Quotes & Sayings About Elephants

Diplomacy is much like the "lovemaking of elephants", which is accompanied with a lot of bellowing and other sound effects, but no one can be sure of the consequences for at least the next two years — Shashi Tharoor

Elephants suffer from too much patience. Their exhibitions of it may seem superb,-such power and such restraint, combined, are noble,-but a quality carried to excess defeats itself. — Clarence Day

Souls dance undressed/ together/ and like loiterers/ on the fringes of a fair/ we ogle the unobtainable/ imagined mystery/ Yet away around on the far side/ like a stage door of a circus tent/ is a wide vent in the battlements/ where even elephants/ waltz thru
pg. 31// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother. — Will Rogers

When the elephant decides to walk through the village, all the dogs come out and bark. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

People like old elephants better than sewers and fire engines. — Haruki Murakami

Showmen's Rest was truly something to behold. Throughout the entire yard, statues and carvings of elephants, clowns, and tight-rope walkers danced on the gray and white surfaces of tombstones and grave-markers. For the first time, Michael got the feeling that the men and women who'd been buried there were probably really happy with their final resting place. It was a touching tribute, one that honored their passion in life and that had been constructed out of love and respect. — Jacqueline E. Smith

He calls it speleogenesis by elephants - the creation of a cave by elephants. — Richard Preston

Well, the big elephant in the whole system is the baby boomer generation that marches through like a herd of elephants. And we begin to retire in 2008. — Lindsey Graham

If thou art of elephant-strength or of lion-claw, still peace is, in my opinion, better than strife. — Saadi

Do not be thoughtless, always be mindful, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the path of evil, like an elephant sunk in mud. — Gautama Buddha

I don't know where I learned elephants like their tongues slapped. Whatever turns you on. — Betty White

She was a beautiful woman." Gavner sighed, tracing the outline of one of the elephants. "She just had very bad taste in underwear ... "
"And in boyfriends," I added impishly.
Mr. Crepsley burst into laughter at that — Darren Shan

It's no good telling somebody they're trying too hard. It's very much like ordering a child to go stand in a corner for a half hour and never once think about elephants. — John D. MacDonald

I drove through the suburbs, where all the houses looked identical, one variation of another of the same thing. I said to myself, I'd rather fire myself from a cannon, pick up the shit of elephants and eat it, suffocate inside Houdini's water tank, lie beneath the running horses, or sodomise a big cat in a cage and pay the consequences than get trapped in these suburbs of cardboard, gossip, and conformity. — Rawi Hage

Spoilers follow
I started reading the third act of Hamlet, and I got about two pages in when I realized there's no point.
I am never going back to school.
I am never going to the university.
I am never going to watch wolves stalk through the northern forests or elephants graze on the savanna. I am never going to have sex or get married or raise a family. I'm never going to have a first apartment, a first house, a first car. I'm never — Megan Crewe

The ocean, for me, is what LSD was to Timothy Leary. He claimed the hallucinogen is to reality what a microscope is to biology, affording a perception of reality that was not before accessible. Shamans and seekers eat mushrooms, drink potions, lick toads, inhale smoke, and snort snuff to transport their minds to realms they cannot normally experience. (Humans are not alone in this endeavor; species from elephants to monkeys purposely eat fermented fruit to get drunk; dolphins were recently discovered sharing a certain toxic puffer fish, gently passing it from one cetacean snout to another, as people would pass a joint, after which the dolphins seem to enter a trancelike state.) — Sy Montgomery

Always meet petulance with gentleness and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even en elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness. — Zoroaster

Time magazine put Chris Christie on the cover with the caption, 'The Elephant in the Room.' And People magazine named him 'Sexiest Garbage Truck in a Suit.' — Bill Maher

If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress. — Gautama Buddha

Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayest manage to guide an elephant by a hair. — Saadi

The absence of adult males upsets the natural order in our species and in others. For example, game wardens in South Africa recently had to kill several teenage male elephants that had uncharacteristically become violent. These young elephants behaved like a contemporary street gang - and perhaps for the same reason: There were no adult males in their lives. To solve the problem, park officials imported adult male elephants from outside the area. Almost immediately, the remaining juveniles stopped misbehaving. Testosterone ungoverned by experience is dangerous, and older males temper the craving for dominance - merely by being dominant themselves. — Gavin De Becker

I am persuaded that if the brutes even
if the dog, the horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, and to whom all returns. — Alphonse De Lamartine

