Animal Behaviour Quotes

Whoever may still be sceptical whether knowledge of animal behaviour can help our understanding of man can find no support from Freud. ~ John Bowlby

The more we come in contact with animals and observe their behaviour, the more we love them, for we see how great is their care of the young. ~ Immanuel Kant

The usual sniggering examples of animal behaviour were brought in to explain cheating. Funny how the behaviour of shrews and gibbons is never used to explain table manners or road safety or gardening, only sex. Anyway, it was bad Darwinism. Taking the example of a monkey and applying it to yourself misses the point that animal behaviour is made for the benefit of the species, not as an excuse for the individual. Being incapable of sustaining a stable pair and supporting children is really not in the interests of our species. Neither is it really in the best interests of the philanderer. ~ A.A. Gill

at least some paleontologists believe that the demise
of the dinosaurs was accelerated by nocturnal predation on reptilian eggs by the early mammals. Two chicken eggs for breakfast may be all-at least on the surface-that is left of this ancient mammalian cuisine. ~ Carl Sagan

The morphic fields include all kinds of organizing fields ... : The organizing fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory. ~ Rupert Sheldrake

I'd been interested in animal behaviour as a teenager and had thought of studying it at one point. ~ Michelle Paver

A humanist is anyone who rejects the attempt to describe or account for man wholly on the basis of physics, chemistry or animal behaviour. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch

When I began in 1960, individuality wasn't an accepted thing to look for; it was about species-specific behaviour. But animal behaviour is not hard science. There's room for intuition. ~ Jane Goodall

The unveiled Algerian woman, who assumed an increasingly important place in revolutionary action, developed her personality, discovered the exalting realm of responsibility. The freedom of the Algerian people from then on became identified with woman's liberation, with her entry into history. This woman who, in the avenues of Algier or of Constantine, would carry the grenades or the submachine-gun chargers, this woman who tomorrow would be outraged, violated, tortured, could not put herself back into her former state of mind and relive her behaviour of the past; this woman who was writing the heroic pages of Algerian history was, in so doing, bursting the bounds of the narrow in which she had lived without responsibility, and was at the same time participating in the destruction of colonialism and in the birth of a new woman. ~ Frantz Fanon

Behold, man and animal are brothers ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

Depending on the season, between 20 and 30 percent of my collections contain some sort of eco or sustainable element, whether it's a beautiful organic fabric or a natural dye. And obviously I don't use animal skins or fur of any kind. ~ Stella McCartney

The trouble with us is that we try to find happiness where it does not exist, in transient, impermanent things; we try to find it in the gratification of desire; we seek it in animal pleasure. Happiness lives in giving, in doing, not in getting, in grasping. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Which animal do you see when you hold me and close your eyes and think of animals? ~ Bernhard Schlink

Lobsters one of the only animals that have to put up with being alive in the restaurant. If you go to a steakhouse, folks - no cow tank. ~ Richard Jeni

At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behavior but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behavior - and that's the human being. ~ Stephen Fry

Permaculture is an integrated, evolving system of perennial and self-perpetuating plants and animal species useful to man. ~ Bill Mollison

This was his glory and his guilt-- that he let them teach him to feel guilty of his glory, to accept the part of a sacrificial animal and, in punishment for the sin of intelligence, to perish on the altars of the brutes. The tragic joke of human history is that on any of the altars men erected, it was always man whom they immolated and the animal whom they enshrined. It was always the animal's attributes, not man's, that humanity worshipped: the idol of instinct and the idol of force--the mystics and the kings-- the mystics, who longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason, that knowledge cam in blind, causeless fits, blindly to be followed, not doubted-- the kings, who ruled by means of claws and muscles, with conquest as their method and looting as their aim, with a club or a gun as sole sanction of their power. The defenders of man's soul were concerned with his feelings, and the defenders of man's body were concerned with his stomach-- but both were united against his mind. Yet no one, not the lowest of humans, is ever able fully to renounce his brain. No one has ever believed in the irrational; what they do believe in is the unjust. Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess. When he preaches contradictions, he does so in the knowledge that someone will accept the burden of the impossible, someone will make it work for him a ~ Ayn Rand

Those of us who are in tune with nature and animals know it is our way of life, Bram. There is a connection to all living things, a vibration of Life. Animals were not given a power of choice. A lion does not try and eat legumes, nor an elephant meat. We believe the best way to communicate with nature, God, is through a liaison: the animals ... Nature hears one voice and obeys it. That is why ten or ten thousand birds may rise from the surface of a lake at the same time and yet never touch one another. Man only hears his own voice. He constantly bumps into another. Even his voice mirrors his erratic walk, jealousy, hate, ego, pride, lying, cheating. He makes his own judgements and falls prey to his greed. Remember, the moon is reflected on one drop of water as is the entire ocean
so it is with God. He is reflected ins each living thing
in a grain of sand as the entire shore, one star as the whole universe. Each animal as in all creatures. -Jagrat ~ Ralph Helfer

