Archive

Quotes

Animals are good to think with.

—Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1962

A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state.

—William Blake, 1807

Cows are among the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them—and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures.

—Thomas De Quincey, 1821

Alas! We are ridiculous animals.

—Horace Walpole, 1777

The fox knows lots of tricks, the hedgehog only one—but it’s a winner.

—Archilochus, c. 650 BC

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

—Plato, c. 349 BC

Who hears the fishes when they cry?

—Henry David Thoreau, 1849

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.

—Increase Mather, 1684

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

—François Rabelais, 1535

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

—Plautus, c. 200 BC

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

—Book of Proverbs, c. 500 BC

The elephant, although a gross beast, is yet the most decent and most sensible of any other upon earth. Although he never changes his female, and hath so tender a love for her whom he hath chosen, yet he never couples with her but at the end of every three years, and then only for the space of five days.

—St. Francis de Sales, 1609

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.

—Anna Sewell, 1877