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The fundamental difference between an instinctive response and an emotion is this: An instinctive response is the body’s direct response to some external situation. An emotion, on the other hand, is the body’s response to thought. Indirectly, an emotion can also be a response to an actual situation or event, but it will be a response to the event seen through the filter of a mental interpretation, the future of thought, that is to say, through the mental concepts of good and bad, like and dislike, me and mine.
The fundamental difference between an instinctive response and an emotion is this: An instinctive response is the body’s direct response to some external situation. An emotion, on the other hand, is the body’s response to thought. Indirectly, an emotion can also be a response to an actual situation or event, but it will be a response to the event seen through the filter of a mental interpretation, the future of thought, that is to say, through the mental concepts of good and bad, like and dislike, me and mine.
Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
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- Eckhart Tolle
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- Approximate author period: c. 1948 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1948; activity date not established; Wikidata Q60137, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60137 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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