Animals

A cat is there when you call her -- if she doesn't have something better to do.
~ Bill Adler

Man is the only animal that wears short socks.
~ William Livingston Alden, in The New York Times (12 December 1877). Mr. Simpkins' Downfall

Until one becomes accustomed to these scenes of carnage the sight is really terrible, especially when one lies down flat and takes an ant's-eye view of the field of battle. Yet such is the fierceness and savage fury on one side and hopeless terror or frantic efforts to escape on the part of the victims that it needs but little imagination to stir deeply one's sympathies.
~ Charles William ("Will") Beebe (on ants), Our Search For a Wilderness (1910).

Cats, by means of their whiskers, seem to possess something like an additional sense: these have, perhaps, some analogy to the antennae of moths and butterflies.
~ Reverand William Bingley, Animal biography, or, Popular Zoology, Volume I (1813).

Few animals exhibit more maternal tenderness, or show a greater love for their offspring, than the cat.
~ Reverand William Bingley, Animal biography, or, Popular Zoology, Volume I (1813).

A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

A horse misus'd upon the road
Calls to Heaven for human blood.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

A robin red breast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
~ William Blake, from Songs of Experience (1794). The Fly

For he hears the lambs innocent call.
And he hears the ewes tender reply.
He is watchful while they are in peace.
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.
~ William Blake, from Songs of Innocence (1789). The Shepherd

He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belov'd by Men.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). A Memorable Fancy

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee.
~ William Blake, from Songs of Innocence (1789). The Lamb

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius; lift up thy head!
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Many animals have the ability to think, if not reason. ... Animals are often capable of affection; they love their kindred and comrades, and sometimes show remarkable devotion to man. Some animals seem even to possess an instinct which answers to conscience -- that is, the ability to discern the difference between a right and wrong course of action. If, then, animals have gifts of thought, of affection, and conscience, is it unreasonable to assume that they also possess some means of communicating their ideas and feelings to each other, however inferior the method of doing so may be to that with which man is endowed?
~ William Booth, Letters to Salvationists on Religion for Every Day (1902). XVIII: Conversation

The buzzard must be a buzzard and the bee must be a bee -- this is fate, but man is free to choose which he will imitate.
~ William Jennings Bryan, from The Commoner Condensed, Volume II (1903). The Buzzard and the Bee

Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.
~ William Cullen Bryant, in Putnam's Magazine (1855). Robert of Lincoln

To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. ... They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.
~ Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe (1991). Chapter 5: Brussels

A cat's rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.
~ William S. Burroughs

Like all pure creatures, cats are practical.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Cat Inside (1986).

The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Cat Inside (1986).

The bird, seems to me, has humor.
~ Wilhelm Busch, Criticism of the heart (1874).

A good dog is so much a nobler beast than an indifferent man that one sometimes gladly exchanges the society of one for that of the other.
~ Sir William Francis Butler, The Wild North Land (1873). Chapter IV

When turkeys mate they think of swans.
~ "Johnny" William Carson

You can lead a horse to water, and if you can train it to float on its back, you've got something.
~ "Johnny" William Carson

Habitant of castle gray,
Creeping thing in sober way,
Visible sage mechanician,
Skillfulest arithmetician.
~ William Ellery Channing, in The New England Magazine Volume 9, Issue 10. The Spider (his first poem; published October 1835)

[A] deer has the eye of a trusting child, soft, gentle, and confiding. No one but a brute could shoot a deer if he caught that look.
~ William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, in Last Of The Great Scouts: The Life Story of Col. William F. Cody (1899). Chapter XXIV. Literary Work

I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.
~ William Congreve, from Letters Upon Several Occasions (1696). Concerning Humour in Comedy (1695)

My parents used to take me to the pet department and tell me it was a zoo.
~ Billy Connolly

No tame animal has lost less of its native dignity or maintained more of its ancient reserve. The domestic cat might rebel tomorrow.
~ William Conway

How can you expect to excite or educate by exhibiting an animal ... in a concrete bathroom that provides him so little space and variety that he can do no more than men do in bathrooms.
~ William G. Conway (on improvements at the Bronx Zoo), in the Wall Street Journal (2 October 1984).

