Konrad Lorenz Quotes

#1. There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog

Konrad Lorenz

#2. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#3. The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans.

Konrad Lorenz

#4. Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is.

Konrad Lorenz

#5. Most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems and that, in turn, is the reason why man, whenever he comes into contact with nature, threatens to kill the natural system in which and from which he live.

Konrad Lorenz

#6. Evil, by definition, is that which endangers the good, and the good is what we perceive as a value.

Konrad Lorenz

#7. More than any other product of human scientific culture scientific knowledge is the collective property of all mankind.

Konrad Lorenz

#8. Few animals display their mood via facial expressions as distinctly as cats.

Konrad Lorenz

#9. Hatred of humanity and love of animals make a very bad combination.

Konrad Lorenz

#10. Man has been driven out of the paradise in which he could trust his instincts.

Konrad Lorenz

#11. Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.

Konrad Lorenz

#12. Every danger loses some of its terror once its causes are understood.

Konrad Lorenz

#13. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#14. The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being.

Konrad Lorenz

#15. Humor and knowledge are the two great hopes of our culture.

Konrad Lorenz

#16. Every scientist should, after all, regard it as his duty to tell the public, in a generally intelligible way, about what he is doing

Konrad Lorenz

#17. Man appears to be the missing link between anthropoid apes and human beings.

Konrad Lorenz

#18. The human mind, in taking us down the path of technocracy, has become the adversary of life itself and collaterally the adversary of the human soul.

Konrad Lorenz

#19. The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be.

Konrad Lorenz

#20. All scientific knowledge to which man owes his role as master of the world arose from playful activities.

Konrad Lorenz

#21. The instinctive need to be the member of a closely knit group fighting for common ideals may grow so strong that it becomes inessential what these ideals are.

Konrad Lorenz

#22. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#23. Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot.

Konrad Lorenz

#24. He who has seen the intimate beauty of nature cannot tear himself away from it again. He must become either a poet or a naturalist and, if his eyes are keen and his powers of observation sharp enough, he may well become both.

Konrad Lorenz

#25. All the advantages that man has gained from his ever-deepening understanding of the natural world that surrounds him, his technological, chemical and medical progress, all of which should seem to alleviate human suffering ... tends instead to favor humanity's destruction.

Konrad Lorenz

#26. In the almost film-like flitting-by of modern life, a man needs something to tell him, from time to time, that he is still himself, and nothing can give him this assurance in so comforting a manner as the "four feet trotting behind".

Konrad Lorenz

#27. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#28. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#29. But man should abstain from judging his innocently cruel fellow creatures, for even if nature sometimes "shrieks against his creed", what pain does he himself not inflict upon the living creatures that he hunts for pleasure and not for food?

Konrad Lorenz

#30. A man sufficiently gifted with humor is in small danger of succumbing to flattering delusions about himself, because he cannot help perceiving what a pompous ass he would become if he did.

Konrad Lorenz

#31. We had better dispense with the personification of evil, because it leads, all too easily, to the most dangerous kind of war: religious war.

Konrad Lorenz

#32. I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man: It is we.

Konrad Lorenz

#33. The human soul is very much older than the human mind.

Konrad Lorenz

#34. We do not take humor seriously enough.

Konrad Lorenz

#35. Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one.

Konrad Lorenz

#36. It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

Konrad Lorenz

#37. The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this Earth can ever be.

Konrad Lorenz

#38. Just thinking that my dog loves me more than I love him, I feel shame.

Konrad Lorenz

#39. Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.

Konrad Lorenz

#40. The neuro-physiological organization which we call instinct functions in a blindly mechanical way, particularly apparent when its function goes wrong.

Konrad Lorenz

#41. Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.

Konrad Lorenz

#42. I believe that present day civilized man suffers from insufficient discharge of his aggressive drive.

Konrad Lorenz

#43. 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.

Konrad Lorenz

#44. The missing link between animals and the real human being is most likely ourselves.

Konrad Lorenz

#45. Most of the vices and mortal sins condemned today correspond to inclinations that were purely adaptive or at least harmless in primitive man.

Konrad Lorenz

#46. The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it.

Konrad Lorenz

#47. 'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.

Konrad Lorenz