L Instinct Quotes & Sayings

...most ghosts are a rag and a bone and a hank of hair at best--a memory fragment stuck on continual loop, just dust and PKE and water-vapour with no real "there" there. Leftover fragments of psychic energy deluded into believing in their own personality; an echo cobbled together from memory and pain, with no self-awareness as such 'cept what we give them. Survival instinct, with no survival. — Gemma Files

It's interesting, I had absolutely no maternal instinct. I'm much more interested in young people now. — Holland Taylor

The immediate instinct was to assuage her concerns, to tell her yes, because I knew that was what she wanted to hear, — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he'd got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the HRUUUGH! But is this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city, the only sound those animals would make was "sizzle." But the nursery was full of the conspiracy with bah-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.
One evening, after a trying day, he'd tried the Vimes street version:
Where's my daddy?
Is that my daddy?
He goes "Bugrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"
He is Foul Ol' Ron!
No, that's not my daddy!
It had been going really well when Vimes heard a meaningful little cough from the doorway, wherein stood Sybil. Next day, Young Sam, with a child's unerring instinct for this sort of thing, said "Buglit!" to Purity. And that, although Sybil never raised the subject even when they were alone, was that. From then on Sam stuck rigidly to the authorized version. — Terry Pratchett

A happy marriage perhaps represents the ideal of human relationship
a setting in which each partner, while acknowledging the need of the other, feels free to be what he or she by nature is: a relationship in which instinct as well as intellect can find expression; in which giving and taking are equal; in which each accepts the other, and I confronts Thou. — Anthony Storr

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy. — Colum McCann

I didn't even think, just went with instinct. Opening my arms, I felt the tiny life placed there. Wrapping him close and tight to my chest, I felt my heart swelling with love. So small, so delicate. Using the tip of my finger, I traced his face, his little lips, his chin and cheeks, his eyes. "You're right, Tea, he is beautiful."

"He has your eyes," she whispered. "We still need to name him."

"Christian Simon Doyle. After your dad and your idiot friend."

Her voice sounded raw when she spoke again. "That's perfect."

"You're perfect. Thank you, Tea, thank you for my son, for our life, thank you for not giving up on me. — L.A. Fiore

They were opposite in so many ways, but it was the kind of difference that was balancing-her softness with his steel, his instinct and her logic. He was teaching her by example to have courage in the face of fear, and she badly wanted to help him give voice to his grief and understand it was all right to feel pain. — Melissa Cutler

That's about when people realized that this wasn't some kind of show, an optical illusion or something to stand around and point at. They might not have understood what they were seeing, but whatever instinct humans possessed that triggered that flight response kicked in.
It became all about survival- about getting away from the big, bad unknown- while trying to snap pictures of the spectacle at the same time.
Got to love the near-innate human response to capture everything on film. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

We must keep our heart open in the very moment our instinct tells us to shut it down. When we transcend this critical point, we are finally and truly able to deepen our love and strengthen our bond. — Kate McGahan

By way of personal instinct, I have an inherent distaste for grandiose rhetorical statements, which don't have any substantive dimension to them — Kevin Rudd

I don't think about making sexy clothes. It's just my instinct to make them. — Donatella Versace

Instinct is the elusive magic that happens when art collides with hard-won craft. — Larry Brooks

She is held from within by every hardened layer of untouched instinct which has accumulated through the centuries; she is opposed from without by such mountain ranges of prejudice as would be insurmountable if prejudice were made of anything real. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life and induces what I have called Divergence of Character. In the next chapter I shall discuss the complex and little known laws of variation and of correlation of growth. In the four succeeding chapters, the most apparent and gravest difficulties on the theory will be given: namely, first, the difficulties of transitions, or in understanding how a simple being or a simple organ can be changed and perfected into a highly developed being or elaborately constructed organ; secondly the subject of Instinct, or the mental powers of animals, thirdly, Hybridism, or the infertility of species and the fertility of varieties when intercrossed; and fourthly, the imperfection of the Geological Record. In — Charles Darwin

The shadow pulled away, moving forward quickly. My first instinct screamed Arum and to push away from it. I reached blindly for the obsidian necklace, realizing too late I didn't have it anymore.
"You're still having nightmares," the shadow said.
At the sound of the familiar voice, fear gave way to rage so potent that it tasted like a battery acid. I was on my feet before I knew it.
"Blake," I spat. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

There are rare and precious moments, when one is a stranger in a room, that one can examine its inhabitants with little or no prejudice. Without knowing so much as their names, it is possible to form an assessment based purely upon observation and instinct. — Alan Bradley

