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

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.

Man and animals are really the conduit of food, the sepulcher of animals, and resting place of the dead, one causing the death of the other, making themselves the covering for the corruption of other dead bodies.

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.

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

Animals are good to think with.

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

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.

It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing.

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

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

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

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