Lorenz Quotes & Sayings

Falling in love with love
Is falling for make-believe. — Lorenz Hart

Directing, what little I know, is as much knowing when to step in as when to step out. — Robert Lorenz

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species. — Konrad Lorenz

One of the most dangerously vicious circles menacing the continued existence of all mankind arises through that grim striving for the highest possible position within the ranked order, in other words, the reckless pursuit of power which combines with an insatiable greed of neurotic proportions that the results of acquired power confer. — Konrad Lorenz

I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man: It is we. — Konrad Lorenz

The whole of a human being is merely a vertebra. — Lorenz Oken

The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be. — Konrad Lorenz

The human mind, in taking us down the path of technocracy, has become the adversary of life itself and collaterally the adversary of the human soul. — Konrad Lorenz

All living beings have received their weapons through the same process of evolution that moulded their impulses and inhibitions; for the structural plan of the body and the system of behaviour of a species are parts of the same whole ... Wordsworth is right: there is only one being in possession of weapons which do not grow on his body and of whose working plan, therefore, the instincts of his species know nothing and in the usage of which he has no correspondingly adequate inhibition. — Konrad Lorenz

The neuro-physiological organization which we call instinct functions in a blindly mechanical way, particularly apparent when its function goes wrong. — Konrad Lorenz

All the advantages that man has gained from his ever-deepening understanding of the natural world that surrounds him, his technological, chemical and medical progress, all of which should seem to alleviate human suffering ... tends instead to favor humanity's destruction. — Konrad Lorenz

Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive man. — Konrad Lorenz

I'm a great believer in conversational rhythm. I think in terms of rhythmic dialogue. It's so easy, you can talk naturally. It's like peas rolling off a knife. Take the great screen actors and actresses, Bette Davis, Eddie Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Spencer Tracy. They all talk in rhythm. And rhythm and movement are the life of the screen. — Lorenz Hart

Man appears to be the missing link between anthropoid apes and human beings. — Konrad Lorenz

During its development the animal passes through all stages of the animal kingdom. The foetus is a representation of all animal classes in time. — Lorenz Oken

I believe-and human psychologists, particularly psychoanalysts should test this-that present-day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive. It is more than probable that the evil effects of the human aggressive drives, explained by Sigmund Freud as the results of a special death wish, simply derive from the fact that in prehistoric times intra-specific selection bred into man a measure of aggression drive for which in the social order today he finds no adequate outlet. — Konrad Lorenz

The distance at which all shooting weapons take effect screens the killer against the stimulus sensation which would otherwise activate his killing inhibitions. The deep, emotional layers of our personality simply do not register the fact that the crooking of the finger to release a shot tears the entrails of another man. — Konrad Lorenz

The eye takes a person into the world. The ear brings the world into a human being. — Lorenz Oken

If you confine yourself to this Skinnerian technique, you study nothing but the learning apparatus and you leave out everything that is different in octopi, crustaceans, insects and vertebrates. In other words, you leave out everything that makes a pigeon a pigeon, a rat a rat, a man a man, and, above all, a healthy man healthy and a sick man sick. — Konrad Lorenz

All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi. — Konrad Lorenz

In nature we find not only that which is expedient, but also everything which is not so inexpedient as to endanger the existence of the species. — Konrad Lorenz

For me, baseball just brings up a lot of nostalgic, happy feelings because I enjoyed it as a kid, and I liked being out there playing in the sun, and it was a simpler time for all of us. — Robert Lorenz

Every mutation through a new combination of genetic factors that provides the organism with a new opportunity for coming to terms with the conditions of its environment signifies no more and no less than that new information about this environment has got into that organic system. Adaptation is essentially a cognitive process. — Konrad Lorenz

Every actor's different. It seems to me the older veterans, they don't need to hear as much. But younger actors need a little more feedback, a little more assurance, and that's fine. — Robert Lorenz

Both Lorenz's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "The island? Are ju suggesting that the island is alive?"
The vampire shrugged. "I don't know. I do feel something here. It's almost like a vampire presence but something else as well. It's not something I'm used to. It's very strange. Honestly, I do feel as if this island is alive. — A.L. Wilson

Humor and knowledge are the two great hopes of our culture. — Konrad Lorenz

Natural selection does not give any preference at all to anything that, in the long run, could be advantageous for the species but blindly rewards everything that, momentarily, affords greater procreative success. — Konrad Lorenz

