The standards for defining the existence of emotions in animals begin with those in common use for humans. One should demand no more proof that an animal feels an emotion than would be demanded of a human – and, like humans, the animal should be permitted to speak its own emotional language, which it is up to the beholder to understand.

Swimming the ocean a giant brain watches us.

Strange as it seems, we appear to be the only species who do not have an instinctive ability to know what food we should eat to stay healthy. All other animals do. We consider ourselves a superior species, yet we are destroying the only planet we have, endangering our very existence.

Us” versus “them” is not in our genes. It is something we learn.

De Waal complains that anthropoid apes are so good at reading human body language as to leave people who work with them feeling transparent.34.

A lion is not a lion if it is only free to eat, to sleep and to copulate. It deserves to be free to hunt and to choose its own prey; to look for and find its own mate; to fight for and hold its own territory; and to die where it was born – in the wild. It should have the same rights as we have.

Hardly any animal can look as deeply disappointed as a dog to whom one says “no.”

The curiosity of cats is, like their affection, of a purity and intensity rarely seen in humans. We would be jaded when faced with the fiftieth paper bag. Not so our cats.

We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us.

Dogs never lie about love.