Natural Instincts Quotes & Sayings

Marriage is a tyranny, a mortification of man's natural instincts. Man needs a multiplicity of relationships. — Federico Fellini

The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him. — George Santayana

The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their equals and in the intercourse of private life, tends to make them look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and speedily suggests to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living at such times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any one of them at a venture, and search if you can his most deep-seated instincts; and you will find that, of all governments, he will soonest conceive and most highly value that government whose head he has himself elected, and whose administration he may control. — Alexis De Tocqueville

In the name of being social, we learn to ignore our natural instinct.
Society keeps dictating do's and don'ts which we keep obeying day in and day out. — Chitralekha Paul

Human beings are very skilled at pretending they are not what they are, and ignoring what is inside them. This includes ignoring their natural instincts, their primal instincts, because they have this notion that they are evolving faster than other life, have evolved further, and are therefore superior. Take racism for example. As abhorrent as people may consider it, human beings are essentially tribal, and racism is simply a survival instinct embedded deep inside us, born from thousands of years of survival and experience. — Robert Black

It has taken a great deal of energy, which has not been so difficult to summon as the necessary patience to wait, simply wait much of the time - until my instincts assured me that I had assembled my materials in proper order for a final welding into their natural form. — Hart Crane

Fear is an old word that derives from the same roots that give us "fare," as in "thoroughfare." Although it often causes people to run away from troubling situations, at a deeper level, fear means "to go through it." The hidden purpose of fear involves bringing us closer to natural instincts for survival, but also for awakening inner resources and sharpening our intelligence when faced with true danger and the basic need to change. — Michael Meade

The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. — Mark Twain

Everyone desires relationships and community. Most people want to belong to a cohesive, like-minded group. It staves off loneliness. It promotes identity. These are natural and very human instincts. — Joshua Ferris

It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. — Joseph Conrad

Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but like other beautiful works of His, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. — Charles Dickens

I think my response to hearing that alarm would have been to grab an extinguisher and start fighting for my life, but over the past 21 years that instinct has been trained out of me and another set of responses has been trained in, represented by three words: warn, gather, work. "Working the problem" is NASA-speak for descending one decision tree after another, methodically looking for a solution until you run out of oxygen. We practice the "warn, gather, work" protocol for responding to fire alarms so frequently that it doesn't just become second nature; it actually supplants our natural instincts. — Chris Hadfield

Breastfeeding does not have to be hard. Breastfeeding is natural. With rare exceptions, it becomes hard only because of all the interference caused by the medicalization of birth and unsupportive culture. Animals breastfeed instinctively with no need for supplementation, classes, or support. We as humans also have these instincts. We have become so disconnected. Breastfeeding my children has been one of my greatest joys in life, and I am filled with sorrow when I imagine how many mothers and infants haven't been able to experience this because of misinformation. — Adrienne Carmack

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

There are certain things which are human nature," he asserted with an owl-like look, "which always have been and always will be, which can't be changed."
Amory looked from the small man to the big man helplessly. "Listen to that! That's what makes me discouraged with progress. Listen to that! I can name offhand over one hundred natural phenomena that have been changed by the will of man
a hundred instincts in man that have been wiped out or are now held in check by civilization. What this man here just said has been for thousands of years the last refuge of the associated mutton-heads of the world. It negates the efforts of every scientist, statesman, moralist, reformer, doctor, and philosopher that ever gave his life to humanity's service. It's a flat impeachment of all that's worth while in human nature. Every person over twenty-five years old who makes that statement in cold blood ought to be deprived of the franchise. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Luna, the thought of losing you is like losing my heart. You have me completely, and if you died because I wasn't there to protect you, it would kill me. I know you're strong, I know you're different, but that doesn't change my natural instincts. I still have to protect you. — Justine Winter

Or society places a supreme value on control
hiding what you feel. Our culture mocks "primitive cultures" and prides itself on supression of natural instincts and impulses. — Jim Morrison

I don't feel in a kind of race or competition with him or anybody else, because that kind of reactive thing isn't good, or isn't useful for natural creative instincts — Kenneth Branagh

The instinctual nature tells us when enough is enough. It is prudent and life preserving....sometimes it is difficult for us to realize when we are losing our instincts, for it is often an insidious process that does not occur all in one day, but rather over a long period of time. Too, the loss or deadening of instinct is often entirely supported by the surrounding culture, and sometimes even by other women who endure the loss of instinct as a way of achieving belonging in a culture that keeps no nourishing habitat for the natural woman. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

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

We've been trained since kindergarten: Be nice, be kind, share, put on a smile. So we're conditioned to squash our natural selfish instincts, and that's the right thing for society. — Bryan Cranston

Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

As humans, we don't know what we should do. We don't have those instincts like God has given animals. We have to see to know where we are going. It is just a natural human emotion to look for people to emulate. — Tony Dungy

Maybe the wild ones weren't hyperactive; maybe they were misplaced heroes. After all, in another era, the same behavior that is now throttled with Ritalin and disciplinary rap sheets would have been the mark of greatness, the early blooming of a true champion. Riordan played with the idea, imagining the what-ifs. What if strong, assertive children were redirected rather than discouraged? What if there were a place for them, an outdoor training camp that felt like a playground, where they could cut loose with all those natural instincts to run, wrestle, climb, swim, and explore? — Christopher McDougall

Yet this natural empathy and connection with other animals is not the final word, and it leads to no predetermined outcomes. There are competing instincts, whether greed, desire, or more a Tavistock and specific I'm pluses like hunting and killing that canight trump our inclination toward more compassionate answer nurturing ways. We can be pulled in opposite directions, and it may be social pressure or conditioning or reason that pushes us down one path or the other. — Wayne Pacelle

Vanessa Michael Munroe was a killer with a predator's natural instincts; she could take care of herself. What scared him - terrified him - was what would happen if she was pushed too far. He'd seen that place of destruction, had witnessed firsthand what the darkness could do to her mind, and if whoever had taken her had also taken Logan ... — Taylor Stevens

Most of all, learning to fail well means overcoming our natural instincts to blame someone - maybe ourselves - whenever something goes wrong. — Megan McArdle

The people who've done well within the [Hollywood] system are the people whose instincts, whose desires [are in natural alignement with those of the producers] - who want to make the kind of movies that producers want to produce. People who don't succeed - people who've had long, bad times; like [Jean] Renoir, for example, who I think was the best director, ever - are the people who didn't want to make the kind of pictures that producers want to make. Producers didn't want to make a Renoir picture, even if it was a success. — Orson Welles

A born-again Christian is a pervert who has had his instincts warped, his mind unhinged, and his total outlook on life, outlook on sex and on the survival of his kind completely perverted from that, which, as a natural human being, he was originally created by Nature. He becomes a destroyer of his own race. — Ben Klassen

You learn more about life and people in two hours of war than in four decades of peace. War is dirty, sure, war is senseless, but come on! Civilian life is also senseless, in its sameness and it's reasonableness and because it dulls the instincts. The truth that no one dares speak aloud is that war is a pleasure, The greatest pleasure there is, otherwise it would stop immediately. Once you've tasted it, it's like heroin: you want more. (...) The taste for war, real war, is as natural to man as taste for peace, it's idiotic to want to eliminate it by repeating virtuously that peace is good and war is evil. In fact it's like men and women, yin and yang: you need both. — Emmanuel Carrere

Sometimes my natural instincts take over and I just go overboard. — Bill Goldberg

Mosques are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind it so much in Salt Lake, however. — Mark Twain

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

Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales. — Aleister Crowley

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

She'd never trusted her own natural impulses and instincts Among her greatest fears was the possibility that she might never discover and develop her deepest talents and intuitions. Her special gifts. Her life would be wasted in pursuing the goals set for her by other people. Instead, she wanted to reclaim a power and authority - a primitive, irresistible force - that transcended gender roles. She dreamed of wielding a raw magic that predated civilization itself. — Chuck Palahniuk

A ham is simply any actor who has not been successful in repressing his natural instincts. — George Jean Nathan

Whether you call it Attachment Parenting, natural parenting, or simple maternal instincts, this false "return" to traditional parenting is just a more explicit and deliberate version of the often unnamed parenting gender divide. Whether you're wearing you baby or not, whether you're using cloth diapers or teaching your four-week-old to use the toilet; it's still women who are doing the bulk of child care, no matter what the parenting philosophy. Putting a fancy name to the fact that we're still doing all the goddamn work doesn't make it any less sexist or unfair — Jessica Valenti

There are no laws set in stones, follow your basic instincts, they contain the laws that guide you existence. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

We frolic in our emancipation from theology, but have we developed a natural ethic - a moral code independent of religion - strong enough to keep our instincts of acquisition, pugnacity, and sex from debasing our civilization into a mire of greed, crime, and promiscuity? Have we really outgrown intolerance, or merely transferred it from religious to national, ideological, or racial hostilities? — Will Durant

We're at risk of losing this iconic species for all time. Once it's stripped of its natural instincts, it's no longer a tiger. But there's a lot of species like that. The more intriguing thing, throughout Asia, a lot of these countries are selling off their jungle-and-forest rights for oil and for paper-and-pulp companies. — Leonardo DiCaprio

My attitude toward spiders is similar to my attitude toward ballerinas: I am in awe of your natural beauty and flawless instincts, but if you come in my house I will kill you. — Eric D. Snider

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 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

If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature. — Gore Vidal

How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural prey of the intellect. — Henry David Thoreau

Spirituality means both accepting and mastering one's instincts: living one's natural desires in the light of one's principles is a prayer. It is never a misdeed, nor is it hypocrisy. — Tariq Ramadan

I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home, my family doesn't discuss media coverage. — Sachin Tendulkar

I can imagine no greater catastrophe than if I were mistaken, and the theory were correct that what I consider secondary instincts or drives are actually primary instincts! Because in that case the emotional plague would rest upon the support of a natural law while its archenemies, truth and sociality, would be relying upon unfounded ethics. Until now both lies and truth have taken recourse to ethics. But only lies have profited because they were able to appear under the guise of truth. Under these circumstances, egoism, theft, petty selfishness, slander, etc., would be the natural rule. (26.july.1943) — Wilhelm Reich

ONE HUNDRED TIMES have I been on the point of embracing
her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness
passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold
of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts.
Do not children touch everything they see? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Education is not sermonizing to children against their instincts and pleasures, but providing a natural continuity between what they feel and what they can and should be. — Allan Bloom

Since man's natural instincts lead him to sin, all men are sinners; and all sinners go to hell. If everyone goes to hell, then you will meet all your friends there. — Anton Szandor LaVey

There are few instincts more natural than the body in full motion as it races across a field or through the trees. — Neal Bascomb

Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts should have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor. Nevertheless, this difficulty, though appearing to our imagination insuperably great, cannot be considered real if we admit the following propositions, namely, - that gradations in the perfection of any organ or instinct, which we may consider, either do now exist or could have existed, each good of its kind, - that all organs and instincts are, in ever so slight a degree, variable, - and, lastly, that there is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of each profitable deviation of structure or instinct. The truth of these propositions cannot, I think, be disputed. — Charles Darwin

Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. — Margaret Fuller

It's hard to learn to listen to your instincts. It's easier for some who have a natural ability to follow that little voice inside, but for others it takes practice. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

As his mind becomes purer and his emotions come under control, his thoughts become clearer and his instincts truer. As he learns to live more and more in harmony with his higher Self, his body's natural intuition becomes active of itself. The result is that false desires and unnatural instincts which have been imposed upon it by others or by himself will become weaker and weaker and fall away entirely in time. This may happen without any attempt to undergo an elaborate system of self-discipline on his part: yet it will affect his way of living, his diet, his habits. False cravings like the craving for smoking tobacco will vanish of their own accord; false appetites like the appetite for alcoholic liquor or flesh food will likewise vanish; but the more deep-seated the desire, the longer it will take to uproot it
except in the case of some who will hear and answer a heroic call for an abrupt change. — Paul Brunton

Destroy it. There may be a redistribution of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as the old. — Will Durant

When certain unmarried men, who had lost their capacity to sin, sat indoors, breathing bad air, and passed resolutions about what was right and what wrong, making rules for the guidance of the people, instead of trusting to the natural, happy instincts of the individual, they ushered in the Dark Ages. These are the gentlemen who blocked human evolution absolutely for a thousand years. — Elbert Hubbard

To write the true natural history of the world, we should need to be able to follow it from within. It would thus appear no longer as an interlocking succession of structural types replacing one another, but as an ascension of inner sap spreading out in a forest of consolidated instincts. Right at its base, the living world is constituted by conscious clothes in flesh and bone. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us confine ourselves to that till the lesson be learned; let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural. I never see any of these things but I long to get away and lie under a green tree and let the wind blow on me. There is marvel and charm enough in that for me. — Margaret Fuller

Human beings weren't designed to handle the amount of stress our modern life loads on us, which makes it difficult to hear our natural parenting instincts. It's almost as if we're forced to parent in our spare time, after meeting the demands of work, commuting and household responsibilities. — Laura Markham

... People who are the spices of this world are the natural souls with instincts and impulses that have not been pruned by evolution and civilization. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

You may, or may not, have better child care instincts than your husband; but his can certainly be developed. If you don't respectthe natural parenting talents that each of you has, you may inadvertently cast the two of you into the skewed but complementary roles of the Expert and the Dumb Apprentice. — Jean Marzollo

Many educators believe that, with students of five or six years of age, they have to begin doing something different, called "schooling". Children's natural instincts and motivation to learn are no longer trusted in most schools after the age of six. Instead, it is generally believed that children of this age must be told what, how, where and when to learn. This is considered to be "real learning", as opposed to the play that would occur spontaneously. — Aletha J. Solter

Those who don't love themselves as they are rarely love life as it is either. Most people have come to prefer certain of life's experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain or even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. Or even that the love we have been given can be trusted. It is natural, even instinctive to prefer comfort to pain, the familiar to the unknown. But sometimes our instincts are not wise. Life usually offers us far more than our biases and preferences will allow us to have. Beyond comfort lie grace, mystery, and adventure. We may need to let go of our beliefs and ideas about life in order to have life. — Rachel Naomi Remen