Mark Twain Quotes

A cockroach likely has no less brainpower than a butterfly, but we're quicker to deny it consciousness because it's a species we dislike.

There has been so much underestimating of animal cognition that to perhaps overestimate it, as I probably do, is probably a healthy reaction.

A mere ape in our world may be a scholar in its own, and the low life of any beast may be a source of deep satisfaction for the beast itself.

The belief that 'animals' are superior or inferior to humans because they live in an eternal now is untrue, because no being lives in a now.

Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals.

Perhaps measuring animal intelligence by comparing it to human intelligence isn't the best litmus test.

Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.

When we see animals doing remarkable things, how do we know if we're simply seeing tricks or signs of real intelligence? Are talented animals just obeying commands, or do they have some kind of deeper understanding? One of the biggest challenges for animal researchers is to come up with tests that can distinguish between the two.

Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.

We humans have a tendency to see ourselves as completely different from other animals, and the way in which large segments of the public continue to reject the theory of evolution is just one symptom of that malaise.

Animals are thinking, feeling creatures. They're sensitive.

Every literary culture has among its first bearings the 'blether' of animals who seek to make sense of human existence.

Closeness to animals creates the desire to understand them, and not just a little piece of them, but the whole animal. It makes us wonder what goes on in their heads even though we fully realize that the answer can only be approximated.

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

I have come to know Bugs so well that I no longer have to think about what he is doing in any situation.

The dog is almost human in its demand for living interest, yet fatally less than human in its inability to foresee.

If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.

When the dog looks at you, the dog is not thinking what kind of a person you are. The dog is not judging you.

Looking at the world from other species' points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance. You suddenly realize that consciousness - which we value and we consider the crowning achievement of nature, human consciousness - is really just another set of tools for getting along in the world.

While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose.

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

Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?

Zoocentrism is the primary fallacy of human sociobiology, for this view of human behavior rests on the argument that if the actions of "lower" animals with simple nervous systems arise as genetic products of natural selection, then human behavior should have a similar basis.

The educated horse is a thinking horse, and it seems that he understands every now and then something happens that he must chalk up as a mistake and be done with it.

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