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Animal Quotes

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Animal Quotes

“If kissing is man's greatest invention, then fermentation and patriarchy compete with the domestication of animals for the distinction of being man's worst folly, and no doubt the three combined long ago, the one growing out of the others, to foster civilization and lead Western humanity to its present state of decline.”

IfsMenLongStatesHumanityThreeAnimalDoubtGrowingWorstCivilizationKissingWesternInventionNo DoubtFollyDistinctionDeclineLong AgoPatriarchyFermentation
Book:Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
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“Man is an individual. The animals, plants and minerals are divided into species. They are not individualized in the same sense that man is.”

MenIndividualAnimalPlantSpeciesDividedMinerals
Book:The Rosicrucian Cosmo-conception: Or, Mystic Christianity ; an Elementary Treatise Upon Man's Past Evolution, Present Constitution and Future Development
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“American gentlemen are a cross between English and French men, and yet really altogether like neither. They are more refined and modest than Frenchmen, and less manly, shy, and rough, than Englishmen. Their brains are finer and flimsier, their bodies less robust and vigorous than ours. We are the finer animals, and they the subtler spirits. Their intellectual tendency is to excitement and insanity, and ours to stagnation and stupidity.”

MenBodySpiritAnimalBrainIntellectualCrossesStupidityTendenciesInsanityExcitementGentlemanShyRoughModestEnglishmenVigorousRefinedManlyRobustStagnationFrenchmenGentility
Book:Further Records, 1848-1883: A Series of Letters
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“We have seen that blood united to blood in the case of but remotely connected species of animals, kills; blood united to blood in the case of more closely allied species of animals does not kill. The physical organism of man survives when strange blood comes in contact with strange blood, ... but clairvoyant power perishes under the influence of this mixing of blood, or exogamy.”

MenDoeAnimalUnitedCasesBloodInfluenceStrangeSpeciesScaryConnectedContactOrganismsMixingClairvoyant
Author:Rudolf Steiner
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“Man is at his furthest remove from the animal as a child, his intellect most human. With his fifteenth year and puberty he comes astep closer to the animal; with the sense of possessions of his thirties (the median line between laziness and greediness), still another step. In his sixtieth year of life he frequently loses his modesty as well, then the septuagenarian steps up to us as a completely unmasked beast: one need only look at the eyes and the teeth.”

MenNeedsYearsHumansWellsLooksChildrenStillsEyeLosesLinesAnimalStepsAgingPossessionIntellectTeethBeastRemoveLazinessModestyStep UpPubertyYears Of LifeGreedinessMedian
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“What is it that endowed things with meaning, value, significance? The creating heart, which desired, and, out of its desire, created. It created joy and woe. It wanted to satiate itself with woe. We must take all the suffering that has been endured by men and animals upon ourselves and affirm it, and possess a goal in which it acquires reason.”

MenHeartHas BeensReasonWantedJoyDesireSufferingValuesGoalAnimalCreationCreatingAcquireSignificanceWoe
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“By all odds, earliest man, so naked to the elements and to deadly enemies, should have existed in a state of constant shock. We find him instead the only lighthearted being in a deadly serious universe.... He alone, with childish carelessness, tinkered and played, and exerted himself more in the pursuit of superfluities than of necessities. Yet the tinkering and playing, and the fascination with the nonessential, were a chief source of the inventiveness which enabled man to prevail over better-equipped and more-purposeful animals.”

MenShouldStatesUniverseAnimalEnemySeriousSourceElementsShould HaveConstantPursuitNakedChiefsShockOddsFascinationCarelessnessInventivenessTinkering
Author:Eric Hoffer
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“One would wonder to hear skeptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. 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. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding.”

MenReasonUseShowsLyingUnderstandingAnimalWonderGenerationsTalentSonPrideDiscoveryPrejudiceRegardInstinctSpeciesFacultyHumankindWiserPreservationCompassDeprivedConfinedSkepticalBrutesContinuance
Book:The spectator
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“It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected.”

