Animals

Are you an animal lover or a meat lover? Here are some proverbs and quotes about animals and beasts.

Animals - Noahs ark
Animals near Noah’s ark


Showing results 1 to 49 of 49


A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
Groucho Marx

A drunkard can be a sheep, a monkey or a lion.

A kangaroo-sized grasshopper would likely not jump much farther than a kangaroo.
Source: Bugs Rule!: An Introduction to the World of Insects

A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.
Margaret Atwood

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell
Source: Animal Farm

All animals maim or kill other organisms.
Frans de Waal

An animal is the way it is because it needs to be.
(unknown author)

Any academic who doubts the depth of animal emotions ought to get a dog.
Frans de Waal

Anyone who hates children and animals can't be all bad.
W.C. Fields

Back in the days when animals could talk ...
(unknown author)

But the eyes that he liked the least were horrible pale bulbous sort of eyes. "Insect eyes," he thought, "not animal eyes, only they are much too big."
J.R.R. Tolkien
Source: The Hobbit - Chapter 8 - Flies and Spiders
Bilbo seeing eyes in the forest

Domesticated chickens and cattle may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are also among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. The domestication of animals was founded on a series of brutal practices that only became crueller with the passing of the centuries.
Yuval Noah Harari
Source: A Brief History of Humankind

Don’t cast pearls before swine.
Don’t give something of value to a person who does not value it.

Don’t put the cart before the horse.
Do things in proper order.

Every dog has his day.
Even the most unlucky person may have success at some point.

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Stephen Hawking

I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.
George Berkeley

I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares.
George Washington

If there were no elephant in the jungle, the buffalo would be a great animal.

If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?
Frans de Waal

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu

If you build a better mousetrap, you will catch better mice.
George Gobel

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Source: BibleL Luke 18:25

It is vitally important that we can continue to say, with absolute conviction, that organic farming delivers the highest quality, best-tasting food, produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification, and with respect for animal welfare and the environment, while helping to maintain the landscape and rural communities.
Prince Charles

It's a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.
David Attenborough

Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie, too
And then home
Lou Reed
Source: Perfect Day Lyrics (Transformer Album)

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
Albert Schweitzer

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.
Mark Twain

Man is the only animal that can be bored.
Erich Fromm

Of the entire terrestrial vertebrate biomass on earth, wild animals constitute only about three percent, humans one-quarter, and livestock almost three-quarters!
Frans de Waal

Only a rat can win a rat race.
Michael Franti

Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species.
Peter Singer

Pain is pain, whether you're a human, or any other animal.
Peter Singer

Scientists tell us that the fastest animal in the world, with a speed of 120 mph, is a cow dropped out of a helicopter.
Dave Barry

Separate the sheep from the goats.

Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, "Doesn't this guy have a dog?"
Frans de Waal

The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.
Charles Darwin
Source: The Descent of Man

The domesticated chicken is probably the most widespread bird in the annals of planet Earth. If you measure success in terms of numbers, chickens, cows and pigs are the most successful animals ever.
Yuval Noah Harari

The fox will catch you with cunning, and the wolf with courage.

The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals.
Charles Darwin

The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit is running for his life, while the fox is only running for his dinner.
Richard Dawkins

The straw that broke the camel's back
This means the last bad thing that happens that makes someone really mad or upset.

To a good approximation, all species are insects.
Robert May

We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realise that we are apes.
Richard Dawkins

We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.
Peter Singer

What is different about the way we act that makes us, and not any other species, moral beings?
Frans de Waal
Source: Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved

While it is true that animals are not humans, it is equally true that humans are animals.
Frans de Waal
Source: Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Francis Bacon




Related keywords

insects birds worms arthropods mammals reptiles fish amphibians people

This is a collection of proverbs and quotes with words like “animal” and “beast”. But there are of course many proverbs, sayings and quotes about all kinds of animals. See for example birds, worms, insects, snakes and dogs.