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Animal Quotes

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Animal Quotes

“I know that in many things I am not like others, but I do not know what I really am like. Man cannot compare himself with any other creature; he is not a monkey, not a cow, not a tree. I am a man. But what is it to be that? Like every other being, I am a splinter of the infinite deity, but I cannot contrast myself with any animal, any plant or any stone. Only a mythical being has a range greater than man's. How then can man form any definite opinions about himself?.”

“I am sure the man who powders most, perfumes most, embroiders most, and talks most nonsense, is most admired. Though to be candid, there are some who have too much good sense to esteem such monkey-like animals as these, in whose formation, as the saying is, the tailors and barbers go halves with God Almighty.”

“Animal crackers in my soup Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop Gosh oh gee but I have fun Swallowing animals one by one In every bowl of soup I see Lions and Tigers watching me I make 'em jump right through a hoop Those animal crackers in my soup When I get hold of the big bad wolf I just push him under to drown Then I bite him in a million bits And I gobble him right down When their inside me where it's dark I walk around like Noah's ark I stuff my tummy like a goop With animal crackers in my soup.”

“It is rather an unpleasant fact, that the ugliest and awkwardest of brute animals have the greatest resemblance to man: the monkey and the bear. The monkey is ugly too (so we think) because he is like man--as the bear is awkward, because the cumbrous action of its huge paws seems to be a preposterous imitation of the motions of human hands. Men and apes are the only animals that have hairs on the under eye-lid. Let kings know this.”

“Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary a series of gradations as this [step by step, from humans to apes to monkeys to lemurs] - leading us insensibly from the crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had forseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs, should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is but dust.”

“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.”

“We humans are herd animals of the monkey tribe, not natural individuals as lions are. Our individuality is partial and restless; the stream of consciousness that we call 'I' is made of shifting elements that flow from our group and back to our group again. Always we seek to be ourselves and the herd together, not One against the herd.”

“The only award I've been nominated for is a Scottish BAFTA. A Scottish BAFTA, it's like hearing that the animals have their own Olympics. You hear all this stuff about TV being faked. Of course it's faked. It's all faked. That documentary a couple of weeks ago about tribal warfare among monkeys, that was all filmed in a Yates wine lodge in Dundee. Comic Relief is faked. Everybody in Africa is fine.”