MenHas BeensSelfWholeEyeAnimalRaceAudienceDogPositionGrewConsciousCatIndependenceSlaveryRagePreservesGentlemanConsiderationAffectedAppetiteHuntingLeisurePlatesBetrayedSelf ConsciousRenunciationSatellites
Book:Memories and Portraits: Stevenson's Vol. 21
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“Man seems to be an animal whose capacity for lies is only equalled by his credulity; it does no good to let battalions of cats outof bags, to produce whole harems of naked facts, people eat the same three meals daily deception, and are always ready to turn with fury upon the purveyors of bagless cats and facts undraped. Probably their instinct is wise. Who knows?”

PeopleKnowsMenDoeWholeFactsSeemsTruthLyingTurnsThreeAnimalWiseProduceReadyCapacityCatInstinctNakedDeceptionMealsBagsFuryCredulityHarem
Book:The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos
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“The animal is one with its life activity. It does not distinguish the activity from itself. It is its activity. But man makes hislife activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he is completely identified.”

MenDoeAnimalConsciousnessObjectsActivityConsciousDeterminationHumankind
Book:Marx's Concept of Man: Including 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts'
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“Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.”

PeopleKnowsMenWayFirstsHas BeensMadeReasonDifficultCan DoAnimalViewsVirtueDifficultyTablesVariousComplicatedIntellectCleverRationalGreekMasteryGreeceCalculationsComplicationArithmeticVery CleverMultiplicationNumerals
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”

MenFirstsHumansLanguageBornAnimalDevelopmentCapacityMereSymbolsHumankindSignalsDistinguishedSymbolicInseparableHuman Capacity
Book:About Looking
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“The most evident difference between man and animals is this: the beast, in as much as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. But man, because he is endowed with reason by which he is able to perceive relationships, sees the causes of things, understands the reciprocal nature of cause and effect, makes analogies, easily surveys the whole course of his life, and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct.”

MenLittlesReasonWholeAblePastCoursesCausesDifferencesAnimalEffectsPerceptionSensesPreparationPerceiveBeastMotivatedHumankindEvidentCause And EffectSurveysAnalogiesReciprocalFuture Life
Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero
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“The interpretations of science do not give us this intimate sense of objects as the interpretations of poetry give it; they appeal to a limited faculty, and not to the whole man. It is not Linnaeus or Cavendish or Cuvier who gives us the true sense of animals, or water, or plants, who seizes their secret for us, who makes us participate in their life; it is Shakspeare [sic] … Wordsworth … Keats … Chateaubriand … Senancour.”

MenGivingWholePoetryWaterAnimalSecretObjectsPlantAppealsIntimateFacultyInterpretationWordsworthLinnaeus
Book:Essays in Criticism
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“The surprise of animals... in and out, cats and dogs and a milk goat and chickens and guinea hens, all taken for granted, as if man was intended to live on terms of friendly intercourse with the rest of creation instead of huddling in isolation on the fourteenth floor of an apartment house in a city where animals occurred behind bars in the zoo.”

IfsMenHouseTermAnimalCitiesBehindsTakenDogCreationCatSurpriseBarsGrantedIsolationFriendlyChickensMilkApartmentIntercourseGoatsZoosTaken For GrantedHensGuineaCat And Dog
Author:Elizabeth Janeway
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“Eroticism differs from animal sexuality in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos. Desire in eroticism is the desire that triumphs over the taboo. It presupposes man in conflict with himself.”

MenHumansDesireSexAnimalConflictSexualityTriumphDomainTabooTransgression
Book:Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo
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“Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and governs the World) is by the Art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an Artificial Animal. For seeing life is but a motion of Limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all Automata (Engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?”

MenWorldMayArtMadeMovingLife IsNatureAnimalWatchesSeeingSpringHuman LifeWheelsEnginesArtificialPrincipalLimbsArtificial Life
Book:Leviathan, Parts I and II
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“Certain anthropologists hold that man, having discovered tools, ceased to evolve biologically. Animals, never having discovered them, continue to fashion drills out of their beaks, oars out of their hind feet, wings out of their forefeet, suits of armor out of their hides, levers out of their horns, saws out of their teeth. Whether this be true or not, all authorities agree that man is the tool-using animal. It sets him off from the rest of the animal kingdom as drastically as does speech.”

