Alas! We are ridiculous animals.

There are some who, if a cat accidentally comes into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat and ready to die away.

I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal, but if you think about him carefully, you will find that his nonvulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature—not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot, but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honor.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Who sleepeth with dogs shall rise with fleas.

Keep running after a dog, and he will never bite you.

In every man is a wild beast; most of them don’t know how to hold it back, and the majority give it full rein when they are not restrained by terror of law.

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

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.

An ape will be an ape, though clad in purple.