#elephant

Elephant, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves -- nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets -- and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other. ↗

— Beryl Markham

#guns #intelligence

It is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not heroic, and certainly it is not easy; it is just one of those preposterous things that men do like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth of whose volume could engulf the whole of mankind without disturbing the domestic life of a single catfish. ↗

— Beryl Markham

#hunting #life

Servants ran to wake the young king, Tamar, already awake and watching from his balcony. Curious, naturally. Not altogether pleased. No more than anyone would be, jolted out of a sound sleep by unexpected elephants. ↗

— Lloyd Alexander

#humor #nature

Workable solutions for Earth are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers, or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. ↗

— Lawrence Anthony

#endangered-species #environmentalism #science #science

The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics. ↗

— Madeleine Albright

#bureaucracy #cold #cold war #elephant #grown

For example, after developing a sound similar to an elephant trumpeting, I wrote the song Elephant Talk which gave my elephant sound an appropriate place to live. ↗

— Adrian Belew

#appropriate #developing #elephant #example #for example

There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.' ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#beyond #books #eat #elephant #especially

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. ↗

— Pierre Trudeau

#beast #call #elephant #every #friendly

Learning to play with a big amplifier is like trying to control an elephant. ↗

— Ritchie Blackmore

#big #control #elephant #learning #like

And the political system is changing rapidly in this country, and we better realize that. The elephants or donkeys are not what younger people look to. They look at individual candidates' philosophy, and I think it's a different time and a different generation. ↗

— Richard M. Daley

#candidates #changing #country #different #donkeys