Instinct Quotes

"People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking." ~ Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be it what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly. ~ Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe "Instinct is a marvellous thing," mused Poirot. "It can neither be explained nor ignored." ~ The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason. ~ Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. ~ Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy "Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change." ~ The Time Machine by H. G. Wells "Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things. What we like is to be a man's last romance." ~ A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde "By love I mean the forgetfulness of self. Unions are frequent in which only the sexual instincts, or the remembrance of self, are roused---" ~ Fraternity by John Galsworthy "You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed." ~ The Chronicles of Clovis by Saki A blight had fallen on the trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell and fatten in the rain. ~ Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens