Animal Quotes - Page 245

Aristotle saw nature as intelligent and purposive, whereas for the Epicureans, and the 17th century 'mechanical' philosophers, there is no intentionality in nature except where there are animal minds and bodies.

Morality has in the past made progress when we broadened the category of things we weren't permitted to harm (animals, 'infidels'); saw through some delusions and rationalisations about what harms are good for people themselves (prison punishment, hysterectomies for unhappy 1950s wives); and readjusted our for-the-good of others criteria so as to demand only reasonable sacrifices (ceasing to use children as handy chimney sweeps).

Some critics thought the ontology and theory of qualities absurd. No one had ever seen these little atoms, and furthermore, how could their mere arrangement produce a noisy, colourful, world in which day followed night and animals generated their own kind? Instead of a world created, cared, for and supervised by supernatural persons, the Epicureans appeared to the theologians to be assigning everything to chance. The latter were appalled by Lucretius's view of religion as cruel and oppressive and by the Epicurean insistence that death is the end of all experience.

Caution is the instinct of the weaker animal.

I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that does something positive for animals.

Never work with kids or animals.

Jem spoke with enormous care; talking to Will about anything personal was like trying not to startle away a wild animal.

(Sebastian) "See, there you go. You're always looking at me like that." "Like what?" "Like I burn down animal shelters for fun and light my cigarettes with orphans.

Animals were my pets, and the thought of eating my pets freaked me out.

The natural world operates by its own set of rules. The animal world, all the places that are feral and ungovernable, that's where I find a lot of inspiration. There is just as much beauty there, but there is also decay and violence.

I’ve really become super active in rescuing animals, and it has made my life feel so much better. I can’t even express to you how happy it has made me.

I don't need that much to live - we don't need that much to have a wonderful life. I learned that from animals.

Cats are the slipperiest of domestic animals. Thousands of years of genetic coding has taught them to melt into azaleas, lie motionless behind garden gnomes, glide along fence tops, and slink under benches.

All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.

Man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other prupose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species.

The introduction of cooking may well have been the decisive factor in leading man from a primarily animal existence into one that was more fully human.

Researchers keep identifying new species, but they have no idea about the life cycle of a given species or its other hosts. They cut open an animal and find a new species. Where did it come from? What effect does it have on its host? What is its next host? They don't know and they don't have time to find out, because there are too many other species waiting to be discovered and described.

The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and -- so the argument goes -- that's that.

Scientific physiology has the task of determining the functions of the animal body and deriving them as a necessary consequence from its elementary conditions.

Hunting is doing business with animals.

My children have grown up around animals. They're not scared of them.

A writer must be fearless. A writer has to be like a clawed animal." -The Carrie Diaries pg. 337

In fact, the underlying principle of the baroque is the idea of transformation, of movement, and animals becoming man, and man becoming animals, and mythology. It was a way to inspire pre-Christian character.

Before I was a vegetarian, I traveled to South Africa and hung out there for a little bit. And they had different animals - did you know different parts of the world have different animals? Because I didn't until I got there! This is what being an American is like. You're like, "Every place has these animals."

I think the primary gift of the animal is offered to writer and non-writer alike; they teach us about love, or attunement, which is love in action. A lot of people have closer relationships with animals than they do with other humans, because real intimacy requires both parties to consistently lean in, and animals are so good at this. They remain consistently, amazingly attuned to us, even when we fail them, and so we stay present, because we sense we're safe.