My father would pass gas and then blame it on imaginary animals.
~ Bill Cosby, from Bill Cosby: Himself (1983 film, at the Hamilton Place Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario).

Always, ere he mounted, kissed his horse.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Retirement

Earth groans beneath the burthen of a war
Waged with defenseless innocence.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

I kept him for his humour's sake,
For he would oft beguile
My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.
~ William Cowper, published in The Gentleman's Magazine (December 1784). Epitaph On A Hare

My Dog! what remedy remains,
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man?
~ William Cowper, in The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq., Volume I (1803). On a Spaniel Called Beau. I

The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void
Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleas'd
With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Jackdaw

Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy

The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, How to Become Extinct (1941).

Some fishes become extinct, but Herrings go on forever. Herrings spawn at all times and places and nothing will induce them to change their ways. They have no fish control.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, How to Become Extinct (1941).

I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days.
~ Bill Dana (William Szathmary)

And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long--
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, Child Lovers and other poems (1916). April's Charms

But cats to me are strange, so strange I cannot sleep if one is near ...
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, from The Captive Lion & Other Poems (1921). The Cat

Man is a bird:
He rises on fine wings
Into the Heaven's clear light;
He flies away and sings --
There's music in his flight.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, from Foliage: Various Poems (1913). Bird-Man

If I were reincarnated, I'd want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.
~ William Faulkner, Interview in The Paris Review, Issue 12 (Spring 1956). The Art of Fiction No. 12

There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.
~ William Faulkner, The National Observer (3 February 1964).

That they may have a little peace, even the best dogs are compelled to snarl occasionally.
~ William Feather

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.
~ W.C. Fields

Lady Godiva put everything she had on a horse.
~ W.C. Fields, in The Manager's Book of Quotations (1989).

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.
~ W.C. Fields

I have never been stricken with the man-against-beast syndrome. Rather, I built a world around the animals with whom I worked, and in it I was their father and they were my children.
~ Gunther Gebel-Williams, in Untamed (1991).

I perform for only one reason: To be able to train animals.
~ Gunther Gebel-Williams, in Lord Of The Rings (1988). Superstar Of The Circus

Working closely with animals -- training them, understanding them, and getting across their beauty and intellegence to the people -- for me, that's the best life I can have.
~ Gunther Gebel-Williams, in the 109th Edition of The Greatest Show On Earth (1979). Gunther Gebel-Williams ... the man behind the Legend

[O]ur reverence for man, the crown, the focus point of consciousness on this planet, is not decreased when we respect life in its other manifestations, rather the reverse.
~ (William) Monk Gibbon, The Seals (1935).

Manliness, I should suppose, implies some mode of action, that becomes a man. ... But to honour with the name of manliness, the cruel practice of pursuing timid animals to put them to death merely for amusement, is, in my opinion, perverting the meaning of words.
~ (Reverend) William Gilpin, from Three Dialogues On The Amusements Of Clergymen (1797 edition).

The Bible's emphasis is on the good treatment of animals, and not just the forbidding of cruel treatment.
~ Billy Graham

Animal-rights advocates remind us of this admonition: The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.
~ William Greider, in The Nation magazine (20 November 2000). The Last Farm Crisis

But don't you see darling? Giving him an unaffected name like "Spot" would really be the most affected thing of all.
~ William Hamilton, William Hamilton's Anti-Social Register (1974 cartoon).

(Fritz) was the greatest all-around horse that ever lived.
~ William S. "Two Gun Bill" Hart, My Life East and West (1929 autobiography).

The heart of animals is the foundation of their life, the sovereign of everything within them, the sun of their microcosm, that upon which all growth depends, from which all power proceeds.
~ William Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (An Anatomical Exercise on the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; 1628). Letter to Prince Charles

[M]an is a make-believe animal -- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
~ William Hazlitt, Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1826). Chapter XVI

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
~ William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819).