You are all right. But you are all wrong too. For each of you touched only one part of the animal. ~ Karen Backstein

This does not necessarily mean that the man whose path at this moment crosses mine will be personally endowed with each and all of the marvellous qualities which we are accustomed to attribute to our representations of God, that he will be a perfect image of the divine Majesty, a striking sign of the Presence. But then, what about ourselves, as we look doubtfully at this man? Do we ourselves perfectly mirror the Lord in our bodies, our hearts and minds, our behaviour? What matters in our meeting is not the quality of the image that he and I present of God, still less any reflections upon this quality, but precisely the setting free of that image in his depths as in mine ~ Henri Le Saux

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

'Born Free' was the first film I ever saw. I just fell in love with the idea of people having that bond with a wild animal. ~ Martin Clunes

I envy animals for two things - their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them. ~ Voltaire

Confer with kids instead of complaining, because when you grumble, you manifest nothing but the parenting". ~ Surjeet Kumar

The most fertile districts of the habitable globe are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Finally coming to terms with Fathers Day. I blow as a Dad. I get it. No, I'm not an evil, abusive Father, it's just that while all my intentions and thoughts have been out of love for my kids, my actions and behaviour never measured up. ~ Geoffrey Hill

I don't have any children, but I can leave my land to an animal sanctuary. That is what I dream about, not bags, not shoes. ~ Marie Helvin

There was something about Nick that was like being around a wild animal. He was smiling and friendly now, but it felt like at any minute he could turn snarling and scary again. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Why are we so concerned about whether other animals are like human beings or not? Because we are worried about whether we should consider them kinfolk of ours, relatives. If they are relatives of ours, then we should treat them with more respect than if they are not. ~ Sydney M. Lamb

Supposing that what is at any rate believed to be the 'truth' really is true, and the meaning of all culture is the reduction of the beast of prey 'man' to a tame and civilized animal, a domestic animal, then one would undoubtedly have to regard all those instincts of reaction and ressentiment through whose aid the noble races and their ideals were finally confounded and overthrown as the actual instruments of culture; which is not to say that the bearers of these instincts themselves represent culture. Rather is the reverse not merely probable - no! today it is palpable! These bearers of the oppressive instincts that thirst for reprisal, the descendants of every kind of European and non-European slavery, and especially of the entire pre-Aryan populace - they represent the regression of mankind! These 'instruments of culture' are a disgrace to man and rather an accusation and counterargument against 'culture' in general! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

He was, she realised, quite graceful. The very idea surprised her. Male grace was a quality she'd never thought of beyond the ballroom; either a man could dance a quadrille with skill and without stepping on her feet or he could not. But here was another kind of grace altogether
and untrained grace, an instinctive animal grace. ~ Pamela Clare

I don't know if I have sexual magnetism or animal magnetism, though sometimes I'll find a squirrel stuck to my forehead. ~ Emo Philips

Man is a political animal' said Aristotle telling one of the greatest lies in human history. For every man has more in common with the hills and with the stars than with other men. ~ William S. Burroughs

You understand that the piggies are animals, and you no more condemn them for murdering Libo and Pipo than you condemn a cabra for shewing up capim."
That's right," said Miro.
Ender smiled. "And that's why you'll never learn anything from them. Because you think of them as animals. ~ Orson Scott Card

There is no question that Francis was in advance of his age, as he anticipated all that is liberal and sympathetic in modern times: the love of nature, the love of animals, the sense of social compassion, the sense of the spiritual dangers of affluence. ~ Henryk Skolimowski

He felt again the presence of invisible cities, here in the moist soil of his back yard, providing shelter for his fears, his memories, and every mythic animal that had ever visited him whether on earth plane or dreamscape. ~ Nancy Schoellkopf

Resist trying to be what other people want you to be. Anyone in your life who tries to change you is really saying: as I can't control myself I will try and control you. By the same token, don't attempt to control other people's behaviour - it's not your place. ~ David Stafford

As a boy I got the idea that death was an animal which lay curled inside waiting to swallow us. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

We humans, one species of animal amongst millions, have now become the de facto guardians of the planet's climate stability. ~ Mark Lynas

The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

121.George Bernard Shaw – Plays and Prefaces
122.Max Planck – Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory; Where Is Science Going?; Scientific Autobiography
123.Henri Bergson – Time and Free Will; Matter and Memory; Creative Evolution; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
124.John Dewey – How We Think; Democracy and Education; Experience and Nature; Logic; the Theory of Inquiry
125.Alfred North Whitehead – An Introduction to Mathematics; Science and the Modern World; The Aims of Education and Other Essays; Adventures of Ideas
126.George Santayana – The Life of Reason; Skepticism and Animal Faith; Persons and Places
127.Vladimir Lenin – The State and Revo ~ Mortimer J. Adler

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. ~ H.L. Mencken

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiba: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes. The story with animals is the better story.' Pi Patel: 'Thank you. And so it goes with God. ~ Yann Martel