Zoos Quotes - Page 3

• All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Political, Amusement

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.365, Vintage

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• My favorite species to study would be Cobras and King Cobras which are two different families. They're very intelligent, and they're beautiful looking animals. Where they come from are countries and regions which I spend a lot of time in - South East Asia and India, those are places I go to fairly often, and so the cobras are my main interest. It's not a snake I can maintain, but when I see them in zoos and what not, I find them interesting.

  Henry Rollins

  Beautiful, Country, Kings

  "Henry Rollins and a Whole Lot of Snakes". Interview with Jeff Jetton, brightestyoungthings.com. April 29, 2011.

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• Biodiversity can't be maintained by protecting a few species in a zoo, or by preserving greenbelts or national parks. To function properly, nature needs more room than that. It can maintain itself, however, without human expense, without zookeepers, park rangers, foresters or gene banks. All it needs is to be left alone.

  Donella Meadows

  Needs, National Parks, Rooms

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• Through PETA, we rescue animals in roadside zoos and circuses. They are some of the most abused animals in the country.

  Sam Simon

  Country, Animal, Circus

  "Terminally Ill 'Simpsons' Co-Creator Vows to Give Away Fortune". Interview with Gary Baum, www.hollywoodreporter.com. July 25, 2013.

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• At school, our classroom had a small rodent zoo consisting of two rabbits, three hamsters, a litter of baby gerbils and a guinea pig. At first, I’d thought the teacher was raising snack food, which impressed me, being the first sign of intelligence she’d shown. Soon, though, I’d figured out the animals’ true purpose and left them alone, though I would never understand the appeal of petting and coddling perfectly good food.

  Kelley Armstrong

  Baby, Teacher, School

  Kelley Armstrong (2010). “Men of the Otherworld”, p.124, Vintage Canada

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• I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.

  J. D. Salinger

  New York, Home, Thinking

  J. D. SALINGER (1951). “THE CATCHER IN THE RYE”

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• In my perfect world, we would establish perhaps four national zoos of unimpeachable quality and close the rest of them.

  Susan Orlean

  Perfect, Quality, World

  "Wild Animals Don’t Want to be Owned" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. October 20, 2011.

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• Adult gorillas will fight to the death defending their families. This is why poachers who may be seeking only one infant for the zoo trade must often kill all the adults in the family to capture the baby.

  Sy Montgomery

  Baby, Fighting, Adults

  Sy Montgomery (2009). “Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas”, p.42, Chelsea Green Publishing

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• Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.

  Michael Chabon

  Animal, Dams, Vandalism

  Michael Chabon (2011). “Wonder Boys”, p.42, Open Road Media

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• The zoo cannot but disappoint.

  John Berger

  Animal, Pet, Disappoint

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.429, Vintage

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• Newt Gingrich was campaigning at a zoo this week and he was bitten by a penguin. Newt Gingrich is always campaigning at zoos. Mitt Romney once did a photo op at a zoo. That was a big mistake, because he stood next to the chameleon, and HE changed colors.

  Bill Maher

  Mistake, Color, Next

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• You know, if you have a zoo you don't want the other creatures to see you. You want them to hang out and act properly and, you know, when the monkeys will come and ask for the bananas, they won't act like monkeys. If you want them to act on what their true nature is, you've got to leave them alone.

  Tarsem Singh

  Want, Monkeys, Bananas

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• I live in a zoo I run scandals with savages

  Cam'ron

  Running, Savages, Scandal

  Song: Down And Out, Album: Purple Haze, 2004

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• Because we have put ourselves in our own zoo, we find it difficult to break out.

  Edward T. Hall

  Culture, Break Out, Difficult

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• ...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.

  Martha Shelley

  Ice Cream, July, White

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• For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

  Diane Ackerman

  Animal, Sea, People

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• I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

  Yann Martel

  People, Grace, Faces

  Yann Martel, Canongate Books (2007). “Life of Pi (Illustrated): Deluxe Illustrated Edition”, p.34, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It has got to the point in this country where men believe they are men, just because that is their birthright. If that is true, then, by the same logic, an animal held captive in a zoo is still a free wild beast.

  William Powell

  Country, Believe, Animal

  "The Anarchist Cookbook". Book by William Powell, Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons", p. 93, 1971.

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• I've gone back in time to when dinosaurs weren't just confined to zoos.

  Homer

  Gone, Dinosaurs, Back In Time

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• We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.

  Rigoberta Menchu

  Past, Racism, People

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• Ageing is very rare. We only see it in humans and laboratory animals and in zoo animals and in our pets. Basically, organisms that are protected from the external world. Once you create that protection, you live long enough to see ageing.

  S. Jay Olshansky

  Animal, Long, Pet

  "The Time Of Our Lives" (Part 1), www.abc.net.au. May 24, 2007.

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• The quizzical expression of the monkey at the zoo comes from his wondering whether he is his brother's keeper, or his keeper's brother.

  Evan Esar

  Nature, Brother, Animal

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• When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer.

  Melvin Burgess

  Teacher, Jobs, Children

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• The newspapers do little better. Their coverage of nonhuman animals is dominated by "human interest" events like the birth of a baby gorilla at the zoo, or by threats to endangered species; but developments in farming techniques that deprive millions of animals of freedom of movement go unreported.

  Peter Singer

  Baby, Animal, Technique

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, People, Warning

  Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.55, Penguin

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