There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays (1821-1822). On Living to One's-self

Far in the stillness a cat
Languishes loudly.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from A Book of Verses (1888). In Hospital: Rhymes and Rhythms. VII. Vigil

Remember that a cow is a mother and her calf is a baby.
~ William Dempster Hoard, Hoard's Dairyman magazine

Speak to a cow as you would to a lady.
~ William Dempster Hoard, Hoard's Dairyman magazine (1885).

The cow is the foster mother of the human race. From the day of the ancient Hindu to this time Have the thoughts of men turned to this kindly and Beneficent creature as one of the chief forces of human life.
~ William Dempster Hoard

[W]hen all the cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe; then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, the sole survivor of animal life on this our earth -- a melancholy bug.
~ William Jacob Holland, The Moth Book

[I]t is much better to let the goose hatch out a few of its eggs, and when the young goslings grow up and begin laying golden eggs, you can kill off the old golden goose.
~ (Col.) William C. Hunter, Brass Tacks (1910).

Deliberate cruelty to our defenceless and beautiful little cousins is surely one of the meanest and most detestable vices of which a human being can be guilty.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926).

I am strongly convinced that to make a pleasure of killing harmless beasts and birds is a barbarous thing, now that we know what science has taught us about our kinship with them.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926).

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, Second Series (1922). The Idea of Progress

To my way of thinking there's something wrong, or missing, with any person who hasn't got a soft spot in their heart for an animal of some kind. With most folks the dog stands highest as man's friend, then comes the horse, with others the cat is liked best as a pet, or a monkey is fussed over; but whatever kind of animal it is a person likes, it's all hunkydory so long as there's a place in the heart for one or a few of them.
~ Will James, Smoky, the Cow Horse (1929). Preface

Man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be in the bargain, is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own species.
~ William James, published in The Atlantic Monthly (December 1904). Remarks at the Peace Banquet, World Peace Congress. Boston, MA (7 October 1904)

Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of the lowest and basest of the people. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; an intrinsic mark, which all the external advantages of wealth, splendour and nobility cannot obliterate. It will consist neither with true learning nor true civility.
~ William Jones (of Nayland), Zoologia Ethica (1771).

In no part of creation are the POWER, WISDOM, and GOODNESS, of its beneficent and almighty Author more signally conspicuous than in the various animals that inhabit and enliven our globe.
~ William Kirby, The Bridgewater Treatises on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Creation, Volume I (1835). Treatise VII. The History, Habits and Instinct of Animals

[I]ntelligent dogs rarely want to please people whom they do not respect.
~ William R. Koehler, The Koehler Method of Dog Training (1962).

Reliable sources have been hinting to us for generations that there are creatures existing which we have never seen. Will they be dreadful throwbacks to another age or inconceivable monsters of the future?
~ Willy Ley, in Mechanix Illustrated Magazine (February 1949). Do Prehistoric Monsters Still Exist?

When we consider the marvelous life of the bee and the ant and the water-spider, the wonder is, not that we have seen so much, but rather that we have seen so little.
~ William J. Long, in the North American Review 176 (May 1903). School of Nature-Study and Its Critics

2001 Dalmations: "My stars! It's full of dogs!"
~ Bill Marcum

Every dog, we are told, has his day, unless there are more dogs than days.
~ William Barclay "Bat" Masterson

My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia!
~ Sir William Henry Maule (appeal to the court in a case where the opposing counsel was lofty and offensive in manner).

You're a mouse studying to be a rat.
~ Wilson Mizner

Sing on, sing on, blithe bird! and fill my heart with summer gladness;
It has been aching many a day with measures full of sadness!
~ William Motherwell, in Posthumous Poems of William Motherwell (1847). I Plucked the Berry

I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason -- as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

Man is more ape than many of the apes.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

For God's sake there is a cow peeing on me. It's a bovine golden shower!
~ Bill Oddie, Ananova Ltd (20 January 2003). Bill Oddie soaked by urinating cow

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Gently drink, and drink as I.
~ William Oldys, in The Scarborough Miscellany (1732). The Fly. An Anacreontick. (aka, On a Fly Drinking out of his Cup of Ale)

