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

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.

An ape will be an ape, though clad in purple.

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.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.

I hate the sight of monkeys; they remind me so of poor relations.

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.

In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

There be beasts that, at a year old, observe more, and pursue that which is for their good more prudently, than a child can do at ten.

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

Every creature in the world is like a book and a picture, to us, and a mirror.