Wisdom of Animals

While walking in the park one day, Monica heard a singing bird on an outstretched limb and with heart-felt love, pondered a quote by William Shakespeare :

I would not wish any companion in the world, but you.

They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations
caught with ourselves. They show us what’s missing in our lives...
and how to love ourselves more completely and unconditionally.
They connect us back to who we are...and to the purpose of why we’re here.
(Quote by Trisba McCagh and illustrated by a herd of elephants
treading through a tropical grassland.)

Human Comprehension
My favourite monkeys are superior to man in this:
When a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.
Michael Chazall’a belief is that the animals of the world exist
for their own reasons. They were not made for humans more than the black people were made for white...or women created for men.

Mahatma Ghandhi reasoned that “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are so placid and self-contained.
I stand and look at them ~ and long to be with them.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
they do not awake in the dark, and weep for their sins.
They do not make me sick discussing their sins.
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
No one is dissatisfied...no one is demented with the mania of owning things.

Farley Mowat believes we have doomed the wolf, not for what it is, but for what we deliberately perceive to be.

Animals are such agreeable friends: they ask no questions...they pass no criticisms.
(George Eliot)

“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions...grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”
(Alfred A Montapert)

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen, though. That’s the problem,” stated A. A. Milne.

How is it that animals understand things...I do not know; but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words, and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything, and it can always speak without making a sound to another soul.
(Hodgson Burnett)

Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all beauty and abundance of life on this planet.
(Marc Bekoff)

Laura Adams Amer believes that Marc could tell by the way animals walked that they were keeping time to some kind of music. Maybe it was the song in their own hearts that they walked to. Animals are more than ever a test of character, or of mankind’s capacity for empathy, and for decent honourable conduct, and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because of fright or power, or some claim to equality. But, in a sense, they all stand unequal and powerless before us.
(Matthew Scully)

For centuries, poets have tried to give a voice to animals and some readers have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices...and they could speak with the tongues of angels, they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them...nor have their beautiful songs, coats, skins, shells, and eyes, stated Joy Williams.

The other mammoths were as protective of the dying as they are of the newborns...and they gathered around trying to make the fallen one get up. When all was over, they buried the dead ancestor under piles of dirt, grass, leaves, or snow. Mammoths were even known to buy their dead animals, including humans, stated Jean M. Auel

Animals are the bridge between us and the beauty of all that is natural. They show us what is missing in our lives...and how to love ourselves more completely, and unconditionally. They connect us back who we are, and to the purpose we’re here.
(Tricha McCagh)

Maybe it’s animalness that will make the world right again. The wisdom of elephants...the enthusiasm of canines...the grace of snakes...the mildness of anteaters. Perhaps being human needs enthusiasm of canines...the grace of snakes...the mildness of anteaters.

To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time...or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you have always been told, that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets...and tyranny of clocks.
(Beryl Markham)

Compiled by MBK, Dec 24, 2020
Comments always welcome