Animal Intelligence Quotes

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Animals have personalities and minds and emotions.

Fish aren't smart. It's not like they have advanced degrees.

Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.

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

Dogs are intelligent beings; they are not human beings. The life of a dog - there's no equivalency with the life of a person, and if you are putting a dog in the line of danger to save human life, and they can do the job reasonably well, I mean, seriously, what about dignity and self-respect? I feel like going out to dinner, I think I will have my cocker spaniel host the show tonight.

It seems strange that bears, so fond of all sorts of flesh, running the risks of guns and fires and poison, should never attack men except in defense of their young. How easily and safely a bear could pick us up as we lie asleep! Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.

The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the earth.

Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom.

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

It's very likely that most mammals have consciousness, and probably birds, too.

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 you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

The older I get, the more individuality I find in animals and the less I find in humans.

Dogs are the magicians of the universe.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved animals and been fascinated with them.

Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection.

Chimps can do all sorts of things we thought that only we could do - like tool-making and abstraction and generalisation. They can learn a language - sign language - and they can use the signs. But when you think of our intellects, even the brightest chimp looks like a very small child.

Calling the New York State Legislature “a circus” is inappropriate. Circus animals are very intelligent.

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. . . . Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.