Thomas Browne Quotes

I've always been interested in animal behavior, and I keep reading about it because it's so surprising all the time - so many things are happening around us that we neglect to look at. Part of the passion I have for biology is based on this wonderment.

The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living agent.

We animals are the most complicated things in the known universe.

Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so amazingly know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.

There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it.

God gave unto the Animals A wisdom past our power to see: Each knows innately how to live, Which we must learn laboriously.

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.

To understand animal thinking you've got to get away from a language.

If animals had reason, they would act just as ridiculous as we menfolks do.

He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.

Just as the telescope and microscope show us that there is order and design in all the works of God's hand, from the greatest planet down to the least insect, so does the Bible teach us that there is wisdom, order, and design in all the events of our daily life. There is no such thing as 'chance', 'luck', or 'accident' in the Christian journey through this world.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.

...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted.

You are leaving port under sealed orders and in a troubled period. You cannot know whither you are going or what you are to do. But why not take the Pilot on board who knows the nature of your sealed orders from the outset, and who will shape your entire voyage accordingly? He knows the shoals and the sand banks, the rocks and the reefs, He will steer you safely into that celestial harbor where your anchor will be cast for eternity. Let His almighty nail-pierced hands hold the wheel, and you will be safe.

The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.

Mere animals couldn’t possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid.

How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.

The animal has secrets which, unlike the secrets of caves, mountains, seas are specifically addressed to man.

I don't need to kill goats to say things. I CAN talk.

Zoologists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50 -- but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers.

Nature is beneficent. I praise her and all her works. She is silent and wise. She is cunning, but for good ends. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. She may scold me, but she will not hate her work. I trust her.

What is denominated discretion in man we call cunning in brutes.

Anytime you work with animals, you begin to see more humanity in them.

A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.

I’m adding ‘canine’ to my searches,” I said. “And ‘instinct.’” “Whatever. I’m adding ‘lunatic.