MenDoeCertainAnimalSawsFeetFashionSpeechAuthorityToolsAgreeWingsKingdomsTeethBeing TrueSuitsEvolveHumankindHornsArmorDrillsLeversAnthropologistsOarAnimal KingdomBeaksSuits Of Armor
Author:Stuart Chase
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“The impious soul, however, punishes itself by seeking a human body to enter into, for no other body can receive a human soul; it cannot enter the body of an animal devoid of reason. Divine law preserves the human soul from such infamy... The soul passeth from form to form; and the mansions of her pilgrimage are manifold. Thou puttest off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou fold them up. Thou art from old, O Soul of Man; yea, thou art from everlasting.”

MenHumansArtSoulReasonBodyFormLawAnimalDivineHe ManSeekingPreservesEverlastingHuman BodyFoldsHuman SoulPilgrimageMansionsManifoldInfamyDivine Law
Author:Georg Hermes
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“According to our social pyramid, all men who feel displaced racially, culturally, and/or because of economic hardships will turn on those whom they feel they can order and humiliate, usually women, children, and animals--just as they have been ordered and humiliated by those privileged few who are in power. However, this definition does not explain why there are privileged men who behave this way toward women.”

MenWayFeelsChildrenDoeHas BeensOrderTurnsSocialAnimalEconomicAbuseDefinitionsBehaveHardshipPrivilegedTurn-onPyramidsHumiliatedHumiliateMale Dominance
Author:Ana Castillo
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“Science tries to answer the question: "How?" How do cells act in the body? How do you design an airplane that will fly faster thansound? How is a molecule of insulin constructed? Religion, by contrast, tries to answer the question: "Why?" Why was man created? Why ought I to tell the truth? Why must there be sorrow or pain or death? Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.”

PeopleMenTryingBodyPainScienceReligionAnswersAnimalDesignOughtSorrowBehaviorConcernCellsFasterBehaveTelling The TruthContrastAirplaneQuestsMoleculesInsulin
Author:Warren Weaver
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“Man is taking over the forests and polluting the oceans, the animal species are threatened. I try to contribute as much as I can. We're really messing up our environment. I try to get people more aware of what's going on so that they can, even in a local way, try to prevent pollution to their lakes and rivers and prevent nuclear dumping in the oceans - it's bad enough that they're doing it in residential areas, but putting it in the ocean! Eventually it's going to pollute our food resources and, if the ocean dies, we're gone.”

PeopleIfsMenWayTryingI CanEnoughDiesAnimalGoneEnvironmentOceanResourcesAreasRiversSpeciesNuclearLocalsForestsLakesPollutionThreatenedOur EnvironmentMessing UpLakes And Rivers
Author:Olivia Newton-John
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“The true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and invest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritualcreation, and not in augmenting animal existence. Nor is the man enriched, in repeating the old experiments of animal sensation; nor unless through new powers and ascending pleasures he knows himself by the actual experience of higher good to be already on the way to the highest.”

KnowsMenWayMayPleasureAnimalMoneyExistenceHe ManHigherHighestExperimentsPlanesSensationsAvariceThriftAscending
Book:The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations
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“Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.”

MenFacesAnimalMankindTalentKingsExcellenceCosmosDelusionDeceivedIncomparableTrue ManDupesOverlooking
Book:Prejudices: Third Series
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“Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.”

MenYearsHumansWellsI CanThreeAnimalEffortHuman NatureGeniusThousandHundredYears AgoExtraordinaryCustomsVegetablesFifteenThousand YearsWiserVary
Author:Lord Chesterfield
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“All the different classes of beings which taken together make up the universe are, in the ideas of God who knows distinctly their essential gradations, only so many ordinates of a single curve so closely united that it would be impossible to place others between any two of them, since that would imply disorder and imperfection. Thus men are linked with the animals, these with the plants and these with the fossils which in turn merge with those bodies which our senses and our imagination represent to us as absolutely inanimate.”

KnowsMenTwoIdeasDifferentBodyWould BeTogetherTurnsUniverseImaginationAnimalUnitedClassTakenImpossibleEssentialsPlantSensesDisorderImperfectionLinkedCurvesFossils
Author:Gottfried Leibniz
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