Who sleepeth with dogs shall rise with fleas.

Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

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

Who hears the fishes when they cry?

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. 

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.

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

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.

Animals are good to think with.

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.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

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.

There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.