mystics. Sometimes in an idle moment, I try to recall the names of five slaves out of the whole sorry history of human bondage whose lives we celebrate. I have never had much success. — James Lee Burke

I feel like, when you turn on the radio and you hear a great song, you know it's a great song, and you sing along. We all know what a great song sounds like, so we all have that instinct, it's just being able to accept your own instincts when you write that song. — Kiesza

No matter how evolved humans think they are, we still have the same flight-or-fight instincts of our caveman ancestors. — Ernessa T. Carter

The individual and social instincts, - the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being. — Emma Goldman

It's just another weapon. Its nature depends on who wields it. He would have to keep reminding himself. The thoughts of hatred were so old they had become instincts. This was not something he could cure overnight. Like Nina with parem, it might well be a lifelong fight. — Leigh Bardugo

For we cannot adequately understand 'man' as an isolated biological creature, as a bundle of reflexes or a set of instincts, as an 'intelligible field' or a system in and of itself. Whatever else he may be, man is a social and an historical actor who must be understood, if at all, in close and intricate interplay with social and historical structures — C. Wright Mills

You have to trust your own instincts about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate and trust your own feelings about what you can and can't show for yourself, and it'll be different for everybody. — Stephen Daldry

The people's instincts are still right. You see them come to the rescue of someone-a child who falls down a well-hundreds of people rush to help, and labor and equipment are volunteered without any thought of who's going to pay for it. This is a basic feeling in Americans. They don't stand back in such a circumstance and ask what the government's going to do about it. — Ronald Reagan

A sacrament
like marriage
means living a life better than your natural instincts, so that you're modeling God. And God never gives up. — Jodi Picoult

You have to trust your instincts and hope the fans like what you do, but you don't gut check with the fans. If we're going to make a series, people are going to have a lot of opinions and if there's one overwhelming majority or one thing you continuously hear repeated from the fans, you certainly take that into account going into next season. — Eli Roth

God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature. — Julia Ward Howe

Every characteristic absence of spirituality, every piece of common vulgarity, is due to an inability to resist a stimulus - you have to react, you follow every impulse. — Friedrich Nietzsche

God reveals future events through dreams, vision and the sacred voice. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We, as humans, have actually developed a sense of social responsibility. We have gone beyond our basic instincts. We can and we do. This is what sets us apart from the chimps. They are extremely brutal and hostile. Your next door neighbor is to be killed unless she is a juicy young female, who hasn't yet had her first baby, in which case you want her. — Jane Goodall

We need a better way to talk about eating animals, a way that doesn't ignore or even just shruggingly accept things like habits, cravings, family and history but rather incorporates them into the conversation. The more they are allowed in, the more able we will be to follow our best instincts. — Jonathan Safran Foer

They say for every light on Broadway there is a broken heart, an unrealized dream. And that's the same in any profession. So you have to want it more than anyone else, and you have to be your own champion, be your own superstar, blaze your own path, say yes to opportunity, follow your instincts, be eager, and passionate, keep learning, nurture your real, lasting relationships, don't be a jerk, and free your imagination so you can become all that you want to be. — Sutton Foster

All you decent, well-meaning gentlemen, let me ask you, have you any idea what sort of place the world is becoming all around you? The days when you could act out of your noble instincts are over. Except of course, you here in Europe don't yet seem to know it. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I never think of things rationally or intellectually. I swear, every single decision I make is just instinct and my instincts tend to be accurate. — Neill Blomkamp

Logotherapy ... considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts. — Viktor E. Frankl

I was lucky to be in a household where whatever I wanted to do was supported and my music was always such a natural part of me, and I was never told that I couldn't do it. So I've always been able to follow my heart and my instincts and what I love, that being my art. And I know that not everybody really has that chance or that environment, the same one that I did, so I kind of want to help in any way that I can. — Zella Day

A lot of amazing comedians that I've worked with just really follow their instincts and you can't really teach someone comedic timing. And you just kind of have it. — Chelsea Handler