Letter 1
To the princess of the elephants,
I disappeared exactly one year ago. On that day I received a letter. It called me back to the place where my life with the elephants began
Please forgive me, for the silence between us has been unbroken for one year.
I will never be more of myself than in these letters.
They are my maps of the bird path, and they are all that I know to be true. — Gregory Colbert

The shrewd hunt foxes,
the strong hunt lions,
but the mighty hunt elephants. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Think! Think and wonder. Wonder and think. How much water can 55 elephants drink? — Dr. Seuss

China is referred to as the 'dragon' and India as an 'elephant'. But we are not an elephant, we are a 'beehive'. — Rahul Gandhi

Most people fantasize that if they won the lottery, they would quit their jobs and immerse themselves in leisure, play, family, parenthood, occasional thrilling sex; they'd eat when they were hungry and sleep whenever they felt sleepy. Many people, if they won the lottery and got rich quick, would want to live like elephants. — Carl Safina

May giant circus elephants shit on your lawn. May bug-eyed gargoyles eat your young. — James Ellroy

They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end. — Robert McCammon

When it comes to looking after all the species that are already endangered, there's such a lot to do that sometimes it might all seem to be too much, especially when there are so many other important things to worry about. But if we stop trying, the chances are that pretty soon we'll end up with a world where there are no tigers or elephants, or sawfishes or whooping cranes, or albatrosses or ground iguanas. And I think that would be a shame, don't you? — Martin Jenkins

Another example of how connected we all are, and are meant to be, is the story of the "elephant whisperer," the late Lawrence Anthony. He was a conservationist who saved the lives of countless elephants — Christiane Northrup

To achieve this density of a neutron star at home, just cram a herd of 50 million elephants into the volume of a thimble. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

You see, in a world where elephants are pursued by flying men, people are just naturally going to want to get high. — Judith Rascoe

You ever watch animal planet? Women are kind of like a herd of elephants. They stick together for protection. And if one sense danger? They all stampede. — Emma Chase

I don't know how many lions and leopards I've shot. I've shot two elephants, which was enough - never again. It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an old man. — Wilbur Smith

Our elders say that an elephant does not find its own trunk heavy. — Zakes Mda

It seems safe to say that apes know about death, such as that is different from life and permanent. The same may apply to a few other animals, such as elephants, which pick up ivory or bones of a dead herd member, holding the pieces in their trunks and passing them around. Some pachyderms return for years to the spot where a relative died, only to touch and inspect the relics. Do they miss each other? Do they recall how he or she was during life? — Frans De Waal

And then I laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it's all I an do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?
It's like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this IS home. — Sara Gruen

Knowing what you need doesn't always mean you know how to get it, though. I'd spent a long time hiding in my cave. No matter how much I might want to come out into the light, I knew it would hurt my eyes. I was a fool. A fool, but nevertheless too smart not to know I was the architect of my own demise, that it was time to put my past behind me. It was time to stop allowing the white elephants to stand unspoken of in my living room. — Megan Hart

I know my Republican friends were glad to see my wife feeding an elephant in India. She gave him sugar and nuts. But of course the elephant wasn't satisfied. — John F. Kennedy

The world is not a burden; we make it a burden by our desires. When the desires are removed, the world is as light as a feather on an elephant's back. — Baba Hari Dass

In the same way that humans have a "handy" intelligence, which we share with other primates, elephants may have a "trunky" one. There — Frans De Waal

Nothing appeases an enraged elephant so much as the sight of a little lamb. — Saint Francis De Sales

Elephants and grandchildren never forget. — Andy Rooney

The Buddhists have a story about blind men trying to describe an elephant by feeling it's various parts, and each describes the elephant according to the part he touched. That is the way we can hope to know God. — Kent Nerburn

Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends. — Tahir Shah

Women and elephants never forget. — Dorothy Parker

Studying elephants is like going back into prehistoric times. In size, elephants are the closest thigns we have to dinosaurs. There are days when I feel as though there is nothing we can do for elephants - I feel that the only good I am doing is recording the extinction of one of the most magnificent animals that ever walked the earth. — Roland Smith

Elephants are like humans. They are very smart, very logical. — Peter Beard

Morels are ugly in the skillet. The caps look like the scrotums of leprechauns, the stems like the tusks of fetal elephants. — Tom Robbins

Not, like, that, boychik, you sound like a herd of elephants charging through a music store. — Jordan Sonnenblick