Love isn't something you do, it isn't something you can make happen. Love is an instinct, a deep part of the human soul that reaches out of you to find the one meant to be with you. You can't fight it, nor can you bend it to your will. Just like breathing and eating, it is a part of you that you cannot live without. — Kerri E. Lorenz

It ought to be realized by all dog owners that obesity shortens a dog's life quite considerably, a life which is much too short anyhow. — Konrad Lorenz

The appeal of the cat lies in the very fact that she has formed no close bond with [man], that she has the uncompromising independence of a tiger or a leopard while she is hunting in his stables and barns: that she still remains mysterious and remote when she is rubbing herself gently against the legs of her mistress or purring contentedly in front of the fire. — Konrad Lorenz

We must wholeheartedly believe in free will. If free will is a reality, we shall have made the correct choice. If it is not, we shall still not have made an incorrect choice, becauee we shall not have made any choice at all, not having a free will to do so. — Edward Norton Lorenz

The rushed existence into which industrialized, commercialized man has precipitated himself is actually a good example of an inexpedient development caused entirely by competition between members of the same species. Human beings of today are attacked by so-called manager diseases, high blood pressure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and torturing neuroses: they succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for cultural interests. — Konrad Lorenz

In popular culture, the term "butterfly effect" is almost always misused. It has become synonymous with "leverage" - the idea of a small thing that has a big impact, with the implication that, like a lever, it can be manipulated to a desired end. This misses the point of Lorenz's insight. The reality is that small things in a complex system may have no effect or a massive one, and it is virtually impossible to know which will turn out to be the case. — Stanley McChrystal

The scientific principles of the convergence and refraction of light are very confusing, and quite frankly I can't make head or tail of them, even when my friend Dr. Lorenz explains them to me. — Lemony Snicket

Nothing can better express the feelings of the scientist towards the great unity of the laws of nature than in Immanuel Kant's words: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing awe: the stars above me and the moral law within me." ... Would he, who did not yet know of the evolution of the world of organisms, be shocked that we consider the moral law within us not as something given, a priori, but as something which has arisen by natural evolution, just like the laws of the heavens? — Konrad Lorenz

I believe that present day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive. — Konrad Lorenz

This is it, this was my new home, or prison I wasn't entirely sure yet which. I am not sure if I am ready for anything that is to come, but it seems I have very little choice. — Kerri E. Lorenz

Wide awake I can make my most fantastic dreams come true. — Lorenz Hart

You dress like that all the time. Like a man."My eyes widened. "I don't dress like a man," I said. "I dress practically. Because I live on a farm. And do icky, farmy things all the time."
Lorenz grinned, which was breathtaking. "A cute little man. — Cate Tiernan

Quitting is a hiccup for losers. And down they go. — Lorenz Font

Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is. — Konrad Lorenz

The scientist knows very well that he is approaching ultimate truth only in an asymptotic curve and is barred from ever reaching it; but at the same time he is proudly aware of being indeed able to determine whether a statement is a nearer or a less near approach to the truth. — Konrad Lorenz

I had a dream I was in heaven standing at the gates. They shined so brightly ass they were gold and reflecting all the light. I could see you there just on the other side so I screamed your name. But the angels, they wouldn't let me in. They wouldn't let me have you, so I stuck dinomite to the locks and blew the gates away. I blew the angels away just so I could hold you for a single second more before hell ripped me away. — Kerri E. Lorenz

Man is the summit, the crown of nature's development, and must comprehend everything that has preceded him, even as the fruit includes within itself all the earlier developed parts of the plant. In a word, Man must represent the whole world in miniature. — Lorenz Oken

Lorenz was the charismatic, flamboyant thinker - he didn't conduct a single statistical analysis in his life - while Tinbergen did the nitty-gritty of actual data collection. — Frans De Waal

I am convinced that of all the people on the two sides of the great curtain, the space pilots are the least likely to hate each other. Like the late Erich von Holst, I believe that the tremendous and otherwise not quite explicable public interest in space flight arises from the subconscious realization that it helps to preserve peace. May it continue to do so! — Konrad Lorenz

How we love sequestering, where no pests are pestering. — Lorenz Hart

The competition between human beings destroys with cold and diabolic brutality ... Under the pressure of this competitive fury we have not only forgotten what is useful to humanity as a whole, but even that which is good and advantageous to the individual. [ ... ] One asks, which is more damaging to modern humanity: the thirst for money or consuming haste ... in either case, fear plays a very important role: the fear of being overtaken by one's competitors, the fear of becoming poor, the fear of making wrong decisions or the fear of not being up to snuff ... — Konrad Lorenz

