70 Animal Quotes Celebrating Their Role in Our Lives (2022)

Looking for inspirational animal quotes to help you honor the human-animal bond?

Animals play an important role in our lives. From being valuable companions to designated therapeutic roles, animals contribute to our lives in many ways.

Animals help people live healthier lives, bring us happiness, are a source of food, and make our lives easier in many ways. Quite often, they show us how to be our best selves.

Research studies have found that positive interactions with animals can improve our physical, social, and emotional health. For instance, the National Institutes of Health reports that people with pets tend to get more exercise and health benefits than those without.

To help you celebrate their role in our lives, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and cute animal quotes, animal sayings, and animal proverbs, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

Also, check out these beautiful horse quotes that will inspire you to take a ride.

Animal Quotes Celebrating Their Role in Our Lives

1. “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” ― Mark Twain

2. “We strive for a world where every earthling has the right to live and grow. That’s why we don’t eat animals.” ― Ruby Roth

3. “Cats are there to be indulged. That’s their function: to receive the love we never fully gave our parents. Not like dogs. Dogs are there to give us the love and devotion our children will never fully give us.” ― Alex Shakar

4. “True compassion is showing Kindness towards animals, without expecting anything in return” ― Paul Oxton

5. “All my Best Friends have 4 Legs.” ― Tim Poirier

6. “Animals will attack if provoked, to protect their family or just to put food on the table, yet man still hasn’t learned these simple basics of life. Somehow I don’t think we are the intelligent species after all.” ― Anthony T. Hincks

7. “The best friend a man can have is an animal—they are so agreeable, they don’t hate on you and they embrace you without passing any criticism.” – Shenita Etwaroo

8. “Birds will always sing a song for those that they love.” ― Anthony T.Hincks

9. “When God becomes glad about our good works, then He sends the cute animals, birds, butterflies etc. near us like a signal to express His happiness!” ― Md. Ziaul Haque

10. “If I didn’t have a cat I would be lost.” ― Anthony T. Hincks

Also read these inspirational Steve Irwin quotes that will activate your inner animal lover.

Beautiful animal quotes to make your day

11. “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.” ― Josh Billings

12. “Elephants will never abandon their friends or family, but man does. I guess that’s what makes us civilized.” ― Anthony T. Hincks

13. “Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.” ― Gary Kowalski

14. “Animals are better off than a lot of humans if having soul means being able to feel gratitude, loyalty, and love.” – Shenita Etwaroo

15. “We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.” ― Peter Singer

16. “Be nice to the environment. Be nice to animals. Be nice to people. If you do that, you will leave a mark on the world.” ― Enock Maregesi

17. “When I got started again, I drove slower and felt smaller. I think it does us all good to get looked at like that now and then by a wild animal.” ― Bailey White

18. “If I never owned a dog I would be wandering the streets looking for love.” ― Anthony T.Hincks

19. “When it comes to conserving wildlife and the environment, It’s more important to be outspoken than unspoken” ― Paul Oxton

20. “Like it or not, we humans are bound up with our fellows, and with the other plants and animals all over the world. Our lives are intertwined.” ― Carl Sagan

You might also like these inspiring Jane Goodall quotes about the environment.

Animal quotes that will make you appreciate them

21. “A cat’s purr and a puppy’s wet nose are just two of the things that make my day enjoyable.” ― Anthony T.Hincks

22. “Wild animals are less wild and more human than many humans of this world” ― Munia Khan

23. “You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal.” – Betty White

24. “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ― Anatole France

25. “Animals are born who they are, accept it, and that is that. They live with greater peace than people do.” ― Gregory Maguire

26. “If you want to see God, simply look into the eyes of an animal.” ― J. Bartell

27. “I feel more human when I compare the cuteness of a lizard to a newborn child’s sweetness. Both are God’s creations filled with precious innocence” ― Munia Khan

28. “When animals behave like humans or when humans behave like animals, don’t be surprised because in every animal there is a human and in every human, there is an animal!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

29. “When you look into the eyes of an animal you’ve rescued, you can’t help but fall in love.” – Paul Shaffer

30. “A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.” ― Leo Tolstoy

Read our collection of dog quotes about our favorite four legged friends.

Animal quotes to inspire and teach

31. “Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits.” – William Hazlitt

32. “If ever you feel like an animal among men, be a lion.” ― Criss Jami

33. “Animals don’t know as much about jealousy as people, but they’re not ignorant of it, either.” ― Stephen King

34. “If it’s true that men are such beasts, this must account for the fact that most women are animal lovers.” – Doris Day

35. “If you don’t own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.” ― Roger Caras

36. “Animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. Maybe that’s why we get along” ― Charles Bukowski (see more charles bukowski quotes and sayings)

37. “Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer

38. “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.” – Charles de Gaulle

39. “No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as a dog does.” – Christopher Morley

40. “Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent.” – Milan Kundera

You might also like these cute funny dog quotes that will make you LOL with your furry friends.

Other inspirational animal quotes

41. “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi

42. “Having a dog will bless you with many of the happiest days of your life, and one of the worst.” – Unknown

43. “I call my horses ‘divine mirrors’—they reflect back the emotions you put in. If you put in love and respect and kindness and curiosity, the horse will return that.” – Allan Hamilton

44. “Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one is a life diminished.” – Dean Koontz

45. “Even an animal, if you show genuine affection, gradually trust develops… If you always showing bad face and beating, how can you develop friendship?” – Dalai Lama

46. “Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.” ― Charles Bukowski

47. “Through the metal bars of the jungle gym, she watches two gray squirrels chase each other around a tree. Around and around and around. So gratuitous.” ― Thomas Pierce

48. “It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.” – Mark Twain

49. “A house is not a home without a pet.” – Unknown

Make sure to check out our collection of pet quotes that celebrate our animal loved ones.

50. “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.” – Walt Whitman

Don’t forget to also read these inspirational elephant quotes to celebrate animals and nature.

Animal quotes about the power of Earth’s creatures

51. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” —  George Orwell

52. “It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked.” — Haile Selassie

53. “The only honest reaction and true loyalty that we get is from our animals.” — Dick Van Patten

54. “Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.” — George Eliot

55. “Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.” — Betty White

56. “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” — James Herriot

57. “Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.” — Michael Morpurgo

58. “The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men.” — Emile Zola

59. “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

60. “You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.” — Jane Goodall

More animal quotes to inspire care and compassion

61. “Happiness is a warm puppy.” ― Charles M. Schulz

62. “Dogs never bite me. Just humans.” ― Marilyn Monroe

63. “Animals are my friends…and I don’t eat my friends.” ― George Bernard Shaw

64. “Man is the cruelest animal.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

65. “People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

67. “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” ― Winston Churchill

68. “If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.” ― Mark Twain

69. “I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.”
― Ellen DeGeneres

70. “Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.” ― Colette

Which of these animal quotes was your favorite?

Animals play an important role in enriching our lives in many different ways. They give us a better quality of life and help improve our health and well-being.

Animals help make us be better humans. Hopefully, the above quotes will help you become your best self.

Did you enjoy these animal quotes? Which of the quotes was your favorite? Let us know in the comment section below.