There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself—that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade; this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living food.
~
The Call of the Wild
by
Jack London
"We miss so much out of life if we don't love. The more we love the richer life is—even if it is only some little furry or feathery pet. "
~
Rainbow Valley
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."
~
Dune
by
Frank Herbert
A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy.
~
Phineas Redux
by
Anthony Trollope
An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.
~
The Island of Doctor Moreau
by
H. G. Wells
"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself."
~
Animal Farm
by
George Orwell
"Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden-in all the places."
~
The Secret Garden
by
Frances Hodgson Burnett
"I love them," said Dorothy. "They are so nice and selfish. Dogs are too good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human."
~
Anne of the Island
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
~
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
by
William Shakespeare
We think cag'd birds sing, when indeed they cry.
~
The White Devil
by
John Webster