I hate horses. ... They're dumber than canaries and don't know a thing about art.
~ Billy Pearson, quoted in The San Diego Union-Tribune (15 December 2002). Billy Pearson, 82; jockey, quiz show winner

God's lark at morning I would be!
I'd set my heart within a tree
Close to His bed and sing to Him
Right merrily
A sunrise hymn.
~ William Alexander Percy, from In April Once (1920). Part I. Siciliana. In April Once

I heard a bird at break of day
Sing from the autumn trees
A song so mystical and calm,
So full of certainties.
~ William Alexander Percy, from In April Once (1920). Part II. Lyrical Pieces. Overtones

A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, from Autobiography with Letters (1939).

Patrols with dogs were never ambushed during the war. It's true the dogs paid a heavy price, but they saved many lives, including my own.
~ William W. Putney, quoted in The Washington Post (23 March 2003). William W. Putney, 83, War Dogs Trainer, Dies

When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.
~ William Clifford Roberts

A man that don't love a horse, there is something the matter with him.
~ Will Rogers

Horsemanship through the history of all nations has been considered one of the highest accomplishments. You can't pass a park without seeing a statue of some old codger on a horse. It must be to his bravery, you can tell it's not to his horsemanship.
~ Will Rogers, (2 April 1934).

I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.
~ Will Rogers

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
~ Will Rogers

Legislatures is kind of like animals in the zoo. You can't do anything about 'em, only just stand and watch them anyhow.
~ Will Rogers, in The Will Rogers Touch (1978).

No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend; and the poorer he gets, the better friend he has.
~ Will Rogers

No matter what you weigh, the little fellow is your equal on a horse.
~ Will Rogers

There is something about riding down the street on a prancing horse that makes you feel like something, even when you ain't a thing.
~ Will Rogers

There never was a pony that couldn't be rode. And there never was a cowboy that couldn't be throwed.
~ Will Rogers

There will never be a time when the old horse is not superior to any auto ever made.
~ Will Rogers, (11 September 1932)

Bollocks the butler speaking. What splendid news about mad cow disease. That explains the last 20 years and I thought I was the one who was barmy. Please leave a spring-like message after the moo. ... Mooooooooo!
~ Willie Rushton (recorded message on his answering machine), in The Times newspaper (12 December 1996).

A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act II, scene iv

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act V, scene iv

Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
~ William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Act II, scene i

I would I were thy bird.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act II, scene ii

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act III, scene v

Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and the dog will have his day.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act V, scene i

On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act III, scene i

Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause;
But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act III, scene iii

[T]hou deboshed fish thou.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act III, scene iii

At that point, looking remarkable healthy, the skunk gave me the finger (I swear!) and casually strolled back into the woods.
~ William Shatner

Have you ever tried to remain 'still and quiet' while an enormous pachyderm evacuated its bowels on your head?
~ William Shatner, Get a Life! (1999).

I'm coming little animal!
~ William Shatner

Critics must excuse me, if I compare them to certain animals called asses; who, by gnawing vines originally taught the great advantage of pruning them.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. On Writing and Books

The horse never knows I'm there until he needs me.
~ William Lee (Willie) "The Shoe" Shoemaker

Size isn't everything. The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.
~ William H. Walton

Lone eagles, soaring in the clouds, fly with silent, peaceful poise,
While turkeys, in their earth-bound crowds, fill the atmosphere with noise.
~ William Arthur Ward

His friends he loved. His direst earthly foes --
Cats -- I believe he did but feign to hate.
My hand will miss the insinuated nose,
Mine eyes the tail that wagged contempt at Fate.
~ William Watson, from Poems of William Watson (1892). An Epitaph (for his dog)

I wish people were more like animals. Animals don't try to change you or make you fit in. They just enjoy the pleasure of your company.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (30 April 1989).

When birds burp, it must taste like bugs.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (7 June 1995).

Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!"?
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (11 June 1993).

