“I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.”

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

A drunken man is happier than a sober one.

Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

What you are to do without me I cannot imagine.

When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.

Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery – it’s the sincerest form of learning.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends.

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you’ll find you’ve done it.

Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

I love dogs. I grew up with dogs in my family from the time that I was a little boy; we always had German Shepherds and Labradors. I get on very well with dogs, they trust me.

Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.

Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.

I am writing these poems From inside a lion.

The method of learning by trial and error – of learning from our mistakes – seems to be fundamentally the same whether it is practiced by lower or by higher animals, by chimpanzees, or by men of science.