Nature and Elements

We own a dog—he is with us as a slave and inferior because we wish him to be. But we entertain a cat—he adorns our hearth as a guest, fellow-lodger, and equal because he wishes to be there.

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you. If a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

Some little token of esteem Is needed, like a dish of cream.

The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority. Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshiped as gods.

I love in the cat that independent and almost ungrateful temper which prevents him from attaching himself to anyone

The cat purrs itself to sleep, being the only creature that sings its own lullaby.

Youth is like spring, an overpraised season— delightful if it happen to be a favored one, but in practice very rarely favored and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes.

Nature delights in punishing stupid people.

Can flowers but droop in absence of the sun, Which waked their sweets?

Can flowers but droop in absence of the sun, Which waked their sweets?

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.

I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails.

Nature distributes her favors unequally.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she will always return.

Americans are nature-lovers: but they only admit of nature proofed and corrected by man.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of Nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at a time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.

Animals are such agreeable friends— they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

Whenever you observe an animal closely, you have the feeling that a person sitting inside is making fun of you.