Zoos Quotes

• People forget the good that zoos do. If it weren't for zoos, we would have so many species that would be extinct today.

  Betty White

  People, Would Be, Today

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wisdom, Peace, Kindness

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• We would consider it cruel to confine a dog permanently in a kennel. Yet we visit zoos where hundreds of wild animals are kept permanently in the equivalent of a kennel.

  Virginia McKenna

  Dog, Animal, Wild Animal

  Virginia McKenna, Will Travers, Jonathan Wray (1987). “Beyond the bars: the zoo dilemma”, Sterling Pub Co Inc

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• Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.

  Evan Esar

  Carpe Diem, Study, Habit

  "Esar's Comic Dictionary". Book by Evan Esar, 1943.

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• I am personally not against keeping animals at zoos, as they serve a huge educational purpose, but treating them well and with respect seems the least we could do, and with 'we' I mean not just zoo staff, but most certainly also the public.

  Frans de Waal

  Educational, Mean, Animal

  "Jump, Tiger, Jump!" by Frans de Waal, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 27, 2007.

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• Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.

  Jack Hanna

  Cousin, Animal, Ambassadors

  80 Copy quote

• In zoos, along with the animals, the humanity of man is also prisoned! No cage is humane!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Animal, Men, Humanity

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• The Zoo is a prison for animals who have been sentenced without trial and I feel guilty because I do nothing about it. But there it was, I wanted to see an oyster-catcher and I was no better than the people who'd caged oyster-catchers for me to see.

  Russell Hoban

  Freedom, Animal, Oysters

  "The Turtle Diary".

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• Nature is to zoos as God is to churches.

  Margaret Atwood

  Nature, Church

  Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.209, Anchor

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• The only creature on earth whose natural habitat is a zoo is the zookeeper.

  Robert Breault

  Animal, Earth, Habitat

  45 Copy quote

• Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.

  Angela Davis

  Jail, Prison Population, Break

  Angela Davis: An Autobiography ch. 1 (1974)

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• Let us free all the animals in the zoos to show them that we are not animals!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Animal, Shows

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• We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

  Yann Martel

  Animal, Men, Dangerous

  Yann Martel, Canongate Books (2007). “Life of Pi (Illustrated): Deluxe Illustrated Edition”, p.43, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don't go to the zoo. Go to the jungle.

  Jim Stengel

  Marketing, Lions, Want

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• If zoos are like arks, then rare animals are like passengers on a voyage of the damned, never to find a port that will let them dock or a land in which they can live in peace. The real solution, of course, is to preserve the wild nature that created these animals and has the power to sustain them. But if it is really true that we are inevitably moving towards a world in which mountain gorillas can survive only in zoos, then we must ask whether it is really better for them to live in artificial environments of our design than not to be born at all.

  Peter Singer

  Real, Moving, Animal

  69 Copy quote

• Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.

  Michael J. Fox

  Animal, Needs, Habitat

  90 Copy quote

• Stop going to the zoos! Don't take your children to the zoos! No creature ever deserves captivity without any crime!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Children, Captivity, Crime

  36 Copy quote

• Life is a zoo in a jungle.

  Peter De Vries

  Life, Bad Day, Jungle

  Peter De Vries (2014). “The Vale of Laughter: A Novel”, p.86, Open Road Media

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• A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.

  David Sedaris

  People, Looks, Photogenic

  David Sedaris (2010). “When You Are Engulfed In Flames”, p.15, Hachette UK

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• I became very critical of zoos and circuses and keeping animals in captivity. I wish it was against the law.

  Christopher Walken

  Animal, Law, Wish

  75 Copy quote

• Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.

  Paul Simon

  Happenings

  Song: At The Zoo

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• If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.

  Albert Einstein

  Cat, Animal, Men

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• I've actually gone to the zoo and had monkeys shout to me from their cages, "I'm in here when you're walking around like that?"

  Robin Williams

  Complaining, Gone, Monkeys

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• The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Ocean, Reality

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.19, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowherein a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal's gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.

  John Berger

  Animal, Opportunity, Encounters

  John Berger (2015). “About Looking”, p.21, Bloomsbury Publishing

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