Animals and Nature

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

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

Nature delights in punishing stupid people.

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

Nature distributes her favors unequally.

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.

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

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

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

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

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.

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

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

A leader . . . is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, Nature must be the God of rascals.

Those whom we called brutes had their revenge when Darwin shewed us that they are our cousins.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.

When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country.

Anyone can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Deer-stalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.