Home / Topics / Animal Quotes

Animal Quotes

Browse 7249 quotes about Animal.

Animal Quotes

“The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose - for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.”

Humans Two Humor Seems Funny Purpose Human Beings Animal Party Greater Example Capacity Dinner Invention Boredom Bores Epic Metaphysics Dinner Party Epic Poems

Book:Minority Report

Source: Minority Report

“The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer.”

“I was becoming more cunning than an animal in hiding my supply of morphine. A squirrel saving nuts is limited by its undeveloped imagination ... but I was not so handicapped. A squirrel, for example, is debarred from sending money to some greedy doctor or druggist and making arrangements to have a bit of powder sent each day by mail.”

Source: Queen of Diamonds: The Fabled Legacy of Evalyn Walsh McLean

“A horse perceives eye contact as provocative, as if it and its status in the herd are not being respected. If it cannot avoid eye contact, it will react in a different way, by rebelling for example. In dressage you don't get anywhere by not showing respect, however superior your species might be. Any animal trainer can tell you that. In the mountains in Argentina there's a wild horse which will jump off the nearest precipice if any human tries to ride it.”

Source: The Oslo Trilogy: The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star

“As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature has provided us, in the latter animals, with an almost complete series of gradations from brains little higher than that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that of Man.”

Ifs Men Littles Animal Brain Example Higher Series Latter Barriers Impossibility Apes Cerebral Rodents

Book:Man's Place in Nature

Source: Man's Place in Nature

“I know that I'm an animal that displays bilateral symmetry. I understand that one side should be the mirror of the other, and that human perceptions of beauty are intimately associated with symmetry. For example, I am very handsome.”

Knows Should Humans Sides Animal Example Perception Mirrors Display Handsome Symmetry Perception Of Beauty

Author:Mark Rippetoe

“The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes - fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”

Men Speak Enjoy Sound Water Animal Example Bears Rivers Sight Environmental Including Fishes Symbols Dependent Units Insects Ecological Deer Otters Elk

Author:William O. Douglas

“We discover too late that we have turned a blind eye to the extinction of a species that is essential to the balance of life in a particular context. Or we discover too late that the importation of a foreign life-form, animal or vegetable, has upset local ecosystems, damaging soil or neighbouring life-forms. We discover that we have come near the end of supplies-of fossil-fuels for example -on which we have built immense structures of routine expectation.”

Source: Faith in the Public Square

“Molecular genetics can show off some surprising relationships like, for example, the close relationship of whales to hippopotamuses, which I think nobody ever guessed until molecular data was looked at. The closest relatives of whales are hippopotamuses, even closer than any other cloven-hoofed animals.”

Thinking Shows Animal Example Data Surprising Closest Genetics Whales Showing Off Close Relationship Hippopotamus

Author:Richard Dawkins

“After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject.”

Way Whole Facts Light Might Animal Subjects Example Return England Plant Following Thrown Bores Variation Collecting Geology

Book:Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution

Source: Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: the Evolution

“Our understanding of what constitutes intelligence is utterly relative. If an aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, for example, all of Western civilization would probably flunk. We have a very convenient and self-serving way of defining intelligence. If an animal does something, we call it instinct. If we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.”

Ifs Way Doe Self Reason Understanding Animal Example Civilization Tests Instinct Western Serving Relative Defining Convenient Western Civilization Self Serving

Book:Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth

Source: Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth

“Take the crocodile, for example, my favorite animal. There are 23 species. Seventeen of those species are rare or endangered. They're on the way out, no matter what anyone does or says, you know.”

Knows Way Doe Matter Animal Example No Matter What Species My Favorite Seventeen Crocodiles

Author:Steve Irwin