Quotes and aphorisms on animals by famous authors, writers, artists and men of science to remind us the importance of animals for our lives and our planet earth.
World Animal Day is an international day of action for animal rights and welfare. It is celebrated on October 4 each year, the feast day of Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.
The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife.
St. Francis De Sales
Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.
Joseph Addison
Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable; with the possible exception of a moose singing “Embraceable You” in spats.
Woody Allen
Man is an animal endowed with reason, but also with much stupidity.
Carl William Brown
At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.
Aristotle
Drinking, when we are not thirsty and making love all year round, madam; that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals.
Pierre De Beaumarchais
The dog is the god of frolic.
Henry Ward Beecher
I shoot the Hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum, because if I use the leaden one his hide is sure to flatten em.
Hilaire Belloc
Jealousy is a barking dog that attracts thieves.
Karl Kraus
By now the animals of the jungle are nothing more than phenomena of a protected park, an extinct civilization like that of the Indians; excellent subjects for churning out video cassettes, documentaries and CD-ROMs for the true wild beasts of humanity.
Carl William Brown
Scientific laws are still a product of man, that’s why I, first of all, dedicate myself to the study of this amazing animal.
Carl William Brown
A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.
John Berger
Politicians are none of my business… I was struck by the fact that they live a dog’s life without the manners of a dog.
Rudyard Kipling
I fear that animals see in man a being equal to themselves who has lost in an extremely dangerous way the healthy animal intellect: they see in him the delirious animal, the laughing animal, the crying animal, the unhappy animal.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The search for a partner is one of the most powerful forces in the animal kingdom, for this reason we must never consider our journey concluded, in fact if it is not said that an ideal partner exists, it can be taken for granted that the ideality of the search exists.
Carl William Brown
Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.
John Berryman
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
Josh Billings
A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler
If you take a starving dog and fatten him up, he will not bite you. That is the main difference between a dog and a man.
Mark Twain
The road to understanding man passes through understanding the animal, just as the road to the birth of man undoubtedly passed through the animal.
Konrad Lorenz
Brothers, love the beasts: God has given them the beginning of thought and peaceful joy. Do not torment them, do not disturb them, do not take away their joy, do not oppose the purpose of God. Man, do not exalt yourself above the animals.
F. Dostoevskij
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Samuel Butler
The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.
Lord Byron
Humans are the only animals that have a highly developed brain; perhaps that is why they are so avidly aggressive.
Carl William Brown
Animals awaken, first facially, then bodily. Men’s bodies wake before their faces do. The animal sleeps within its body, man sleeps with his body in his mind.
Malcolm De Chazal
Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.
Winston Churchill
Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! I love the languid patience of thy face.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Shall we never have done with that cliche, so stupid that it could only be human, about the sympathy of animals for man when he is unhappy? Animals love happiness almost as much as we do. A fit of crying disturbs them, they’ll sometimes imitate sobbing, and for a moment they’ll reflect our sadness. But they flee unhappiness as they flee fever, and I believe that in the long run they are capable of boycotting it.
Gabrielle Colette
Man is certainly an animal as stupid as his inferior relatives, only he is also dangerously and destructively vain.
Carl William Brown
Pride is a wild beast that lives in caves and deserts; vanity is a parrot that jumps from branch to branch and chatters in broad daylight.
Gustave Flaubert
For the warriors of the pre-Christian era, a dragon was a fairly dangerous animal; for the students of the 21st century after Christ, a wasp is a very dangerous beast.
Carl William Brown
A fence should be horse high, hog tight and bull strong.
Author Unknown
Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot
Before reading Chomsky I didn’t realize that man is the only animal that speaks, but I was already aware that he is the only animal that does a lot of stupid things.
Carl William Brown
Let us confess to ourselves once and for all that since humanity introduced human rights, life has been a dog’s life.
Karl Kraus
Who can guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
Victor Hugo
Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.
Georg Hegel
A sensible philosopher who speaks to a capitalist, religious and respectable or secular and indifferent, is likely to waste his time, just as a scientist who speaks to an ox is likely to waste his. (The animal is chosen at random, the selfish capitalist, is not.)
Carl William Brown
If we all had the same opinions there would be no horse racing.
George Bernard Shaw
Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga – stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.
Edward Hoagland
It is well known that in periods of prolonged abstinence some shepherds in various parts of the world did not disdain to mate with the prettiest sheep of their flock, and I think that from here was born the famous saying that well explains the rich humanity of certain people, namely: “Rather than go with a woman like that, I would certainly go more willingly with a sheep!”
