Instinct Quotes

Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.

I go by instinct – I don’t worry about experience.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‘people.’ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest…

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Despite the sight of all the miseries which affect us and hold us by the throat we have an irrepressible instinct which bears us up.

Far as creation’s ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends. Mark how it mounts to man’s imperial race From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole’s dim curtain and the lynx’s beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between And hound sagacious on […]

He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them. (about Richard Nixon)

Well-bred instinct meets reason halfway.

The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.

Flying by the seat of your pants. (In the early days of flying, the rate of turning a plane could be felt by the centrifugal force on the pilot’s backside. Hence, flying by body reaction or instinct rather than instruments.)