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Man and animals79 quotes
There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man. — Sophocles · 441 BCThere is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men. — Herman Melville · 1851And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:28 · 1405 BCWe have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. — William Ralph Inge · 1920A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of its self, swinging grotesquely, mockingly, before him. It was not itself; or it was not that self that he had imagined it to be. That self was murdered; and in that murder he had felt the destruction of something within him, and he had not been able to face it. So he had turned away. — John Williams · 1960All 79 quotes →Animals7 quotes
I think I could turn and live ahile with te animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied...not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth. — Walt Whitman · 1855He can't lift the seat, Greg. He lacks the strength in the opposable thumbs. — Jack Byrnes · 2000Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals. — Charles Darwin · 1838Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice. — St. Jerome · 394A 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 · 1992The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us. — Quintus Ennius · 45 BCAll 7 quotes →Animal cruelty6 quotes
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. — William Ralph Inge · 1920It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of its self, swinging grotesquely, mockingly, before him. It was not itself; or it was not that self that he had imagined it to be. That self was murdered; and in that murder he had felt the destruction of something within him, and he had not been able to face it. So he had turned away. — John Williams · 1960Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure? — David Foster Wallace · 2004Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. — Bion of Borysthenes · 100A 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 · 1992Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory. — Upton Sinclair · 1905Dogs6 quotes
Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. — Lord Byron · 1808It'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 · 1991Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit. — Sir Walter Scott · 1825The dog... Commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery, and as he is also an item of expense, and commonly serves no industrial purpose, he holds a well-assured place in men's regard as a thing of good repute. — Thorstein Veblen · 1899The 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 · 1870Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Nature of man6 quotes
There are many wonderful things, and nothing is more wonderful than man. — Sophocles · 441 BCMan is a Tool-using Animal...without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all. — Thomas Carlyle · 1834Man is a reasoning animal. — Seneca · 65Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1864Man differs more from man, than man from beast. — John Wilmot · 1679Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species. — William James · 1904Human nature5 quotes
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to. — Mark Twain · 1897They 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 · 1625What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. — William Shakespeare · 1616The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone. — PythagorasOf 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 · 1910Horses3 quotes
The Horse thinks one thing, and he that saddles him another. — Benjamin Franklin · 1754The noblest conquest man has ever made. — Georges Louis Leclerc · 1753It 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 · 1987Purpose of life3 quotes
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:28 · 1405 BCAll animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. — Samuel Butler (novelist) · 1902What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. — William Shakespeare · 1616Children2 quotes
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:28 · 1405 BCOf all wild creatures, the child is the most intractable. — Plato · 346 BCDeath2 quotes
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all. — W.B. Yeats · 1933The 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 · 1616God and man2 quotes
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 · 1625All our power lies in both mind and body; we employ the mind to rule, the body rather to serve; the one we have in common with the Gods, the other with the brutes. — Sallust · 42 BCInsignificance of man2 quotes
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. — David Hume · 1776Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing. — William Blake · 1794Man and nature2 quotes
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:28 · 1405 BCThe 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 · 1987Man's best friend2 quotes
Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit. — Sir Walter Scott · 1825Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Man's cruelty to man2 quotes
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all the beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species. — William James · 1904Men and women2 quotes
It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1949The female of the species is more deadly than the male. — Rudyard Kipling · 1911Primates2 quotes
The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us. — Quintus Ennius · 45 BCThere 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 · 1967Reason2 quotes
Man is a reasoning animal. — Seneca · 65The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone. — PythagorasThe human condition2 quotes
I think I could turn and live ahile with te animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied...not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth. — Walt Whitman · 1855For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. — Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 · 931 BCApes1 quote
The ape, vilest of beasts, how like to us. — Quintus Ennius · 45 BCAppetite1 quote
The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not. — Democritus · 370 BCAvoiding responsibility1 quote
Weaseling out of things is important to learn; it’s what separates us from the animals…except the weasel. — Homer Simpson · 1993Bees1 quote
So the industrious bees do hourly strive
To bring their loads of honey to the hive;
Their sordid owners always reap the gains,
And poorly recompense their toils and pains. — Mary Collier · 1739Boys1 quote
Of all wild creatures, the child is the most intractable. — Plato · 346 BCCats1 quote
He can't lift the seat, Greg. He lacks the strength in the opposable thumbs. — Jack Byrnes · 2000Circle of life1 quote
Man and animal are merely a passage and channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a haven for the dead, giving life by the death of others, a coffer full of corruption. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1508Civilization1 quote
For 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 · 1978Cruelty1 quote
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Dark side of human nature1 quote
Of 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 · 1910Different perspectives1 quote
The Horse thinks one thing, and he that saddles him another. — Benjamin Franklin · 1754