Carl William Brown
Animals used to provide a lowlife way to kill and get away with it, as they do still, but, more intriguingly, for some people they are an aperture through which wounds drain. The scapegoat of olden times, driven off for the bystanders sins, has become a tender thing, a running injury. There, running away is me: hurt it and you are hurting me.
Edward Hoagland
Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn’t in us. It’s almost as if we’re put here on earth to show how silly they aren’t.
Russell Hoban
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
Eric Hoffer
Man is an animal so stupid, first he destroys other species and then he worries about safeguarding the species in danger of extinction.
Carl William Brown
From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.
Victor Hugo
The better I know men the more I admire dogs.
Author Unknown
As you read this book, keep in mind that I agree with Chamfort who very wisely said: “Man is a stupid animal, to judge by me.”
Carl William Brown
I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings.
King Asoka of India
Cats and monkeys; monkeys and cats: all human life is there.
Henry James
Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
Ann Landers
Be a good animal, true to your animal instincts.
D. H. Lawrence
Before I am interested in people, I am interested in their language, their ideas, their hypocrisy, their selfishness, their greed stuffed with vanity, in short, more than in these strange animals I am interested in their stupidity.
Carl William Brown
I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink.
Joe E. Lewis
Animals are considered as property only. To destroy or to abuse them, from malice to the proprietor, or with an intention injurious to his interest in them, is criminal. But the animals themselves are without protection. The law regards them not substantively. They have no RIGHTS!
Shirley Lord
Eagles do not beget Doves.
Motto
The cow is of the bovine ilk: One end is moo, the other, milk.
Ogden Nash
It may be that the animals of the earth become extinct, but it will always be possible to revive them with a computer.
Carl William Brown
The wild deer wandering the path saves the human soul from his thought.
William Blake
We know what the animals do, what are the needs of the beaver, the bear, the salmon, and other creatures, because long ago men married them and acquired this knowledge from their animal wives. Today the priests say we lie, but we know better.
Native Americans
I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason – as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Happiness to a dog is what lies on the other side of a door.
Charleton Jr. Ogburn
The English ban clinical experimentation on animals, but not on humans, for whom there is no legislation, neither legal nor ethical, and so human guinea pigs proliferate, for which, needless to say, no association mobilizes.
Carl William Brown
And his eyes in the sky, would run through the region of air with such splendor that the birds, thinking the night was over, would start singing again.
William Shakespeare
The owl of ignorance lays the egg of pride.
Author Unknown
Four legs good, two legs bad.
George Orwell
In a few generations more, there will probably be no room at all allowed for animals on the earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have passed away the last smile of the world’s youth.
Ouida
Nothing can be more obvious than that all animals were created solely and exclusively for the use of man.
Thomas Love Peacock
Thanks to language, man is the animal with the most complex communication system and perhaps for this reason he is also the most stupid.
Carl William Brown
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
Edgar Allan Poe
The zebra told the white horse, “I am white,” and told the black horse, “I am actually black.”
African Proverb
The fatter the flea the leaner the dog.
German Proverb
Who loves me loves my dog.
Latin Proverb
Nowadays, we are increasingly concerned about the health of animals, so in Italy they have even invented mutual insurance for dogs and cats; although it is also true that at the same time they are trying to dismantle the one for humans.
Carl William Brown
Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them. And, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.
Thomas De Quincey
No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.
Bertrand Russell
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
Albert Schweitzer
No matter how great a person may do, the mere fact that he is a justice bureaucrat, with a police dog record, married to a law professional, daughter of a prestigious court servant, can be more than enough to detest him.
Carl William Brown
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.
Chief Seattle
Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals, “love” them. But those who respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more.
Edwin Way Teale
The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.
Henry David Thoreau
Many people make a big fuss about eliminating animals from the circus and yet they persist in wanting to continue to see the performances of man, who by now, wrongly, is no longer considered an animal.
Carl William Brown
What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.
Henry David Thoreau
An eagle does not catch flies.
Anonimous
Do you know what a dog and a short-sighted gynecologist have in common? It’s simple, they both always have wet noses.
Carl William Brown
If it wasn’t for dogs, some people would never go for a walk.
Anonimous
Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.
Walt Whitman
The best thing about animals is they don’t talk much.
Thornton Wilder
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