Animal Perception Quotes

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.

Hunters and trackers learn not only to understand intellectually a bunch of facts about the animal they follow, but to feel their way into the very being of the animal.

If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands, or were able to draw with their feet and produce the works which men do, horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make the gods' bodies the same shape as their own.

All dogs look up to you. All cats look down on you. Only the pig looks at you as an equal

Plants, again, inasmuch as they are without locomotion, present no great variety in their heterogeneous pacts. For, when the functions are but few, few also are the organs required to effect them. ... Animals, however, that not only live but perceive, present a great multiformity of pacts, and this diversity is greater in some animals than in others, being most varied in those to whose share has fallen not mere life but life of high degree. Now such an animal is man.

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

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

An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.

But if cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.

This dragonfly came up to me. He was hovering right in front of my face, and I was really examining him, thinking, How does he see me? I became enlightened.

Sheep are not considered the most intelligent animals but British scientist say humans may have underestimated the woolly creatures. In fact, the British scientific community is even suggesting that the animals might even be "Irish-smart.".

Some people say that their pets will tell them when it's time to go. I don't believe that. No animal of mine has ever told me he was ready to die. I wish it were that simple. Dogs can communicate, but they cannot talk, nor do they think in our language or on our terms.

A pekingeese is not a pet dog; he is an undersized lion.

I am I because my little dog knows me.

Even goats may have starlight in their eyes.

Take heede of an oxe before, of an horse behind, of a monke on all sides.

You look at a herd of cattle and well, they all look the same... but they know. They all have an individual personality, and those personalities change from day to day. They can have their grumpy days and their happy days and their serene days. But it's unpredictable. You can't be off in outer space when you're dealing with animals.

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

Since Dominic's been sleeping with me, the mice have been trying various labels on him, looking for one that fits. My personal favorite was the week they spent calling him "the God of Absolutely Never Smiling, No, Not Ever.

If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.

Mutt enjoyed traveling by car, but he was an unquiet passenger. He suffered from the delusion, common to dogs and small boys, that when he was looking out the right-hand side, he was probably missing something far more interesting on the left-hand side.

I never, for instance, have the urge to paint animals 'the way I see them,' but rather the way they are... The way they themselves look at the world and feel their being

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.

When a Dalmatian sees a cow he must be like, 'What the hell happened to him? I am high right now. That dalmatian is fat and smeary.' When the cow sees the Dalmatian he must be like, 'He looks amazing. I am so out of shape, this is ridiculous. My tits are on the ground here.