Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all. 

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

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

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

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

Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals—except the weasel.

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

How like to us is that filthy beast the ape.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

Every ass thinks himself worthy to stand with the king’s horses.

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

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

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.