Quotes About Animals

I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.

According to the most modern idea, a real myth has nothing to do with religion. It is an explanation of something in nature; how, for instance, any and everything in the universe came into existence: men, animals, this or that tree or flower, the sun, the moon, the stars, storms, eruptions, earthquakes, all that is and all that happens. Thunder and lightning are caused when Zeus hurls his thunderbolt.

For all that I loved the old tales of magic, I did not actually want there to be talking animals and mysterious requests on storm-tossed nights. Such things were for stories and ought to remain there.

Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror. As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds.

Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation; but love approaches much nearer to contempt than is commonly imagined; and accordingly, though we caress dogs, we borrow from them an appellation of the most despicable kind, when we employ terms of reproach; and this appellation is the common mark of the last vileness and contempt in every language.

Saint Guy of Anderlecht was the tenth-century Belgian saint of animals, stables, workhorses, and bachelors.

One of the less subtle animals in the forest, more uncouth in expression was overheard to remark, "I never heard of anything so ridiculous. If you want a lamb and a tiger to live in the same forest, you don't try to make them communicate. You cage the bloody tiger.

Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us.

But of a sudden his head went up; his stiff-poised brush broke into swift wagging; his lips curled down. He had recognized that his prospective foe was not of his own sex. (And nowhere, except among humans, does a full-grown male ill-treat or even defend himself against the female of his species.)

For this is the considerate way of dogs; and of cats as well. When dire sickness smites them, they do not hang about, craving sympathy and calling for endless attention. All they want is to get out of the way,—well out of the way, into the woods and swamps and mountains; where they may wrestle with their life-or-death problem in their own primitive manner; and where, if need be, they may die alone and peacefully, without troubling anyone else.

Again and again he used to do this. Lad seemed to enjoy it, for he would stand at grave attention, as though listening to something the coon was confiding to him. "I'm sure he's telling Laddie a secret when he does that," said the Mistress. "Nonsense!" scoffed the Master. "We're not living in fable-land. More likely the pesky coon is hunting Lad's ear for fleas. Likelier still, it's just a senseless game they've invented.

Link's father had had an inborn hatred of dogs. He would not allow one on the place. His overt excuse was that they killed sheep and worried cattle, and that he could not afford to risk the well-being of his scanty hoard of stock. Thus, Link had grown to manhood with no dog at his heels, and without knowing the normal human's love for canine chumship.

He ain't never been hit, nor yet swore at. An' he don't need to be. Treat him nice, like he's used to bein' treated. An' don't get sore on him if he mopes fer me, jes' at fust. Because he's sure to. Dogs ain't like folks. They got hearts. Folks has only got souls. I guess dogs has the best of it, at that.

In the past we have tried to make a distinction between animals which we acknowledge have some value and other which, having none, can be liquidated when we wish. This standard must be abandoned. Everything that lives has value simply as a living thing, as one of the manifestations of the mystery that is life.

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for). The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. … When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other parts must adjust themselves to it. …Evolutionary changes, however, are usually slow and local. Man's invention of tools has enabled him to make changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity and scope.

My favorite quote: The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but now, as yet, intelligent enough.

Era, dico, una cosa singolare a vedere alcune di quelle capre, ritte e quiete sopra questo o quel bambino, dargli la poppa; e qualche altra accorrere a un vagito, come con senso materno, e fermarsi presso il piccolo allievo, e procuprar d'accomodarcisi sopra, e belare, e dimenarsi, quasi chiamando chi venisse in aiuto a tutt'e due.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

With most animals, as with man, the alertness of the senses diminishes after years of work, after domestic habits and progress of culture.

For me, going vegan was an ethical and environmental decision. I'm doing the right thing by the animals.

The camel-breeding nomads' labour was hard and required well-tested skills. They had to know how to exploit their pastures, drive camels from one grazing area to another, treat the animals when they were sick, milk the female camels, cut the wool and so on. Younger camels were trained to perform various tasks and to walk saddled and loaded. The bedouin dug and maintained wells in the desert.