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

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

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.

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.

One of the animals which a generous and sociable man would soonest become is a dog. A dog can have a friend; he has affections and character; he can enjoy equally the field and the fireside; he dreams, he caresses, he propitiates; he offends and is pardoned; he stands by you in adversity; he is a good fellow.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

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.

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

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

A bull contents himself with one meadow, and one forest is enough for a thousand elephants; but the little body of a man devours more than all other living creatures.

Who sleepeth with dogs shall rise with fleas.

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

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.