Konrad Lorenz
The human soul is very much older than the human mind.Collection: Soul
The rushed existence into which industrialized, commercialized man has precipitated himself is actually a good example of an inexpedient development caused entirely by competition between members of the same species. Human beings of today are attacked by so-called manager diseases, high blood pressure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and torturing neuroses: they succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for cultural interests.Collection: Business
The distance at which all shooting weapons take effect screens the killer against the stimulus sensation which would otherwise activate his killing inhibitions. The deep, emotional layers of our personality simply do not register the fact that the crooking of the finger to release a shot tears the entrails of another man.Collection: Distance
One of the most dangerously vicious circles menacing the continued existence of all mankind arises through that grim striving for the highest possible position within the ranked order, in other words, the reckless pursuit of power which combines with an insatiable greed of neurotic proportions that the results of acquired power confer.Collection: Power
Hatred of humanity and love of animals make a very bad combination.Collection: Animal
Man has been driven out of the paradise in which he could trust his instincts.Collection: Nature
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.Collection: Stupid
I see the creative accomplishments of which highly gifted humans are capable as special cases of the universal creative process, that game played by everyone against everyone else, from which wells up all that has never been before.Collection: Games
More than any other product of human scientific culture scientific knowledge is the collective property of all mankind.Collection: Knowledge
All scientific knowledge to which man owes his role as master of the world arose from playful activities.Collection: Fun
Barking dogs may occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot!Collection: Dog
It ought to be realized by all dog owners that obesity shortens a dog's life quite considerably, a life which is much too short anyhow.Collection: Dog
The scientist knows very well that he is approaching ultimate truth only in an asymptotic curve and is barred from ever reaching it; but at the same time he is proudly aware of being indeed able to determine whether a statement is a nearer or a less near approach to the truth.Collection: Knowledge
The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans.Collection: Home
Every mutation through a new combination of genetic factors that provides the organism with a new opportunity for coming to terms with the conditions of its environment signifies no more and no less than that new information about this environment has got into that organic system. Adaptation is essentially a cognitive process.Collection: Opportunity
The neuro-physiological organization which we call instinct functions in a blindly mechanical way, particularly apparent when its function goes wrong.Collection: Organization
Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is.Collection: Art
Few animals display their mood via facial expressions as distinctly as cats.Collection: Cat
Natural selection does not give any preference at all to anything that, in the long run, could be advantageous for the species but blindly rewards everything that, momentarily, affords greater procreative success.Collection: Running
Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive manCollection: Men
In nature we find not only that which is expedient, but also everything which is not so inexpedient as to endanger the existence of the species.Collection: Nature
I believe that both art and the human striving for cognitive comprehension are manifest forms of the grand game in which nothing more is stipulated than the game's rules; both art and actively solicited perceptions are but special cases of the recurring creative act to which we owe our existence.Collection: Art
Nothing can better express the feelings of the scientist towards the great unity of the laws of nature than in Immanuel Kant's words: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing awe: the stars above me and the moral law within me."... Would he, who did not yet know of the evolution of the world of organisms, be shocked that we consider the moral law within us not as something given, a priori, but as something which has arisen by natural evolution, just like the laws of the heavens?Collection: Stars
I would rather have a Scot come from Scotland togovern the people of this kingdom well and justly, than that you should govern them ill in the sight of all the world.Collection: Sight