I'm really into moderation. Too much of anything will harm you in the end. Too much sugar. Too much pasta. I'm into drugs as a teaching tool, which is why I only take hallucinogenics. I mean, it's not like I've never done cocaine, but, on the whole, if I can't see dancing elephants then I'm not interested. — Tori Amos

It's hard to reconcile this August with the other one. and to be honest I don't try very hard. I've seen flashes of this August before-This brightness, this conviviality, this generosity of spirit-but I know what he's capable of, and I won't forget it. The others can believe what they like, but I don't believe for a second that this is the real August and the other an aberration And yet I can see how they might be fooled- — Sara Gruen

The circus a place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool. — Ambrose Bierce

Always be fearless. Walk like lion, talk like pigeons, live like elephants and love like an infant child. — Santosh Kalwar

We are responsible for the problem and we must be held responsible for the solution. It will indeed be a sad indictment on our species if rhinos and elephants are no more. And that day will come much sooner than we think if we do not take action. — Brian Connell

Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry your cares. Travel on alone. Like an elephant in the forest. — Gautama Buddha

There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the Elephant. — Edward Topsell

We have all seen these circus elephants complete with tusks, ivory in their head and thick skins, who move around the circus ring and grab the tail of the elephant ahead of them. — John F. Kennedy

To be born, to live and to die is merely to change forms ... And what does one form matter any more than another? ... Each form has its own sort of happiness and unhappiness. From the elephant down to the flea ... from the flea down to the sensitive and living molecule which is the origin of all, there is not a speck in the whole of nature that does not feel pain or pleasure. — John Dewey

Our problem with limited resources is not primarily overpopulation; it is greed. Our problem with pollution is not the invention of fluorocarbons or mass transport; it is irresponsibility. The loss of an acre of forest every second, the mass slaughter of elephants for their ivory, the extinction of entire species of plants, insects and animals all over the world is not something that "just happens" because there are more of us human beings. It happens because the race of ruling beings put in charge has almost wholly lost its sense of stewardship. We have turned away from God. — Winkie Pratney

The older I get, the more I see a straight path where I want to go. If you're going to hunt elephants, don't get off the trail for a rabbit. — T. Boone Pickens

When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there was no one there to hear it, does it - philosopically speaking - make a noise — Terry Pratchett

Just in case you thought elephants were all sweetness, I can attest to the fact that this one had the time of her life scaring the bejeezus out of those dudes. — James Patterson

They want dancing girls! They want thrills! They want elephants! They want people falling off roofs! They want dreams! The world is full of little people with big dreams! — Terry Pratchett

The world's strongest animals are plant eaters. Gorillas, Buffaloes, Elephants and me. — Patrik Baboumian

The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants. — Richard Leakey

We came here for a quiet, small, informal meeting - strictly business. We find you've turned it into a circus. Well, if you're going to have a circus, you've got to have elephants and there's no two ways about it. — Robert A. Heinlein

May the bird of paradise fly up your nose, may an elephant caress you with his toes, may your wife be plagued with runners in her hose. — 'Little' Jimmy Dickens

Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are beasts,
the first and the wisest of beasts, it may be, but still true beasts. We shall only differ in degree and not in kind,
just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of the materialists of all the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as beasts, and this also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of the soul within us that makes the difference. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

At the same distance from it is the city of Sala, situate on a river which bears the same name, a place which stands upon the very verge of the desert, and though infested by troops of elephants, is much more exposed to the attacks of the nation of the Autololes, through whose country lies the road to Mount Atlas, the most fabulous locality even in Africa.
[ ... ] There formerly existed some Commentaries written by Hanno, a Carthaginian general, who was commanded, in the most flourishing times of the Punic state, to explore the sea-coast of Africa. The greater part of the Greek and Roman writers have followed him, and have related, among other fabulous stories, that many cities there were founded by him, of which no remembrance, nor yet the slightest vestige, now exists. [V,1] — Pliny The Elder

PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk. — Ambrose Bierce

It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild ones. — George Bernard Shaw

Mythologically speaking, if there's anything I hate worse than trios of old ladies, it's bulls. Last summer, I fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls - bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn't bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too. — Rick Riordan

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures. — Geraldine Brooks

I believe in miracles, I believe in the Law of Attraction, but even I don't think I'm big enough to manifest five Asian elephants cloaked in gold ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

Needless to say, the manufacture of elephants is no easy matter. — Haruki Murakami

Wallowing was for elephants, depressing people and depressing elephants — Cassandra Clare

