Animals and Nature

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Butterflies count not months but moments, and yet have time enough.

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend. When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present; love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure; the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth. Sarah Breathnach

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.

By harming a horse, you decrease his excellence. Thus, by harming a person, you decrease their excellence.

Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing? Are they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him? And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?

As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.

The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.

Earth laughs in flowers.

The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.

My little old dog: A heart-beat at my feet.

Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their favor in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their lives.

The dog is a Yes-animal, very popular with people who can’t afford to keep a Yes-man.

Insects sting, not in malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics: they desire our blood, not our pain.

Pigs at a pastry cart.

Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their plowing of the soil.

Warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

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.

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.

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.

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