Let's here it for modern dentistry, eh? I said, and he grimaced. Actually, as much as people dislike going to the dentist now, try doing it two hundred years ago, when having a cavity meant some quack knocking it out with a chisel and a hammer in the market square. With no anesthetic. — Cate Tiernan

The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. — Konrad Lorenz

Few animals display their mood via facial expressions as distinctly as cats. — Konrad Lorenz

When love congeals It soon reveals The faint aroma of performing seals, The double-crossing of a pair of heels. I wish I were in love again! — Lorenz Hart

But man should abstain from judging his innocently cruel fellow creatures, for even if nature sometimes "shrieks against his creed", what pain does he himself not inflict upon the living creatures that he hunts for pleasure and not for food? — Konrad Lorenz

From Lankaster to Lorenz, scientists have gotten it wrong. Parasites are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life. If there hadn't been such high walls dividing scientists who study life - the zoologists, the immunologists, the mathematical biologists, the ecologists - parasites might have been recognized sooner as not disgusting, or at least not merely disgusting. If parasites were so feeble, so lazy, how was it that they could manage to live inside every free-living species and infect billions of people? How could they change with time so that medicines that could once treat them became useless? How could parasites defy vaccines, which could corral brutal killers like smallpox and polio? — Carl Zimmer

Could it be that we made arbitrary decisions at some point in the past (like the goslings that adopted Lorenz as their parent) and have built our lives on them ever since, assuming that the original decisions were wise? — Dan Ariely

But even if, as Johnson argues, power and dominance serve no meaningful purpose, they always incur costs. In biology, the cost can be painfully visible. During courtship, the argus cock pheasant spreads his large secondary wing feathers, which are decorated with beautiful eye spots; the bigger they are, the more they stimulate the female. And the longer the feathers, the more progeny the cock will produce. So the more beautiful cocks produce more descendants. That should be a competitive advantage. But the evolution of the argus pheasant has run itself into a blind alley because the most gorgeous cock has feathers so huge and unwieldy that they may cause him to be eaten by a predator, because he can't fly away fast enough. Oskar Heinroth, the teacher of Konrad Lorenz, commented: 'Next to the wings of the argus pheasant, the hectic life of western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection! — Margaret Heffernan

Man has been driven out of the paradise in which he could trust his instincts. — Konrad Lorenz

We do not take humor seriously enough. — Konrad Lorenz

Most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems and that, in turn, is the reason why man, whenever he comes into contact with nature, threatens to kill the natural system in which and from which he live. — Konrad Lorenz

When a butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, it can eventually cause a hurricane in another. — Edward Norton Lorenz

I get too hungry for dinner at eight. I like the theater, but never come late. I never bother with people I hate. That's why the lady is a tramp. — Lorenz Hart

More than any other product of human scientific culture scientific knowledge is the collective property of all mankind. — Konrad Lorenz

There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog — Konrad Lorenz

Hate California
it's cold and it's damp. — Lorenz Hart

It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young. — Konrad Lorenz

A man sufficiently gifted with humor is in small danger of succumbing to flattering delusions about himself, because he cannot help perceiving what a pompous ass he would become if he did. — Konrad Lorenz

The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it. — Konrad Lorenz

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. Ralph Waldo Emerson. — Lorenz Font

It must be the duty of racial hygiene to be attentive to a more severe elimination of morally inferior human beings than is the case today ... We should literally replace all factors responsible for selection in a natural and free life ... In prehistoric times of humanity, selection for endurance, heroism, social usefulness, etc. was made solely by hostile outside factors. This role must be assumed by a human organization; otherwise, humanity will, for lack of selective factors, be annihilated by the degenerative phenomena that accompany domestication. — Konrad Lorenz

ROA, KONRAD LORENZ'S RAVEN, raided clotheslines to steal ladies' underwear. Roa had been exploring a neighbor's laundry hung on the line just when he was called. He came, taking a small transportable item with him, a pair of panties. When he got a reward of tasty food, he made the association of panties and food. Henceforth, as expected according to classical conditioning theory, he brought these items on his own to redeem them for savory snacks. — Bernd Heinrich

Hatred of humanity and love of animals make a very bad combination. — Konrad Lorenz

The cells are thus the stomachs of which the plant has millions like mouths. — Lorenz Oken

