Instinct is animal strength. [ Daniel Webster ]
We are too good for pure instinct. [ Goethe ]
A good man, through obscurest aspirations,
Has still an instinct of the one true way. [ Goethe ]
Alas! there is no instinct like the heart! [ Byron ]
Reason raise over instinct as you can.
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man. [ Pope ]
Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn. [ Addison ]
I live.
But live to die: and living, see no thing
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome and yet all invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome -
And so I live. [ Byron ]
Instinct has a lucidness that surpasses reason.
Experience is a question of instinct about life. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
Whether with Reason, or with Instinct blest.
Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best. [ Pope ]
Commonsense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. [ H. W. Shaw ]
The active part of man consists of powerful instincts. [ F. W. Newman ]
Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. [ William Shakespeare ]
Trust instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals. [ Dr. Johnson ]
The instinct of interest is the universal instinct of mankind. [ Charles Macklin ]
Tell me why the ant midst summer's plenty thinks of winter's want. [ Prior ]
Lovers have an ineffable instinct which detects the presence of rivals. [ Bulwer ]
Brutes find out where their talents lie: a bear will not attempt to fly. [ Swift ]
Decency is not defined by statute, but the laws of instinct are stronger. [ Duclos ]
A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. [ Holmes ]
The soul, by an instinct stronger than reason, ever associates beauty with truth. [ Tuckerman ]
Instinct harmonizes the interior of animals, as religion does the interior of men. [ Jacobi ]
All our first movements are good, generous, heroical; reflection weakens and kills them. [ Aime-Martin ]
Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage. [ Wendell Phillips ]
Reason's progressive; instinct is complete; swift instinct leaps; slow reason feebly climbs. [ Young ]
Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds. [ Ouida ]
The wise are instructed by reason, ordinary minds by experience; the stupid by necessity; and brutes by instinct. [ Cicero ]
A bird sings, a child prattles, but it is the same hymn; hymn indistinct, inarticulate, but full of profound meaning. [ Victor Hugo ]
The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful, ever-living agent. [ Newton ]
Relations are simply a tedious pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]
Revenge, which, like envy, is an instinct of justice, does but take into its own hands the execution of that natural law which precedes the social. [ Chatfield ]
The all importance of clothes has sprung up in the intellect of the dandy without effort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with clothes, a poet of clothes. [ Carlyle ]
Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
No man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people's heart; but every man may play upon the chords of the people's heart, who draws his inspiration from the people's instinct. [ Kossuth ]
The courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; and when it is only a kind of instinct in the soul, it breaks out on all occasions, without judgment or discretion. [ Addison ]
Music moves us, and we know not why; we feel the tears, and cannot trace the source. Is it the language of some other state, born of its memory? For what can wake the soul's strong instinct of another world, like music? [ Miss L. E. Landon ]
Burke's sentences are pointed at the end, instinct with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are like a charioteer's whip, which not only has a long and effective lash, but cracks and inflicts a still smarter sensation at the end. [ John Foster ]
Thinkers who trace systems of philosophy are merely impelled by an innate instinct; they know that their precepts, however excellent, are not suitable to the majority: the wisdom may be admired by many, but few will follow the principles. [ De Finod ]
Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary luxury in modern life, but no man should have a secret from his own wife. She invariably finds out. Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
The press is not only free; it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies; but it sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people. [ Beaconsfield ]
Every man must think in his own way; for on his own pathway he always finds a truth, or a measure of truth, which is helpful to him in his life; only he must not follow his own bent without restraint; he must control himself; to follow mere naked instinct does not beseem a man. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Every woman carries in the depths of her soul a mysterious weapon, instinct - that virgin instinct, incorruptible, which requires her neither to learn, to reason, nor to know, which binds the strong will of man, dominates his sovereign reason, and pales our little scientific tapers.
A composition which dazzles at first sight by gaudy epithets, or brilliant turns of expression, or glittering trains of imagery, may fade gradually from the mind, leaving no enduring impression. Words which flow fresh and warm from a full heart, and which are instinct with the life and breath of human feeling, pass into household memories, and partake of the immortality of the affections from which they spring. [ Whipple ]
In the hands of genius, the driest stick becomes an Aaron's rod, and buds and blossoms out in poetry. Is he a Burns? the sight of a mountain daisy unseals the fountains of his nature, and he embalms the bonny gem
in the beauty of his spirit. Is he a Wordsworth? at his touch all nature is instinct with feeling; the spirit of beauty springs up in the footsteps of his going, and the darkest, nakedest grave becomes a sunlit bank empurpled with blossoms of life. [ H. N. Hudson ]
The drama is not a mere copy of nature, not a facsimile. It is the free running hand of genius, under the impression of its liveliest wit or most passionate impulses, a thousand times adorning or feeling all as it goes; and you must read it, as the healthy instinct of audiences almost always does, if the critics will let them alone, with a grain of allowance, and a tendency to go away with as much of it for use as is necessary, and the rest for the luxury of laughter, pity, or poetical admiration. [ Leigh Hunt ]