The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change. — Seth MacFarlane

The safari was amazing, to actually see the elephants and the Lions up close and then right at the end to actually get in the cage with the Lion was one of the best moments of the tour. — Ugo Monye

Onyx is angry," Damian says. "Onyx has a right to be angry. You've got to remember, for many elephants, their life is that of a human in a war-torn country. Ravaged homes, killed relatives, separation," Damian says. Here's another thing I've learned over two months
every elephants here has a sad story. Every captive elephant's story is one of loss and separation. Something to remember every time you see happy people getting elephant rides. — Deb Caletti

The sad thing about destroying the environment is that we're going to take the rest of life with us. The bluebirds will be gone, and the elephants will be gone, and the tigers will be gone, and the pandas will be gone. — Ted Turner

Elephants seek food elsewhere if their route is blocked, and raiding crops and grain stores brings them into conflict with people, often resulting in deaths on both sides. — Mark Shand

When you hear the elephant music you're hearing what they mean to make. — Dave Soldier

He told countless tales, all good, of crocodiles and ichneumons in Egypt, gazelles and ghouls in Persia, elephants and tigers in Burmah, deer and monkeys in Siam, badgers and foxes in China and sorcerers and enchanters everywhere. He spoke of the last two in as matter-of-fact a tone as of any of the others. — Edward Lucas White

I am she who lifts the mountains
When she goes to hunt,
Who wears mamba for a headband
And a lion for a belt.
Beware!
I swallow elephants whole
And pick my teeth with rhinoceros horns,
I drink up rivers to get at the hippos.
Let them hear my words!
Nhamo is coming
And her hunger is great.
I am she who tosses trees
Instead of spears.
The ostrich is my pillow
And the elephant is my footstool!
I am Nhamo
Who makes the river my highway
And sends crocodiles scurrying into the reeds! — Nancy Farmer

No Child Left Behind ... is a giraffe with an elephant's body ... You can't take the vision of Ted Kennedy and merge it to the public policy of George Bush and come out with anything that works. — Steve Rauschenberger

The threat of extinction is more real than many realise. And the damage done to elephants directly leads to destruction of the ecosystem. — Li Bingbing

Cry no tears for us, my friend." I pry at her fingers, panicking to be released in fear that she may drag me into death with her. She croaks again, "Lend no aches to the dreams of yesterday."
From the corpse of Warren, his greyish gums smack from whatever goo has settled in his mouth, "Allow the tide sweep free the bay."
Then together they sing in zombie choir, "And home the ships sailing send. — Nathan Reese Maher

Animists thought that humans were just one of many creatures inhabiting the world. Polytheists, on the other hand, increasingly saw the world as a reflection of the relationship between gods and humans. Our prayers, our sacrifices, our sins and our good deeds determined the fate of the entire ecosystem. A terrible flood might wipe out billions of ants, grasshoppers, turtles, antelopes, giraffes and elephants, just because a few stupid Sapiens made the gods angry. Polytheism thereby exalted not only the status of the gods, but also that of humankind. — Yuval Noah Harari

There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time. — Desmond Tutu

Holden was imagining what several hundred rounds of Teflon-coated tungsten steel going five thousand meters per second would do to human bodies when Alex threw down the throttle and a roomful of elephants swan dived onto his chest. — James S.A. Corey

I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. — Richard Dawkins

We must have bearers, and outriders, and perhaps an elephant - they are so imposing, nothing says 'Get out of the way' quite like an elephant in the front . . . — Neil Gaiman

[Rahmat Shah Sayel] described what was happening in Afghanistan as a 'war between two elephants' -the US and the Soviet Union- not our war, and said that we Pashtuns were 'like the grass crushed by the hooves of two fierce beasts — Malala Yousafzai

Were we to be engaged in a war . . we should become absolutely destitute of elephants. . .What would our children do without elephants to amuse them? What would the sick do without the sight of elephants to invigorate them? — Paul Chambers

We know about the socially complex lives of elephants: how they communicate, how they bond, how they even seem to grieve. We have ethologists in the field and activists on the ground to thank for that knowledge. — K.A. Applegate

It's really bizarre because no one knows this, but elephants have killed more animal trainers than any other animal. — Vin Diesel

Greatly excited, and making little squeals and rumbles of pleasure, the Elephants grazed through the blue-bells, their trunks flying out to latch on to hazel branches, which they dragged and tore down and stuffed into their mouths. — Christopher Nicholson