Wise Quotes about Instinct

The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear,
feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
- Samuel Butler

Every optimist moves along with progress and hastens it,
while every pessimist would keep the worlds at a standstill.
The consequence of pessimism in the life of a nation
is the same as in the life of the individual.
Pessimism kills the instinct that
urges men to struggle against poverty,
ignorance and crime, and dries up
all the fountains of joy in the world.
- Helen Keller

Feelings are much stronger than thoughts.
We are all led by instinct,
and our intellect catches up later.
- Bono

The creation of something new
is not accomplished by the intellect
but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.
The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
- Carl Jung

Trust your own instinct.
Your mistakes might as well be your own,
instead of someone else's.
- Billy Wilder

I decided that it was not wisdom that
enabled poets to write their poetry,
but a kind of instinct or inspiration,
such as you find in seers and prophets
who deliver all their sublime messages
without knowing in the least what they mean.
- Socrates

Most people think that anger is an instinctive response,
and that some people were just born with the temperament
to get angrier faster than others.
That statement is only half right.
Anger is an instinctive response.
We respond to an affront with anger essentially instantaneously -
much too quickly for conscious thought to be called upon.
But the instinct of the anger response
can be trained through conscious repetition,
visualization, and coaching.
Visualization is seeing the event
we desire to master in our mind's eye.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I, with a deeper instinct,
choose a man who compels my strength,
who makes enormous demands on me,
who does not doubt my courage or my toughness,
who does not believe me naive or innocent,
who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
- Anais Nin

As a rock star, I have two instincts,
I want to have fun, and I want to change the world.
I have a chance to do both.
- Bono

Follow your instincts.
That's where true wisdom manifests itself.
- Oprah Winfrey

Action is no less necessary than thought
to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Anger is a destructive emotion
that becomes instinctive over the years.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We humans feel an instinctive need to know
what is coming next - what we can count upon.
We fear change - even the most positive change.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We all have an instinctive fear of the unseen.
Make a conscious effort to discover
and embrace the unfamiliar -
to view the unknown not as a lurking monster,
but as a glorious adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Lao Tzu (Chinese Proverb)

You can't cross the sea merely by
standing and staring at the water.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable
to the terror of indecision.
- Maimonides

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow.
Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow.
Following the rainbow is happiness,
not getting to the end of it.
- Werner Erhard

Powerful Dreams Inspire Powerful Action.
When you can taste, smell, and touch your dreams,
you can enroll the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
- Chinese proverb

Having set a direction, begin - begin today.
Take action - take action every day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Hide not your talents,
they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin

Choose Inner Peace.
Nothing is worth losing your inner peace.
Take action as circumstances require,
but never surrender your inner peace.
Stop. Breathe deeply.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply again.
Then, and only then, take action -
from a peaceful heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau

The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Honor, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Choice,
Vision, Action, Celebration, Unity -
The Values of an Inspired Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Only put off until tomorrow
what you are willing to die having left undone.
- Pablo Picasso

Action is the real measure of intelligence.
- Napoleon Hill (author of the classic Think and Grow Rich)

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, Begin it now.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those
who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know,
can any work be humble or disgusting?
Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder,
the means by which we are translated?
- Henry David Thoreau

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace Hopper

It is no use saying, "We are doing our best."
You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
- Winston Churchill

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.
Practice non-action. Work without doing.
- Lao Tzu

Be an Observer of Life.
Gaining wisdom from carefully observing life
is not a substitute for action -
it is a prerequisite for informed action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it
as he who helps to perpetrate it.
He who accepts evil without protesting against it
is really cooperating with it.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yesterday is dead. Tomorrow is a dream.
Today - each today - is where the action is
where all of life occurs.
Today IS your life - your only life.
Life today to the fullest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The grass is not always greener
on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it.
The grass is greenest where it is watered.
When crossing over fences, carry water with you
and tend the grass wherever you may be.
- Anonymous

The great pleasure in life is doing
what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words;
it is expressed in the choices one makes...
and the choices we make
are ultimately our responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The key to happiness is having dreams.
The key to success is making your dreams come true.
- Anonymous

An idea that is developed and put into action
is more important than
an idea that exists only as an idea.
- The Buddha

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In the arena of human life,
the honors and rewards fall to those
who show their good qualities in action.
- Aristotle

We work with the people not out of pity
but out of respect for their potential for growth and development,
both as individuals and as communities.
- Jimmy Yen

There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
- the character Morpheus in the movie The Matrix

What you do speaks so loudly
that I cannot hear what you say.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wisdom Quotes