Instinct Quotes - Page 35

• We heed no instincts but our own.

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Miscellaneous, Heed

  Jean de La Fontaine (1843). “Fables”, p.58

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• The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.

  Herman Melville

  Wise, Children, Men

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre or The Ambiguities”, p.287, Herman Melville

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• New York is the biggest mouth in the world. It appears to be prime example of the herd instinct, leading the universal urban conspiracy to beguile man from his birthright (the good ground), to hang him by his eyebrows from skyhooks above hard pavement, to crucify him, sell him, or be sold by him.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  New York, Men, Eyebrows

  Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (1995). “1949-1959”, Rizzoli International Publications

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• A man's jealousy is a social institution; a woman's prostitution is an instinct.

  Karl Kraus

  Jealousy, Sex, Men

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• Like all men who are Napoleonic in their ambitionshe has instincts about the nature of growth, a lover's sense of the momentof crisis, and he knewhow costly is defeat when it is not soothed by greater consciousness, and how wasteful is the profit of victory when there is not the courage to employ it.

  Norman Mailer

  Courage, Ambition, Men

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• If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, he might truly have been said to have done so instinctively.

  Charles Darwin

  Years, Practice, Tunes

  Charles Darwin (2016). “On the Origin of Species”, p.158, Zillmann Publishing

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• Let him make use of instinct who cannot make use of reason.

  John Ray

  Use, Reason

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• When the excessively shy force themselves to be forward, they are frequently surprisingly unsubtle and overdirect and even rude: they have entered an extreme region beyond their normal personality, an area of social crime where gradations don't count; unavailable to them are the instincts and taboos that booming extroverts, who know the territory of self-advancement far better, can rely on.

  Nicholson Baker

  Self, Personality, Rude

  Nicholson Baker (2011). “U and I: A True Story”, p.153, Vintage

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• The spread of personal ownership is in harmony with the deepest instincts of the British people. Few changes have done more to create one nation.

  Nigel Lawson

  People, Done, Harmony

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• Being an artist, I had an artist's instincts.You can see the picture before it's taken; then it's up to you to get the camera to see

  James Van Der Zee

  Taken, Artist, Cameras

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• To "know thyself" must mean to know the malignancy of one's own instincts and to know, as well, one's power to deflect it.

  Karl A. Menninger

  Mean, Know Thyself, Wells

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• The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world.

  Babette Deutsch

  Men, Speaks Out, Poetry

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• The requirements of the theatre are very great--a strong constitution, energy and unflagging purpose, charm of feature, these alone do not necessarily mean anything, and they must not be relied upon as assurances of an easy conquest of the public heart. It is not only a question of fitness for the work, but of long years of most diligent effort to master the technique of the theatre, and to develop whatever of the art instinct we may possess upon the simplest, broadest, and most human lines.

  Julia Marlowe

  Art, Strong, Mean

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• What stunned me was the regular assertion that feminists were "anti-family." . . . It was motherhood that got me into the movementin the first place. I became an activist after recognizing how excruciatingly personal the political was to me and my sons. It was the women's movement that put self-esteem back into "just a housewife," rescuing our intelligence from the junk pile of "instinct" and making it human, deliberate, powerful.

  Mary Blakely

  Powerful, Self Esteem, Son

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• With all thy getting, get understanding, is the banner under which these Forbes editorials have appeared since the first issue of the publication. We have no illusions about what great wealth can do and what it cannot do. We believe in the worthwhileness of striving by all worthy means to attain success and to attain wealth. Simply because we are convinced that no amount of money is worth the sacrifice of one's better instincts, of one's self-respect-of one's soul, if you wish-simply because we are convinced that riches not gained legitimately and decently are not worth having.

  B. C. Forbes

  Believe, Mean, Sacrifice

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• How many men I know who are earning dollars aplenty, but who are really earning little of what counts. They are so overwhelmingly engrossed in business that they get nothing from their dollars. The Juggernaut of dollar-making has crushed out of them every capacity for genuine enjoyment, every grace, every unselfish sentiment and instinct.

  B. C. Forbes

  Money, Men, Grace

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• Love childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace?

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Sports, Laughter, Heart

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile”, p.50, Courier Corporation

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• Cats are like oysters, in that no one is neutral about them; everyone is, explicitly or implicitly, friendly or hostile to them. And they are like children in their power of discovering, by a rapid and sure instinct, who likes them and who does not. It is difficult to win their affection; and it is easy to forfeit what is hard to win. But when given, their love, although less demonstrative, is more delicate and beautiful than that of a dog.

  Henry Parry Liddon

  Beautiful, Dog, Children

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• Never yet were the feelings and instincts of our nature violated with impunity; never yet was the voice of conscience silenced without retribution.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Punishment, Voice, Feelings

  Anna Brownell Jameson (2009). “Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada”, p.76, New Canadian Library

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• Children can be the most cruel creatures alive. They have the herd instinct of prejudice against any outsider, and they are merciless in its indulgence.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Children, Prejudice, Alive

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “EMILY STAR - Complete Trilogy: Emily of New Moon + Emily Climbs + Emily's Quest: Classic of Children's Literature”, p.68, e-artnow

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• An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads.

  Richard Whately

  Independent, Agents, Action

  Richard Whately (1861). “Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews”, p.74

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• The naive is what is or appears to be natural, individual, or classical to the point of irony or to the point of continuous alternation of self-creation and self-destruction. If it is only instinct, then it is childlike, childish, or silly; if it is only intention, it becomes affectation.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Silly, Self, Irony

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• The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense, is freedom. Consciousness is far from intention. There is a certain enamoured contemplation of one's own naturalness or silliness which itself is unspeakably silly. Intention does not necessarily require a profound calculation or plan.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Silly, Essence

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• In psychoanalysis as in art, God resided in the details, the discovery of which required enormous patience, unyielding seriousness, and the skill of an acrobat - walking a tightrope over memory and speculation, instinct and theory, feeling and denial.

  Judith Perelman Rossner

  Art, Memories, Discovery

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• Mastery in poetry consists largely in the instinct for not ruining or smothering or tinkering with moments of vision.

  Edmund Blunden

  Vision, Mastery, Tinkering

  Edmund Blunden (1930). “Leigh Hunt: a biography”, Archon Books

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