Huamns, uregulated, are cruel and capricious; violet and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome.
It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good. — Lauren Oliver

She had to tell him, while she still had time, how wrong he'd been and how right she'd been. How wrong not to love her more, how wrong not to cherish her and have sex at every opportunity, how wrong not to trust her financial instincts, how wrong to have spent so much time at work and so little with the children, how wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life, how wrong to have said no, again and again, instead of yes: she had to tell him all of this, every single day. — Jonathan Franzen

Simple the life, simpler will be your instincts, the laws that govern universe will obey your simplicity. — Santosh Kalwar

I think it's a style of acting that you trust. You trust the instincts. — Jeff Daniels

Humankind has not evolved in its most basic instincts much beyond the caveman era. Yet every attempt to change that is met with scorn. — Neale Donald Walsch

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

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. — Oscar Wilde

You must strive to become much less susceptible to influences outside of yourself and much more inclined to trust the instincts and feelings that lie within you. — Bob Proctor

White men project onto the Negro the primitive drives, the archaic powers, the uncontrolled instincts that they do not want to admit in themselves, of which they are unconscious, and that they therefore designate as the corresponding qualities of other people. — C. G. Jung

Each of us is born with two contradictory sets of instructions: a conservative tendency, made up of instincts for self-preservation, self-aggrandizement, and saving energy, and an expansive tendency made up of instincts for exploring, for enjoying novelty and risk-the curiosity that leads to creativity belongs to this set. But whereas the first tendency requires little encouragement or support from outside to motivate behaviour, the second can wilt if not cultivated. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Have faith in your own instinct and your own truth. — Debasish Mridha

You have the survival instincts of a suicidal squirrel — Marguerite Labbe

But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended. — Elizabeth Peters

American naturalist William Morton Wheeler made the English term popular as the study of "habits and instincts."11 — Frans De Waal

I would advise a stupid woman always to follow her hsuband - however, a smart woman should rely on her own instincts. — Peter Prange

Now I have demonstrated, that the convolutions of the brain are nothing but the peripheric expansion of the bundles of which it is composed; consequently the convolutions of the brain must be recognized as the parts in which the instincts, sentiments, propensities are exercised; and, in general the moral and intellectual forces. — Franz Joseph Gall

But we live on the cusp of a Renaissance in consciousness of who we truly are and, thus, we can now begin to thrive in this exciting age of our humanity's journey toward a greater life and a more fundamentally intelligent evolution of our species. — Martha Char Love

Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and abilities. — Honore De Balzac

I think so much of the horror film is about our primal instincts, and our primal instincts are not just towards violence. It's also towards sex. I feel like horror movies, as much as they're about violence, they're also about sex. It's about our instincts, so in that regard, it's crucial that you honor both of those things. — Drew Goddard

Is instinct in the head or in the heart? Off the field, I follow my good instincts which steer me in the right direction. Sometimes on the field my head leads me astray. That's what I believe. — Mario Balotelli

Had taught him to sharpen his senses - to trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was close - almost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop. The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woods - snapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing. Gorgons. For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses weren't so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigod - the half-blood son of some old Roman god. Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so he'd have that new car smell; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask. He scrambled to the west — Rick Riordan

Learning to trust your instincts, using your intuitive sense of what's best for you, is paramount for any lasting success. — Ashwin Sanghi

Working on camera is a different ballgame in the sense that it's far more intimate work, but the basics and the foundations of being able to create something that isn't necessarily your own instincts - is a character that you have inside your head - whether you're talking about television or film or theater, that still has to be the grounding work. — Rose Leslie

Be a good animal,true to your instincts. — D.H. Lawrence

Out yonder they may curse, revile, and torture one another, defile all the human instincts, make a shambles of creation (if it were in their power), but here, no, here, it is unthinkable, here there is abiding peace, the peace of God, and the serene security created by a handful of good neighbors living at one with the creature world. — Henry Miller

The thing that I really like is psychology. I love the human mind. I love the choices you make based on your experiences and instincts and your development based on such experiences and so I guess that's why I love acting so much. — Wilmer Valderrama

