Quotes & Sayings About Lions

I would rather have an army of deer commanded by a lion than an army of lions commanded by a deer!" Here — Steven Pressfield

You Americans. You suppress the body of its desires, and treat the heart as if it is a wild animal to be tamed, so that when those things are awakened in you , they have the strength of ravenous lions, too long imprisoned. — Louisa Edwards

If you want to be a lion, you must train with lions. — Carlson Gracie

The lion sleeps in the sun.
its nose on its paws.
it can kill a man. — Wallace Stevens

Lusts within are worse than lions without. — Thomas Watson

The Americas were a great laboratory of evolutionary experimentation, a place where animals and plants unknown in Africa and Asia had evolved and thrived. But no longer. Within 2,000 years of the Sapiens' arrival, most of these unique species were gone. According to current estimates, within that short interval, North America lost thirty-four out of its forty-seven genera of large mammals. South America lost fifty out of sixty. The sabre-tooth cats, after flourishing for more than 30 million years, disappeared, and so did the giant ground sloths, the oversized lions, native American horses, native American camels, the giant rodents and the mammoths. Thousands of species of smaller mammals, reptiles, birds and even insects and parasites also became extinct (when the mammoths died out, all species of mammoth ticks followed them to oblivion). — Yuval Noah Harari

Making those we love happy sounds innocent as a dove, but it can be as destructive as a lion. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

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

I don't want to take a pill. Go to Africa, go follow some bushman around. He's being chased by a lion. That's stress. You're not going to find a pygmy on Paxil, I'll tell you that right now. — Ellen DeGeneres

Rise and rise again until lambs become lions — Robin Hood

The raw fruits of the earth were made for human sustenance. Even the white tails of rabbits, according to some theologians, have a purpose, namely to make it easier for sportsmen to shoot them. There are, it is true, some inconveniences: lions and tigers are too fierce, the summer is too hot, and the winter too cold. But these things only began after Adam ate the apple; I before that, all animals were vegetarians, and the season was always spring. If only Adam had been content with peaches and nectarines, grapes and pears and pineapples, these blessings would still be ours. — Bertrand Russell

It is not consistent with truth that a man should sacrifice half of his stomach only to God-that he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating. Your belly is your God, your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, and your belchings are your prophesizing ... [such] a grossly- feeding Christian is akin to lions and wolves rather than God. Our Lord Jesus called Himself Truth and not habit. — Tertullian

When a lion stalks a herd, he sneaks in close, lies down, and surveys them to choose his victim. He takes his time. The deer or buffalo have no idea he's near. He finds his prey and then he explodes from his hiding place and grabs it. Even if another, perfectly serviceable animal ends up within his reach, he isn't going to alter his course. He has chosen, and he would rather go hungry than change his mind. — Ilona Andrews

One of the obvious implications is that a person will have to face the fact that she cannot meet other people's expectations. This signals the end of what might be called the "camel" phase of human development. I believe it was Nietschze who suggested that for the first part of life, we are camels, trudging through the desert, accepting on our backs everybody's "shoulds" and "don'ts." Camels only know how to spit; they don't think for themselves or talk back. As the camel dies, a lion is born in its place. Lions discover both their roar and the art of preening. The lion may be a little shaky at first, so support and encouragement are vital. But once the camel begins to die (e.g., signaled by depression), there is no turning back. Symptoms occupy the space between the death of the camel and the birth of the lion. A therapist can be a good midwife during this liminal phase. — Stephen Gilligan

The lions are now lunching with the lambs. — Alyson Noel

Let us return from that Table like lions breathing out fire, terrifying to the devil! — Saint John Chrysostom

Life is too short to be spent doing just one thing! — Radkris

While bullying happens to both males and females on the spectrum, girls, particularly, can be judgmental. Dr. Grandin advocates that some gifted children with autism should be allowed to skip high school and go right to college and I couldn't agree with her more. We flourish much better in an environment where the emphasis is on academic achievement and not socializing. Of course we need to learn to socialize, but through shared interests with like-minded individuals, not by being thrown to the lions. Emotionally, we require an atmosphere of tolerance and non-judgment. — Rudy Simone

