quotations about instinct
'Tis thus we heed no instincts but our own,
Believe no evil, till the evil's done.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
Fables
Intuition is a suspicious instinct that makes a woman distrust the man she trusts.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
As man cultivates his intellectual faculties, he learns to mistrust his instincts.
JULIUS FURST
attributed, Day's Collacon
That which is reason in man is instinct in animals.
J. C. WOLFF
attributed, Day's Collacon
Like birds of passage, the instincts drift the soul adventurously beyond the horizon of sensible things, as if intent on convoying it to the mother country from whence it had flown.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Gut instincts are always so hit and miss. When it hits, you're like, "Wow, I totally knew that was gonna happen!" But when you miss, it's like, "I can't believe I was so stupid!"
CHESTER BENNINGTON
"The Lost Interview", Revolver, 2001
An instinct is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a work of intelligence and knowledge.
SIR W. HAMILTON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Instinct is untaught ability.
ALEXANDER BAIN
The Senses and the Intellect
Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of all the rest. By the very act of listening to one rather than to others we have already prejudged the case.
C. S. LEWIS
The Abolition of Man
To what extent Instinct is implanted in animals in consequence of the education received by many generations of their predecessors, is a point to which the attention of the curious might be profitably directed.
RICHARD WHATELY
On Instinct
What man calls instinct in a beast is more excellent than reason in man.
THEODORE ZWINGER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.
MICHAEL BURKE
attributed, 100 Ways to Develop Your Mind: The Psychology of the Mind
Where instinct fails, intellect must venture.
JIM BUTCHER
Storm Front
One could only act on instinct, grab hold of an intuited perfect moment, and spring into action.
JAMES LUCENO
Darth Plagueis
Men envy the beasts the instinct which guides them.
ST. PIERRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is no instinct in nature without an object or purpose.
KAROLINE WOLZOGEN
attributed, Day's Collacon
The mind, when compelled, by education or other circumstances, to receive irrational doctrines, has yet a power of keeping them, as it were, on its surface, of excluding them from its depths, of refusing to incorporate them with its own being; and when burdened with a mixed and incongruous system, it often discovers a sagacity which reminds us of the instinct of inferior animals, in selecting the healthful and nutritious portions, and in making them its daily food.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
You've got the killer instincts of a houseplant.
JOSEPHINE ANGELINI
Starcrossed
Instinct and reason are the difference between man and the brute.
GEORG BENEDICT WINER
attributed, Day's Collacon
Instinct is both the inferior and superior of reason.
C. WINTRINGHAM
attributed, Day's Collacon