#animals

Most people would look at an animal in a cage and instinctively feel that it should be set free. . . . It's a dangerous world out there, filled with predators. . . . What would you prefer? A comfortable, safe, warm, cosy life in a cage, or an uncertain life of freedom. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#cages #danger #freedom #freedom

Never mind, said Hachiko each day. Here I wait, for my friend who’s late. I will stay, just to walk beside you for one more day. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#dog #dogs #friends #friendship #hachiko

So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it. We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom... ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#choice #good-and-evil #morality #freedom

Most animals show themselves sparingly. The grizzly bear is six to eight hundred pounds of smugness. It has no need to hide. If it were a person, it would laugh loudly in quiet restaurants, boastfully wear the wrong clothes for special occasions, and probably play hockey. ↗

— Craig Childs

#bear #funny #grizzly-bear #funny

Happiness is a warm puppy. ↗

— Charles M. Schulz

#dogs #happiness #humor #puppies #humor

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#friends #humor #vegetarianism #humor

...only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them.... ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#humor #humor

Everybody is born so that they can learn to live a good life-like loving everybody and being nice, right? Well animals already know how to do that, so they don't have to live so long ↗

— Robin Downing

#love #life

Animals are divine messengers of miracles that go far beyond emotional comfort and practical assistance. Talk to those who have been transported to a heavenly place by the gentle purring of a kitten or whose broken hearts, burdened by worry and pain, have been mended by a dog licking their hand. They will tell you that animals connect them with the River of Life in ways poets imagine and mystics contemplate. They will tell you that their deepest and most sincere relationships with animals are spiritual partnerships. ↗

— Allen Anderson

#angel-animals #imagination

For bighorns, topography is memory, enhanced by acute vision. They can anticipate the land's every contour--when to leap, where to climb, when to turn, which footholds will support their muscular bodies. To survive, this is what the band would have to do: make this perfect match of flesh to earth. ↗

— Ellen Meloy

#environment #imagination