“Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.”
Aristotle
“From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.”
Victor Hugo
“Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.”
“At his best man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst”
“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it”
Mark Twain
“Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost”
Voltaire
“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 Nietzsche