I am from the jungle where the lion eats the cobra — Lil' Wayne

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on. — Ernest Hemingway,

Hawks with broken wings; lions with broken paws; men with broken hearts, they all have one thing in common: they're all as sure to die as those unbroken. — Bruce Crown

I'm sure back in the Greek days or the Roman Empire days, when guys fought in arenas and were fighting lions, people were talking smack. Every era in history has someone talking smack. No way you can have talent and not proclaim your victory. — J. B. Smoove

People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit. — Georgette Heyer

Mr. Blatchford attacks Christianity because he is mad on one Christian virtue: the merely mystical and almost irrational virtue of charity. He has a strange idea that he will make it easier to forgive sins by saying that there are no sins to forgive. Mr. Blatchford is not only an early Christian, he is the only early Christian who really ought to have been eaten by lions. — G.K. Chesterton

There hasn't been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions. — Sid Waddell

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognise snares, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this. — Niccolo Machiavelli

As a reward for their efforts, however, those early Christians were beaten, stoned to death, thrown to the lions, tortured and crucified. Every conceivable method was used to stop them from talking. — Josh McDowell

If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever. — Milan Kundera

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

I looked at the stained-glass image of the lamb in the window above me, but that only reminded me that lambs are famous for being led to slaughter, or sometimes hanging out with lions in ill-advised relationships. — Maureen Johnson

Apparently, the the only way to kill a lion is by rear naked choke. Personally, I'd just kick it in the head. — Bas Rutten

Hacks are killing our national literary culture. America treats best-sellers like literary lions and literary lions worse than stray dogs. — David B. Lentz

Lions eat giraffes so they can survive even though the giraffes didn't do anything to the lions, and nobody thinks that the lions are wrong. — Matthew Dicks

The columns of the Cathedral porch were still supported on featureless porphyry lions worn smooth by generations of loungers; and above the octagonal baptistery ran a fantastic basrelief wherein the spirals of the vine framed an allegory of men and monsters symbolising, in their mysterious conflicts, the ever-recurring Manicheism of the middle ages. Fresh from his talk with Crescenti, Odo lingered curiously — Edith Wharton

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

It was a mystery to me. To that awful black-and-white farm, with that aunt who was dressed badly, with smelly farm animals around when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn't get it. — John Waters

You are the heirs of infinite love and light. Come out my friend. Come out from the narrow lanes of darkness. Come out into the vivacious light of the day where all the glory resides. Come out, O lions, and shake off the ancient mysticism and prejudices. You are the most fascinating expression of Mother Nature. Your soul is the expression of the whole Universe. All the power in the universe is born with you in your biology. Recognize them, realize them and ultimately utilize them in the pursuit of spreading love, harmony and peace. — Abhijit Naskar

A prince ... must learn from the fox and the lion ... One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who act simply as lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Machines were mice and men were lions once upon a time. But now that it's the opposite it's twice upon a time. — Moondog

Discretion prevented me from saying that I thought she was a fiend from the underworld and that mountain lions couldn't force me to enter her service. — Megan Whalen Turner

An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whispering through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cool, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day's hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for THESE? Why, a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths! - No, Stubbins. Lions and tigers, the Big Hunters, should never, never be seen in zoos. — Hugh Lofting

I should rather take my chances with the lions of Rome's ancient Colosseum than endure another tea chat with the likes of them. At least the lions are honest about their desire to eat you and make no effort to hide it. — Libba Bray

We think of lions and wolves as savage because they kill; but they must kill, or starve. Humans kill other animals for sport, to satisfy their curiosity, to beautify their bodies, and to please their palates. — Peter Singer

when I took that first deep breath and saw the clear summer sky, and heard my sister and Little Jimmy and Nora and even Sally and JT cheering for me, I swear I heard the lions roar. Click — Kristin Levine

If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. — William Blake

Lions make leopards tame. — William Shakespeare

If the lion didn't bite the tamer every once in a while, it wouldn't be exciting. — