Archive

Quotes

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

—Voltaire, 1769

Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite you.

—François Rabelais, 1535

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.

—Erich Fromm, 1947

Life is no way to treat an animal.

—Kurt Vonnegut, 2005

Imitate the ass in his love to his master.

—St. John Chrysostom, c. 388

I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.

—John Ruskin, 1860

Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.

—Book of Proverbs, c. 350 BC

Man is a troublesome animal and therefore is not very manageable.

—Plato, c. 349 BC

The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.

—Book of Proverbs, c. 500 BC

What delight can there be, and not rather displeasure, in hearing the barking and howling of dogs? Or what greater pleasure is there to be felt when a dog followeth a hare than when a dog followeth a dog?

—Thomas More, 1516

Man is merely a more perfect animal than the rest. He reasons better.

—Napoleon Bonaparte, 1816

It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing.

—Charles Darwin, 1871

Man is no man, but a wolf, to a stranger.

—Plautus, c. 200 BC