Wimsey stooped for an empty sardine-tin which lay, horribly battered, at his feet, and slung it idly into the quag. It struck the surface with a noice like a wet kiss, and vanished instantly. With that instinct which prompts one, when depressed, to wallow in every circumstance of gloom, Peter leaned sadly against the hurdles and abandoned himself to a variety of shallow considerations upon (1) The vanity of human wishes; (2) Mutability; (3) First love; (4) The decay of idealism; (5) The aftermath of the Great war; (6) Birth-control; and (7) The fallacy of free-will. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Some people look for the obvious and make decisions based on that. However, sensitive people look for the subtle things in life. They observe what is missed, overlooked and rarely observed by others. They dwell at a deeper level of perception that clings to signs, body language and what is left unspoken. They are observers that will trust their instinct first over any fact or well delivered speech. — Shannon L. Alder

She was alone and destitute in a world of pointless carnage. By an eight-hundred-year-old Sepahrdic tradition she ad been since the age of twelve and a half "bogeret l'reshut nafsha"
an adult wit authority over her own soul. The Torah taught, Choose life. And so, rather than die of pride, Sofia Mendes sold what she had to sell, and she survived. — Mary Doria Russell

Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull. It is the sex instinct which makes women seem beautiful, which they are once in a blue moon, and men seem wise and brave, which they never are at all. Throttle it, denaturalize it, take it away, and human existence would be reduced to the prosaic, laborious, boresome, imbecile level of life in an anthill. — H.L. Mencken

C.J. had once believed that he understood who he was, what he was about, what he was capable of. But when the moment came to act upon these convictions, he discovered that his knowledge of self was faulty. Had his lack of killer instinct been a momentary lapse, first time jitters? Or was there more to it than that? If not the fearless, remorseless man he supposed himself to be, then just who was he? — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

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

If you're serious about what you're doing, you've got to keep your head and follow your instinct. Maybe you won't reach the same dizzy heights as others, but you will get something back. — Jonny Lee Miller

My urge to photograph is activated by an almost biological instinct for preservation from disorder. The camera is a mechanical apparatus that extends my natural ability and desire for meaningful organization. I need it to survive. — Arthur Tress

Because trying to see all sides, such an instinct is particularly Jewish. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Nothing is so deceptive as human reasoning, - nothing so slippery and reversible as what we have decided to call 'logic.' The truest compass of life is spiritual instinct. — Marie Corelli

By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distateful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go', I went; 'come', I came; 'do this', I dit it. But I did not love my servitude [ ... ]. — Charlotte Bronte

Trust your instinct in areas you have some background because your instinct is informed and not blind. - L. R. W. Lee — L.R.W. Lee

Men have been found to deny woman intellect; they have credited her with instinct, with intuition, with a capacity to correlate cause and effect much as a dog connects its collar with a walk. — W. L. George

Always trust your gut instinct. There will come a time when you will understand, but for now trust God has a plan greater than you have ever imagined. — Shannon L. Alder

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air - that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave ... In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen ... I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law. — H.L. Mencken

Low budgets force you to be more creative. Sometimes, with too much money, time and equipment, you can over-think. My way, you can use your gut instinct. — Robert Rodriguez

I need you more, Anastasia. These last few days have been purgatory. All my instinct tell me to let you go, tell me I don't deserve you. — E.L. James

When it comes to their kids, parents are all just instinct and hope. And fear. p.276 — M.L. Stedman

Oh, fuck the paperwork. The words come from nowhere and on instinct I grab her and push her against the wall. Clasping both her hands, I pin them above her head so she can't touch me, and once she's secure, I twist my other hand in her hair while my lips seek and find hers. — E.L. James

Try now, try now, it isn't too late'
...
Excitement, like hysteria, bubbled up in me from a hundred unsealed springs. If it isn't too late, I thought confusedly, neither it is too early: I haven't much time left to spoil. It was the last flicker of instinct of self-preservation which had failed me so signally at Brandham Hall. — L.P. Hartley

Her mother, by showing her off all through childhood, had trained into her the instinct to defeat the expectations of others. — Stephen L. Carter

I had been brought up in the law and had this sort of instinct that international law operates and was there to protect principles and not to be the plaything of power and might - which I now know, of course, to be an absolute nonsense. International law should be spelled l-o-r-e. — David Lange

Some instinct older than civilization was telling her to run, to flee.
She didn't move. — L.J.Smith

The survival instinct prove that we are alive. (L'instinct de survie - Prouve qu'on est en vie.) — Charles De Leusse

Every instinct told me I needed to run, that there was something about this beautiful stranger I couldn't resist. — A.L. Jackson

The thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. — Freya Stark

That's the Ankh-Morpork instinct, Vimes thought. Run away, and then stop and see if anything interesting is going to happen to other people. — Terry Pratchett

After I had my kids, I realized it's pretty much all about instinct - you have to do what's right for you. Everyone has an opinion, but it was all about what you do or don't do. I was so overloaded, so I let my children dictate the way things were supposed to go, and things fell into place. — Tori Spelling

Notwithstanding the sight of all our miseries, which press upon us and take us by the throat, we have an instinct which we cannot repress, and which lifts us up. — Blaise Pascal

The juvenile adage Never kiss and tell had a sound moral instinct behind it. — Alexander McCall Smith

I wanted to touch the edges of my life - the same instinct, I think, that inspires young mortals to flip tractors and enlist in foreign wars. — Karen Russell

It was a common fallacy among survivors that zombies were strong. This was incorrect. The average zombie, by itself, was weak with little muscle control. The creatures were pure instinct. Whatever intelligence they had was gone with their first death, lost forever. It was their numbers that gave them strength. A strong man or woman with a weapon and their wits could easily take out ten to fifteen zombies. But behind those ten to fifteen lay fifty or a hundred more, untiring, unrelenting in their search for flesh. A human tired, a zombie didn't. This was their greatest strength. — Robert Morganbesser

Real poetry is about life as it is lived by instinct, not by philosophy. — Anuradha Bhattacharyya

The voice within is the voice of a sacred soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Instinct's the iron skeleton under all our ideas of free will. — Stephen King

Yet otters have not been hunters in water long enough for the habit to become an instinct. — Henry Williamson

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

Our cultural instinct is to wait to get pickedNo one is going to pick you. Pick yourself. — Seth Godin

The startling thing about her simplifying instinct was that the more she did away with fashion in search for comfort and the more she passed over conventions as she obeyed spontaneity, the more disturbing her incredible beauty became and the more provocative she become to men. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am. — O.R. Melling

My instinct is to assume that we consumers are an inconsistent bunch. We like competition if it delivers low prices, but grumble if it delivers the bad news that prices need to go up. — Evan Davis

The most savage and voracious animal never kills to increase his wealth, or open a way to grandeur. It slays to satisfy his hunger, or in a natural defense of his own life, or of those whom he is prompted by instinct to preserve. — Mary Collyer

As you grow into a fine young woman, try not to make excuses. If you know the bottom's safe - jump. If you know it's returned - love. If you really want it - fairly take it. If you run, do it 'til your lungs burn. Laugh until your cheeks ache. And forgive, as you'll always want to be forgiven. I didn't say forget, and certainly your spirit won't allow you to be a doormat, but forgive. Ask yourself always, if they die tonight.. was I really that mad? The answer will almost always be no. So act accordingly. — S.E. Hall

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

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene. — Hannah Arendt

Your soul may be trampled in times of troubles. But if your spirit is strong, you will survive. — Lailah Gifty Akita

You're not my boss, Alan." He returned to his game. Honestly, my first instinct was to smack the kid, but i doubted that would fly with his parents. — Richard Paul Evans

Dance music ... stirs some barbaric instinct - lulled asleep in our sober lives - you forget centuries of civilization in a second, & yield to that strange passion which sends you madly whirling round the room. — Virginia Woolf

Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable. — Tom Robbins

I wanted to kiss her, she was beautiful again to me. But I dared not risk it. It wasn't only that I would have frightened her, it was that the desire to kill her was almost overpowering. Some fierce purely male instinct in me wanted to claim her now simply because I had claimed her in another way before. — Anne Rice

In fact there is only your own instinct?
Not instinct, Hastings. Instinct is a bad word. It is my knowledge-my experience-that tells me that something about that letter is wrong- — Agatha Christie

Instinct tells me to go to Hannah's, but she doesn't live there anymore and that's when I realize the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometers away from home.
Hannah, however, did the unforgivable.
She deserted me in our own backyard. — Melina Marchetta

We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting in harmony as if by instinct. If they were instinctively violent, the world would end in no time. — Mahatma Gandhi

I don't know if cats understand what their owners say, but they do have a strong survival instinct. — Manel Loureiro

Sexuality is a human instinct as natural as hunger or thirst. — Alexandra Kollontai

The modern instinct is that if the heart of man is evil, there is nothing that remains good. But the older feeling was that if the heart of man was ever so evil, there was something that remained good
goodness remained good. — G.K. Chesterton

Every creature has a survival instinct. It looks like fear but it's not the same thing. Fear isn't the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential. — John Scalzi