What we think of as our "gut instincts" are really a very complex mosaic of past experiences, deep-seated hopes, fears, desires. — Lisa Unger

You can't ever totally know what's inside of someone else, or see the kind of will someone like Magic has. You have to rely on your instincts to find people who hate losing and know how to win. — Jerry West

The Democratic Party had failed (in 1983)
'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here
moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest
molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years
became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.
p. 140 — Joe Biden

The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity. — C. G. Jung

We inhabit a world where we're taught that we can have what we desire, and tend to act on it - the least we can do is admit to it when we succumb to our instincts. — Mariella Frostrup

What could be more absurd? Yet it is nature's folly, not ours. When she set about her chief masterpiece, the making of man, she should have thought of one thing only. Instead, turning her head, looking over her shoulder, into each one of us she let creep instincts and desires which are utterly at variance with his main being, so that we are streaked, variegated, all of a mixture; the colours have run. Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? — Virginia Woolf

I think the good news for me in life is that I really trust my instincts when I come to work. Maybe less in life and in love, but in work and in comedic beats, I feel pretty confident. — Ari Graynor

Choices, Choices, Choices!
Listen to your instincts; you will make the best-choices. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Both the historian and the novelist view history as the struggle of a tiny minority, able and determined to make judgments, which is up against a vast and densely packed majority of the blind, who are led by their instincts and unable to think for themselves. — Lion Feuchtwanger

After twenty-two years of marriage, we had outgrown the challenge of making something out of nothing. The nesting instincts just weren't there anymore. I no longer hyperventilated over a melon keeper that I bought at a Tupperware party. I now worshipped at the shrine of convenience and Sara Lee. Bill no longer rushed home to make bird houses in the basement. He wanted to sleep in his BarcaLounger so he wouldn't be so tired when he went to bed.
It was as if we were closing the door on the years of struggle. It wasn't fun anymore. — Erma Bombeck

Bring your lips closer until they're touching mine." When I did, the heat was electric. "Can you feel that?" he asked, moving his lips from one corner of my mouth to the other. "That's the chemistry between man and woman. It doesn't need to be forced. You shouldn't overthink what to do with your mouth or tongue - give in to your instincts. — Dannika Dark

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

Listen to your heart.
Listen to your instincts.
Listen to inner voice.
It is your true self.
It will guide you to make the right choices. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Trust your instincts, trust your judgment. — Melissa Marr

Everything is an idea for something, something that touches the imagination, a fact that seems relevant or maybe just a statement I find interesting - either because it resonates or because I disagree. All of it is fodder for continued work or thinking on the topics. It's also important to me to record the ideas that my instincts tell me are bad. — Elizabeth Spiers

Males were expected to be ready to fuck any hole they could slip their dicks into. Boys weren't considered men unless they were influenced by their carnal instincts to spread their seed. — Maggie Young

Some of their best songs don't have bridges and choruses. So that made me think I should trust my instincts. My songs were okay, I figured. I didn't need to change anything. — Lucinda Williams

I lay awake long into the night, obsessing over Lucy's failings. Never mind the drugs and adultery; she seemed to lack the most basic parental instincts for keeping the children out of harm's way. The drip, drip, drip of her poor judgment and neglect was pushing me over the edge. — James Whitfield Thomson

Follow your instincts - you never know if your ideas will work out unless you try them. — Lulu Guinness

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy. — James Vincent McMorrow

Act before you think - your instincts are more honest than your thoughts. — Sanford Meisner

He is the wise man who has by perfect living gained the instinct of rightness by which he guides himself, whether in thought or action, who has found that centre of balance which is always over his point of contact with circumstances. He is the man whom Nature pours the riches of all her instincts. — Nilakanta Sri Ram

I follow my instincts. Maybe I'd be more successful in my business and my private life if I did things like everybody else. But I just feel like I'm different from everybody else. — Brenda Russell

