Living With Animals: Worth Repeating

By Hope Bidegainberry on September 24, 2018

PHS/SPCA volunteer Lynette B. just sent me her two favorite animal-related quotes, and they are worth sharing. From Anatole France, “Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”  From St. Francis of Assisi, “Not to hurt our humble brethren the animals is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it.”

Both as muse and as subject, there is an endless stream of beautiful animal quotes, so let me add here a few of my favorites. A longtime personal best from Henry Beston’s excellent book The Outermost House, “The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.” From Chief Seattle of the Suquamish People, “What is man without the beasts? If the beasts were gone, man would die from a loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.” From William Beebe’s The Bird: Its Form and Function, “The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression may be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

Switching gears just a bit, from Will Rogers “If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” And from the ever quote-worthy Groucho Marx said “Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” It takes all kinds!