It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing.

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

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

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.

Of all the creatures that breathe and creep on the surface of the earth, none is more to be pitied than man.

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

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.

An ape will be an ape, though clad in purple.

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

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

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

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

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