When confronted by a hungry wolf, it is unwise to goad the beast, as Cato would have us do. But it is equally unwise to imagine the snarling animal a friend and offer your hand, as Pompey does." "Perhaps you would have us climb a tree!
The animal lacks both anxiety and hope because its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident and thus to the present moment: the animal is the present incarnate.
Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges.
I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat.
We talk of wild animals but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type.
Man is the only slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day, he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.
You are a flower crushed beneath the feet of the animal that is concealed in a human being. Take comfort, in that you are the flower crushed and not the foot that has crushed it.
Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.
I cannot see the short, white curls Upon the forehead of an Ox, But what I see them dripping with That poor thing's blood, and hear the ax; When I see calves and lambs, I see Them led to death; I see no bird Or rabbit cross the open field But what a sudden shot is heard; A shout that tells me men aim true, For death or wound, doth chill me through. W.H. Davies I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.