Lorenz saw it differently. Yes, you could change the weather. You could make it do something different from what it would otherwise have done. But if you did, then you would never know what it would otherwise have done. It would be like giving an extra shuffle to an already well-shuffled pack of cards. You know it will change your luck, but you don't know whether for better or worse. — James Gleick

All scientific knowledge to which man owes his role as master of the world arose from playful activities. — Konrad Lorenz

But unlike most physicists, Marcus eventually learned Lorenz's lesson, that a deterministic system can produce much more than just periodic behavior. He knew to look for wild disorder, and he knew that islands of structure could appear within the disorder. So he brought to the problem of the Great Red Spot an understanding that a complex system can give rise to turbulence and coherence at the same time. He could work within an emerging discipline that was creating its own tradition of using the computer as an experimental tool. And he was willing to think of himself as a new kind of scientist: not primarily an astronomer, not a fluid dynamicist, not an applied mathematician, but a specialist in chaos. — James Gleick

Painters of paintings, writers of books, never could tell the half. — Lorenz Hart

Every danger loses some of its terror once its causes are understood. — Konrad Lorenz

I've seen a film in which Dr Lorenz pointed out the difference between two colonies of cattle egrets, one free and one caged. The free ones, who had to provide for themselves, were monogamous and energetic and kept their numbers within ecologically reasonable limits. The captive egrets were promiscuous, idle, overbreeding and presumably going to hell fast. — Russell Hoban

I believe that both art and the human striving for cognitive comprehension are manifest forms of the grand game in which nothing more is stipulated than the game's rules; both art and actively solicited perceptions are but special cases of the recurring creative act to which we owe our existence. — Konrad Lorenz

In the almost film-like flitting-by of modern life, a man needs something to tell him, from time to time, that he is still himself, and nothing can give him this assurance in so comforting a manner as the "four feet trotting behind". — Konrad Lorenz

Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot. — Konrad Lorenz

We had better dispense with the personification of evil, because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war. — Konrad Lorenz

The lovely loving and the hateful hates. — Lorenz Hart

I sit here and tell everyone else they are beautiful just the way they are flaws and all. Then I turn to the mirror and pick myself apart. Huh I guess everyone is a hypocrite in one way or another. — Kerri E. Lorenz

Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing. — Konrad Lorenz

Mathematicians seem to have no difficulty in creating new concepts faster than the old ones become well understood. — Edward Norton Lorenz

He who has seen the intimate beauty of nature cannot tear himself away from it again. He must become either a poet or a naturalist and, if his eyes are keen and his powers of observation sharp enough, he may well become both. — Konrad Lorenz

Visualize yourself confronted with the task of killing, one after the other, a cabbage, a fly, a fish, a lizard, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, a monkey and a baby chimpanzee. In the unlikely case that you should experience no greater inhibitions in killing the chimpanzee than in destroying the cabbage or the fly, my advice to you is to commit suicide at your earliest possible convenience, because you are a weird monstrosity and a public danger. — Konrad Lorenz

'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer. — Konrad Lorenz

There must be something unique about man because otherwise, evidently, the ducks would be lecturing about Konrad Lorenz, and the rats would be writing papers about B. F. Skinner. — Jacob Bronowski

Just thinking that my dog loves me more than I love him, I feel shame. — Konrad Lorenz

In opposition to the absolutely and directly false Heideggerian theses attributing to Aquinas an onto-theo-logical metaphysics of Being, Aquinas's actual and genuine conception of God is articulated in the famous formulation according to which God is ipsum esse per se subsistens, Being itself subsisting through itself.

God is not a being (ens,) among other beings, thus not anything like the highest, first, or maximal being.

(p. 43) — Lorenz B. Puntel

Unless the object of the singer's affection is a vampire, surely what Hart means is unphotogenic. Only vampires are unphotographable, but affectionate '-enic' rhymes are hard to come by. — Stephen Sondheim

The missing link between animals and the real human being is most likely ourselves. — Konrad Lorenz

Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and in Man attained self-consciousness. — Lorenz Oken

The human soul is very much older than the human mind. — Konrad Lorenz

The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans. — Konrad Lorenz

Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing. — Konrad Lorenz

Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is what we perceive as a value. — Konrad Lorenz

For Lorenz, virgins were not a part of his world. He was skeptical of many things I said. Later, when the serology reports proved that what I had said was not a lie, that I had been a virgin, and that I was telling the truth, he could not respect me enough. I think he felt responsible, somehow. It was, after all, in his world where this hideous thing had happened to me. A world of violent crime. — Alice Sebold