Old dogs, like old shoes, are comfortable. They might be a bit out of shape, and a little worn around the edges, but they fit well.
~ Bonnie Wilcox, Old Dogs, Old Friends

Many times I am asked why the suffering of animals should call forth more sympathy from me than the suffering of human beings; why I work in this direction of charitable work more than toward any other. My answer is that because I believe that this work includes all the education and lines of reform which are needed to make a perfect circle of peace and goodwill about the Earth.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Like a graceful vase, a cat, even when motionless, seems to flow.
~ George F. Will

The phrase "domestic cat" is an oxymoron.
~ George F. Will

Bark: This is a sound made by dogs when excited. Dogs bark at milkmen, postmen, yourself, visitors to the house and other dogs; some of them bark at nothing. For some reason dogs tend not to bark at burglars, bailiffs and income tax collectors, at whom they way their tails in the most friendly manner.
~ Geoffrey Williams

Whales play, in an amniotic paradise.
Their light minds shaped by buoyancy,
unrestricted by gravity,
Somersaulting.
Like angels, or birds;
Like our own lives, in the womb.
~ Heathcote Williams, Whale Nation (1988)

Superdogs was started 25 years ago in Canada before an audience of 500 in Vancouver, British Columbia, because I was tired of the dog shows like the Westminster Dog Show that did the same things, the same way, with many of the same people for the last 130 years. ... It's very tense for the owners and the dogs, but Superdogs is fun for the dog, the owner and the audience.
~ Herb Williams, United Press International (17 January 2003). Animal Tales: IAMS super dogs

For hunters, hunting is fun. Recreation is play. Hunting is recreation. Hunters kill for play, for entertainment. They kill for the thrill of it.
~ Joy Williams, from Ill Nature: Rants And Reflections On Humanity And Other Animals (2001). The Killing Game

Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six-foot-tall RAT!
~ Robin Williams

We're all worms, but I do believe I'm a glowworm.
~ Robin Williams

Yellow butterflies look like flowers flying through the warm summer air.
~ Andrea Willis

Man differs more from Man, than Man from Beast.
~ John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester, A Satire Against Mankind (1675).

Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep,
Raise high the song, and cheerily wish her,
Still as the bending net we sweep,
"God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!"
~ Alexander Wilson, The Fisherman's Hymn

But I have always liked bird dogs rather than kennel-fed dogs myself -- you know, one that will get out and hunt for food rather than sit on his fanny and yell.
~ Charles E. Wilson

Ants are our co-rulers of the land. An estimated ten thousand trillion strong worldwide, they weigh very roughly the same as all of humanity. They abound everywhere except on icy mountain peaks and around the Poles.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in National Geographic magazine (August 2006). Army Ants: Inside the Ranks

Forget lions, tigers, and bears. Forget even our own famously aggressive species. When it comes to the art of war, it's army ants that will make you break into a cold sweat.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in National Geographic magazine (August 2006). Army Ants: Inside the Ranks

Every dog is allowed one bite, but a different view is taken of a dog that goes on biting all the time. He may not get his licence returned when it falls due.
~ Harold Wilson, Speech (2 March 1967)

It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their master is one of perpetual confident boredom. All they betray of the hidden life is by means of symbol; if it were not for the recurring evidence of murder -- the disemboweled rabbits, the headless flickers, the torn squirrels -- we should forever imagine our cats to be simple pets whose highest ambition is to sleep in the best soft chair, whose worst crime is to sharpen their claws on carpeting.
~ Robley Wilson, Jr.

I wouldn't mind the rat race -- if the rats would lose once in a while.
~ Tom Wilson, Ziggy

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music; on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject

I've watched you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower;
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems by William Wordsworth, Vol. I (1815). Poems Founded on the Affections. III. To a Butterfly

O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes, Volume I (1807). To the Cuckoo

The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
~ William Wordsworth, The Cock Is Crowing

Come into the world again, wild bees, wild bees!
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Celtic Twilight (1893). Belief and Unbelief

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Rose (1893). The White Birds

Give your children pets, so that by the care and attention bestowed upon them they may learn the habits of animals.
~ William H. Yeomans, in Heaven, Home And Happiness (1901). The Farmer's Home