When I use people I know, all of my instincts seem to go dead, and if I'm getting anywhere near myself then I can't do it. It's actually a real weakness! I hate writing personal essays, I don't think I'm especially good at it. I like just encountering [my characters], discovering them. I love the escape of just being surrounded by all these people who are nothing like people I know. But I don't find it hard to be in the middle of a different life, with a different set of habits and way of thinking and talking. That seems to come easily to me. — Jennifer Egan

The people ahead of you, living in the liberty of instinct-guided uniqueness, will welcome you, encourage you, and mentor you. They will inspire you to be a pioneer and not a poser. Only those incarcerated by their unwillingness to listen to their instincts and to take the risks required for success will seek to deter you. — T.D. Jakes

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.' — Louis D. Brandeis

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

There's no real rules about what you do [while directing]; it's just you just use your instincts as to the pacing of a film and what is repetitive and what is the minimum amount you can get away with to tell the story, that scene didn't make it in. — Peter Jackson

Most people who do have the instincts will never recognize that they do, because they don't have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential. — Donald Trump

Have I added to their building blocks, shoring them up with strength and their own magnificence? Have I shown them enough color? Did I let them have enough ice cream and leave them alone enough without my anxieties? How can we know which is the right way? We have to go with our inner instincts and the feeling in our bones. But I can contribute to their growing cells, show them some foods that are better than others, walk with them, and encourage their own tastes. I can teach them to love and appreciate food, help them treat their bodies like gold, listen to them wanting more or less. The rest I have to trust. — Tessa Kiros

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts ... good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don't hurt. They're not painful. That's not just with somebody you want to marry, but it's with the friends that you choose. It's with the people you surround yourselves with. — Michelle Obama

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

But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then. — William Ralph Inge

Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. — Virginia Woolf

I would say that when I came into this chapter of my filmmaking career, starting with 'The Fighter,' there was this sense that you have to go from your instincts and you have to go from your gut, and you have to not hesitate and you have to not hedge. — David O. Russell

Gut instincts were supposed to be the most trustworthy and it was in her gut where she felt the butterflies. The heart had its purpose as a blood pumping muscle, but love ... love blossomed and sparked through the body - originating from the gut. — Nikki Jefford

Looking to future generations, there is no cause to fear that the social instincts will grow weaker ... the social instincts, - the prime principle of man's moral constitution - with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you; do ye to them likewise"; and this lies at the foundation of morality. — Charles Darwin

The critical mind is too thin and cold, thinking itself will help little and reason will be of small avail; only the spirit of reasonableness, a sort of warm, glowing, emotional and intuitive thinking, joined with compassion, will insure us against a reversion to our ancestral type. Only the development of our life to bring it into harmony with our instincts can save us. I consider the education of our senses and our emotions rather more important than the education of our ideas. — Lin Yutang

You will find ambiguity a great ally on your road to power. Give a sign of Slytherin on one day, and contradict it with a sign of Gryffindor the next; and the Slytherins will be enabled to believe what they wish, while the Gryffindors argue themselves into supporting you as well. So long as there is uncertainty, people can believe whatever seems to be to their own advantage. And so long as you appear strong, so long as you appear to be winning, their instincts will tell them that their advantage lies with you. Walk always in the shadow, and light and darkness both will follow. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out. — Michael Burke

I won't have any competitive instincts in any sports, other than golf. I can't see being competitive in sports any more. — Michael Jordan

I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I've learned to trust my own instincts and I've also learned to take risks. — Sue Grafton

It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I have tried to keep some hold on the religion of my youth by interpreting its basic doctrines as symbols that gave popular expression to philosophic truths. I can rephrase "original sin" as man's inherited disposition to follow those instincts of pugnacity, sexual promiscuity, and greed which may have been necessary in the hunting stage of human history, but which need a variety of controls in an organized society that guarantees its members protection against violence, theft, and rape; we are born with the taint of ancestral passions in our blood. — Will Durant

Thigpen gave her that cringing, sly feeling incompetents in denial always engendered. In government service, she'd felt it enough times to trust her instincts. Randy — Nevada Barr