The smallest things

Sometimes the smallest things
take up the most space in your heart.
From Winnie the Pooh

There are two means of refuge from the misery of life —
music and cats.
Albert Schweitzer

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not
a pastime to her more than she is to me?
Michel de Montaigne

If man could be crossed with the cat
it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.
Mark Twain

Bird Music by Rose Terry Cooke

Bird Music
Rose Terry Cooke

Singer of priceless melody,
Underguerdoned chorister of air,
Who from the lithe top of the tree
Pourest at will thy music rare,
As if a sudden brook laughed down the hill-side there.

The purple-blossomed fields of grass,
Waved sea-like to the idle wind,
Thick daisies that the stars surpass,
Being as fair and far more kind;--
All sweet uncultured things thy wild notes bring to mind.

When that enraptured overflow
Of singing into silence dies,
Thy rapid fleeting pinions show
Where all thy spell of sweetness lies
Gathered in one small nest from the wide earth and skies.

Unconscious of thine audience,
Careless of praises as of blame,
In simpleness and innocence,
Thy gentle life pursues its aim,
So tender and serene, that we might blush for shame.

The patience of thy brooding wings
That droop in silence day by day,
The little crowd of callow things
That joy for weariness repay,--
These are the living spring, thy song the fountain's spray.

If we could be like this tiny bird by Gertrude Tooley Buckingham

A bird is three things: Feathers, flight and song,
And feathers are the least of these.
Marjorie Allen Seiffert

I heard the sweet voice of a robin,
High up in the maple tree,
Joyously, singing his happy song
To his feathered mate, in glee!...
If we could be like this tiny bird,
Just living from day to day,
Holding no bitterness in our hearts
For those we meet on our way...
Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "Heaven on Earth"

Excerpt from "The Light Within Us" by Albert Schweitzer

As far back as I can remember I was saddened by the amount of misery I saw in the world around me. Youth's unqualified joie de vivre I never really knew, and I believe that to be the case with many children, even though they appear outwardly merry and quite free from care.

One thing that specially saddened me was that the unfortunate animals had to suffer so much pain and misery. The sight of an old limping horse, tugged forward by one man while another kept beating it with a stick to get it to the knacker's yard at Colmar, haunted me for weeks.

It was quite incomprehensible to me--this was before I began going to school--why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me goodnight, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures.

It ran thus: 'O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.'"
Albert Schweitzer,"The Light Within Us"

Excerpt From Animal Farm by George Orwell

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.
George Orwell,Animal Farm

In every animal’s eye by John Ruskin

There is in every animal’s eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.
John Ruskin

Animal Quote By John Muir

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.
John Muir

Animal Quotes

Elena Shumilova Photography

Animals are like little children a bit.They're simple. They don't have politics driving them.
ANNABELLE SABLOFF

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

Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You and your horse by Monica Dickens

You and your horse. His strength and beauty. Your knowledge and patience and determination and understanding and love. That's what fuses the two of you onto this marvelous partnership that makes you wonder, "What can heaven offer any better then what I have here on earth?
Monica Dickens

Sweet Dove by George Herbert

Listen, sweet Dove, unto my song,
And spread thy golden wings in me;
Hatching my tender heart so long,
Till it get wing, and flie away with Thee.
George Herbert

Humility by Rudolf Arnheim

Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination.
Rudolf Arnheim

Horse quote by James Sheridan Knowles

What delight
To back the flying steed, that challenges
The wind for speed! - seems native more of air
Than earth! - whose burden only lends him fire! -
Whose soul, in his task, turns labour into sport;
Who makes your pastime his! I sit him now!
He takes away my breath! He makes me reel!
I touch not earth - I see not - hear not. All
Is ecstasy of motion!
James Sheridan Knowles

On humans & animals

Gregory Colbert Photography

When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.
Buddha

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
Plutarch

We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Mammals

On animals by George Eliot & Voltaire

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot

Animals have these advantages over man: They have no theologians to instruct them, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.
Voltaire

Horse quote by Herman Melville

Among all the sights of the docks, the noble truck-horses are not the least striking to a stranger. They are large and powerful brutes, with such sleek and glossy coats, that they look as if brushed and put on by a valet every morning. They march with a slow and stately step, lifting their ponderous hoofs like royal Siam elephants.

Thou shalt not lay stripes upon these Roman citizens; for their docility is such, they are guided without rein or lash; they go or come, halt or march on, at a whisper. So grave, dignified, gentlemanly, and courteous did these fine truck-horses look - so full of calm intelligence and sagacity, that often I endeavored to get into conversation with them, as they stood in contemplative attitudes while their loads were preparing.

But all I could get from them was the mere recognition of a friendly neigh; though I would stake much upon it that, could I have spoken in their language, I would have derived from them a good deal of valuable information touching the docks, where they passed the whole of their dignified lives.
Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage, 1849

The very idea of a bird and the poet by John Burroughs

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
John Burroughs

Riding is a partnership. Horse quote by Author Unknown

Riding is a partnership. The horse lends you his strength, speed and grace, which are greater than yours. For your part you give him your guidance, intelligence and understanding, which are greater than his. Together you can achieve a richness that alone neither can.

Sweet cat quotes

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
Mark Twain

If the pull of the outside world is strong, there is also a pull towards the human. The cat may disappear on its own errands, but sooner or later, it returns once again for a little while, to greet us with its own type of love.
Lloyd Alexander

Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely?
Karen Brademeyer

Watch a cat when it enters a room for the first time. It searches and smells about, it is not quiet for a moment, it trusts nothing until it has examined and made acquaintance with everything.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A cat improves the garden wall in sunshine, and the hearth in foul weather.
Judith Merkle Riley

The horse by Ronald Duncan

Where in this wide world
Can man find nobility without pride,
Friendship without envy,
Or beauty without vanity?
Here, where grace is served with muscle
And strength by gentleness confined
He serves without servility;
He has fought without enmity.
There is nothing so powerful,
Nothing less violent.
There is nothing so quick,
Nothing more patient.
Ronald Duncan,The Horse

Amazing animals pictures with quotes

The realities of nature surpass our most ambitious dreams.
Francois Rodin

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

There is nothing in which the birds
differ more from man than the way in which
they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.
Robert Lynd

Most animals are like the unfortunate Gregor Samsa after metamorphosis. They are Kafka-creatures, organisms with rich thoughts and emotions but no system for translating what they think into something that they can express to others.
MARC D. HAUSER, Wild Minds

The question is not, “Can they 
reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” 
but rather, “Can they suffer?”
Jeremy Bentham