Man is the only animal whose desires increase as they are fed; the only animal that is never satisfied.
– Henry George
Man is the only animal with the powers of laughter, a privilege which was not bestowed on him for nothing. Let us then laugh while we may, no matter how broad the laugh may be, and despite of what the poet says about ?the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind.? The mind should occasionally be vacant, as the land should sometimes lie fallow, and for precisely the same reason.
– Egerton Smith
Man may be considered as a superior species of animal who produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives.
– Hippilyte Taine
Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.
– Plato
Men make the mistake of thinking that because women can't see the sense in violence, they must be passive creatures. It's just not true. In one important way, at least, men are the passive sex. Given a choice, they will always opt for the status quo. They hate change of any kind, and they fight against it constantly. On the other hand, what women want is stability, which when you stop to think about it is a very different animal.
– Eric Lustbader
My favorite animal is steak.
– Fran Lebowitz
My Favorite kind of animal is a stuffed one.
– Tom Zegan
No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.
One is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
– Oscar Wilde
Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me.
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of goodness, holiness and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life.
– Andrew Bonar Law
Political policy is like a wild animal; it cannot be perfectly perceived, only appropriately considered.
– Tyler DeVinaspre
Politics is still crucially important. Our choices are vital, and we've got to make them, and not just say, 'Oh, they're all the same.' They are all the same in certain ways, alas -- a political animal is such an animal. But lurking somewhere behind their rhetoric and their spittle are important choices that we should make.
– Dennis Potter
Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man.
– Erich Fromm
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
– Arthur Shopenhauer
Society expects man to be a passive social animal who believes like the People of the Field in "Jurgen" that "to do what you always have done" and "what is expected of you" are the twin rules of life. This, is course, is not true. The wanton crucifixion of impulses, the unnecessary blocking and frustration of the drives and urges, are an evil that reflects itself in sophistication, ennui and boredom, dissatisfaction, melancholy, fatigue, anxiety and neurosis.
– Abraham Myerson
The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.
– Alice Walker
The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
– H.L. Mencken
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best".
– H. Allen Smith
The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.
– Jilly Cooper
The only mystery about the cat is why it ever decided to become a domesticated animal
– Sir Compton MacKenzie
The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.
– Eric Hoffer
The scientific name for an animal that doesn't either run from or fight its enemies is lunch.
– Michael Friedman
To get the attention of a large animal, be it an elephant or a bureaucracy, it helps to know what part of it feels pain. Be very sure, though, that you want its full attention.
– Kelvin Throop
