And he proposed farther, that by employing Spiders, the Charge of dying Silks would be wholly saved; whereof I was fully convinced when he shewed me a vast Number of Flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his Spiders;
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1735)
Soon all the pigs were calm and quiet, as they had never been in life. But that did not excuse the crime. Their betrayal.
Neil Astley, The End of My Tether (2002) #Animals #Literature #Novels #Slaughterhouse
If I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster, any being with whom I share the substrate of life.
J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals (1999) and Elizabeth Costello (2003) #animals #litsky
What about the caged half-crazed
orang-utan who vomits because
he has nothing else to do?
Miroslav Holub, From "Collision" #InternationalOrangutanDay #Zoos #Animals #Poetry
The collared lizards cry at night
because El Paso is too hot
for their detachable blue tails.
The desert turtle stops and
waits as a cartel truck drives by
and dark houses illuminate
what is hidden there.
Ray Gonzales, From "El Paso" (2023) #WorldLizardDay
What makes a dog run away, then?
The desire to live.
You’ve never seen a dog trembling?
A dog trembles when he doesn’t know what to do.
Like us!
No, you tremble when you know what to do as much as when you don’t.
Fart off, dog.
John Berger, King: A Street Story (1999) #dogs #literature
The cruellest of animals is Man,
By his own doing, not by nature's plan.
William Allingham (1890) #animals #poetry
They had chains which they fastened about the leg of the nearest hog, and the other end of the chain they hooked into one of the rings on the wheel. So, as the wheel turned, a hog was suddenly jerked off his feet and borne aloft.
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906)
I guzzle my food like a dog. A bestial life is turning me into a beast.
J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
On the collar of a dog presented by Alexander Pope to Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1738. #dogs #animals
‘Good morning,’ the pig replied. ‘I wasn’t sure if you could see me.’
‘It’s a new ability.’
‘Ah,’ said the pig.
‘Tell me, pig, how did you die?’ I asked.
‘That’s a personal question,’ the pig said.
Ceridwen Dovey, ‘Hundstage’ (Only the Animals) (2014) #animals #pigs #literature #BookSky
The swirl of fur and dust and the smell of cat shit both acrid and sweet—the smell of life, for us. The felines appeal through the bars as I waddle through the caged aisles.
@laurajeanmckay.bsky.social, ‘Cats at the Fire Front’ (newsroom.co.nz/2023/02/24/s... )
There we no physical barriers to his freedom, but the lions of the plains do not accept into their respected fraternity an individual bearing in his coat the smell of men.
Beryl Markham, ‘He Was A Good Lion’ (1942)
‘Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality – in fact? Do you?’
Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
I can assure you that if mankind thinks of you, it thinks you are the missing link. You ought to be shut up and exhibited here in the Zoo … with the gorilla on one side and the chimpanzee on the other.
David Garnett, A Man in the Zoo (1924)
Seven of them pinned in blood by
long, shiny tails, three of them still
alive and writhing against the wood
their heaviness whipping the wall
From Ray Gonzales, ‘Rattlesnakes Hammered on the Wall’ #WorldSnakeDay
Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much.
Sarah Orne Jewett, ‘A White Heron’ (1886)
She could tell him to fetch his toys from the upstairs landing and he would. But he walked on all fours, always grunted before he ate, and idly put his finger in his anus and smelled his finger, sometimes licked it.
Colin McAdam, A Beautiful Truth #WorldChimpanzeeDay