“The fact is that in such cases the temperament comes first, the theory afterwards.”

Suggesting that artistic theories often rationalise instincts already present in the artist · Essay, Poetic Realism: Carl Sandburg, Scepticisms (1919)

• Art
• Instinct
• Truth

“I have been forced to conclude that a good part of bird-song is the mechanical response to what may be called hereditary memory.”

Melody treated as inheritance as much as invention · Essay, The Motif of Bird-Song, in Sylvan Secrets

• Animals
• Instinct
• Memory

“The poetry is you because that vague aspiration towards beauty which characterises it, and which in man is a faculty of intelligence, might in you be called an instinct.”

Original: La poesía eres tú, porque esa vaga aspiración á lo bello que la caracteriza, y que es una facultad de la inteligencia en el hombre, en tí pudiera decirse que es un instinto. — Beauty is presented as an instinctive impulse as much as an intellectual one. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

• Beauty
• Instinct
• Poetry

“Whatever I have done in life has been done in obedience to an overpowering instinct.”

Presenting instinct as a powerful force behind personal choices · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Choice
• Instinct
• Life

“I believe the love of flowers to be as inherent in the disposition as any other inclination.”

Seeing delight in flowers as a natural human instinct · Traits and Trials of Early Life

• Beauty
• Instinct
• Nature

“A man cannot help his instincts and the natural tendencies he is born with. But he can control and direct them.”

Distinguishing innate tendencies from the responsibility to govern them · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Character
• Discipline
• Instinct

“The appeal of the subject is nevertheless the only thing that is open to your native genius—the only thing as to which you can say: I cannot help it: that is what appealed to me.”

The deepest choice of subject arises from instinct rather than calculation · The English Novel

• Imagination
• Instinct
• Writing

“We cannot discover our subject-matter by deliberate intellect, for when a subject-matter ceases to move us we must go elsewhere.”

Arguing that genuine artistic subjects are discovered through emotional necessity rather than calculation · Essay, His Mistress’s Eyebrows

• Art
• Emotion
• Instinct

“But it is our instinct and not our intellect that chooses.”

Giving instinct the decisive role in an artist's choice of subject · Essay, His Mistress’s Eyebrows

• Art
• Instinct
• Mind

“Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.”

Contrasting animal instinct with humanity’s capacity to misuse reason · Prose, Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies, 1829

• Animals
• Humanity
• Instinct

“Everything in human beings and in every living creature is self-love.”

Original: Tutto è amor proprio nell’uomo e in qualunque vivente. — A central principle in Leopardi's psychology, treating self-love as a fundamental impulse of living beings. · Zibaldone, entry 508, 15 January 1821 (Italian)

• Desire
• Humanity
• Instinct

“I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.”

Suggesting that poetry may be recognised instinctively without being definable · Lecture, The Name and Nature of Poetry, 1933

• Humour
• Instinct
• Poetry

“One should never allow one's nature to run away with one, but, on the other hand, one should be careful not to resist or repress it too much.”

Advocating a balance between self-control and self-acceptance · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Discipline
• Identity
• Instinct

“the Philosopher and even the Man of the world may be Born, as well as the Poet.”

Suggesting that worldly insight, like poetic talent, may be innate · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Creativity
• Instinct
• Knowledge

“Strong feeling is always a sure guide. It rarely offends against good taste, because it instinctively chooses the most effectual means of communicating itself to others.”

Trusting sincere emotion to discover its own expressive form · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Communication
• Emotion
• Instinct

“No amount of classical learning can create a true appreciation of literature in those who lack the organs of appreciation.”

Arguing that scholarship alone cannot manufacture literary sensitivity · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Instinct
• Learning
• Literature

“The desire of knowledge, stifle it though you may, is none the less originally born with every man.”

Treating curiosity as an innate element of human nature · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

• Humanity
• Instinct
• Knowledge