Instinct

Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.

Sourced

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 397-98.

• Instinct is untaught ability.
  • Alexander Bain, The Senses and the Intellect (1855), pg. 256.

• Ein guter Mensch in seinem dunkeln Drange
  Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst.
  • A good man, through obscurest aspirations,
    Has still an instinct of the one true way.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Prolog im Himmel, Der Herr, line 88.

• Nous n'écoutons d'instincts que ceux qui sont les nôtres.
  Et ne croyons le mal que quand il est venu.
  • 'Tis thus we heed no instincts but our own,
    Believe no evil, till the evil's done.
  • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, I. 8.

• A fierce unrest seethes at the core
  Of all existing things:
  It was the eager wish to soar
  That gave the gods their wings.
  * * * * *
  There throbs through all the worlds that are
  This heart-beat hot and strong,
  And shaken systems, star by star,
  Awake and glow in song.
  • Don Marquis, Unrest.

• Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,
  Like instincts, unawares.
  • Richard Monckton Milnes, The Men of Old.

• But honest instinct comes a volunteer;
  Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit,
  While still too wide or short in human wit.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 85.

• How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
  Compar'd, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
  'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
  Forever sep'rate, yet forever near!
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 221.

• Instinct and reason how can we divide?
  'Tis the fool's ignorance, and the pedant's pride.
  • Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vices of the World, Book I, line 231.

• Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act II, scene 4, line 299.

• A few strong instincts and a few plain rules.
  • William Wordsworth, Alas! What Boots the Long Laborious Quest?