Konrad Lorenz Quotes
1903 - 1989
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The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans.
Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog. 
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More Konrad Lorenz Quotes
Uberhaupt ist es fu« r den Forscher ein guter Morgensport, t a« glich vor dem Fru« hstu« ck eine Lieblingshypothese einzustampfendas erh a« lt jung. 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— 1963 Das sogenannte Bo« se ('The So-Called Evil', translated by Marjorie Latzke as On Aggression,1966), ch.2.
Man appearsto be the missing link between anthropoid apes and human beings.
Konrad Lorenz— 1965 In the NewYork Times,11 Apr. King of France (1226-70). He led the Seventh Crusade (1248), but was defeated, imprisoned and ransomed. On his return to France (1254) he carried out reforms and encouraged the arts and literature. He began a new Crusade in 1270, but died of plague inTunis.
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— 1244 To his son, Louis, at Fontainebleau.
All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi.
Konrad Lorenz— Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility
I now come to the third great obstacle to human self-knowledge, to the belief deeply rooted in our western culture that what can be explained in terms of natural science has no values. This belief springs from an exaggeration of Kant 's values-philosophy, the consequence of the idealistic dichotomy of the world into the external world of things and the internal laws of human reason.
Konrad Lorenz— Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility
The attitude of the true scientist towards the real limits of human understanding was unforgettably impressed on me in early youth by the obviously unpremeditated words of a great biologist; Alfred Kuhn finished a lecture to the Austrian Academy of Science with Goethe 's words, "It is the greatest joy of the man of thought to have explored the explorable and then calmly to revere the inexplorable." After the last word he hesitated, raised his hand in repudiation and cried, above the applause, "No, not calmly, gentlemen; not calmly !"
Konrad Lorenz— Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility
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?
Konrad Lorenz— Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility
