The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Douglas Adams2 quotes
It was none the less a perfectly ordinary horse, such as convergent evolution has produced in many of the places that life is to be found. They have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them. — Douglas Adams · 1987For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons. — Douglas Adams · 1978Georges Louis Leclerc2 quotes
The noblest conquest man has ever made. — Georges Louis Leclerc · 1753Man alone consumes and engulfs more flesh than all other animals put together. He is, then, the greatest destroyer, and he is so more by abuse than by necessity. — Georges Louis Leclerc · 1753Mark Twain2 quotes
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. — Mark Twain · 1897Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. — Mark Twain · 1910William Shakespeare2 quotes
The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies. — William Shakespeare · 1616What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. — William Shakespeare · 1616Alexander Pope1 quote
Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Alphonse Toussenel1 quote
The more one gets to know of men, the more one values dogs. — Alphonse Toussenel · 1847Aristotle1 quote
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must either be a beast or a god. — Aristotle · 350 BCArthur Eddington1 quote
If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. — Arthur Eddington · 1928Benjamin Disraeli1 quote
Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1864Benjamin Franklin1 quote
The Horse thinks one thing, and he that saddles him another. — Benjamin Franklin · 1754Benjamin Hoff1 quote
Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen though. That's the problem. — Benjamin Hoff · 1982Bertrand Russell1 quote
A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest though poor. — Bertrand Russell · 1948Bion of Borysthenes1 quote
Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. — Bion of Borysthenes · 100Bodhi1 quote
It's basic dog psychology, if you scare them and get them peeing down their leg, they submit. But if you project weakness, you draw aggression, that's how people get hurt. — Bodhi · 1991Carl Sagan1 quote
A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them—without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret... Humans—who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals—have had an understandable penchant for pretending that animals do not feel pain... It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer... The behavior of other animals, especially the chimps and bonobos, renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. — Carl Sagan · 1992Carl Spackler1 quote
My foe, my enemy, is an animal. In order to conquer it, I have to think like an animal, and whenever possible, to look like one. — Carl Spackler · 1980Charles Darwin1 quote
Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals. — Charles Darwin · 1838D.H. Lawrence1 quote
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself. — D.H. Lawrence · 1929David Foster Wallace1 quote
Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure? — David Foster Wallace · 2004David Hume1 quote
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. — David Hume · 1776Democritus1 quote
The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not. — Democritus · 370 BCDesmond Morris1 quote
There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. — Desmond Morris · 1967E.O. Wilson1 quote
The truth is that we need invertebrates but they don't need us. If human beings were to disappear tomorrow, the world would go on with little change... But if invertebrates were to disappear, I doubt that the human species could last more than a few months. — E.O. Wilson · 1987Ed Tom Bell1 quote
The point bein' even in the contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain. — Ed Tom Bell · 2007Edmund Wilson1 quote
The wars fought by human beings are stimulated as a rule primarily by the same instincts as the voracity of the sea slug. — Edmund Wilson · 1962Edward Hoagland1 quote
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog. — Edward Hoagland · 1975Francis Bacon1 quote
They that deny a God destroy a man's nobility, for certainly man is of a kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. — Francis Bacon · 1625George Graham Vest1 quote
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.... When all other friends desert, he remains. — George Graham Vest · 1870Heraclitus1 quote
Donkeys would prefer refuse to gold. — HeraclitusHerman Melville1 quote
There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men. — Herman Melville · 1851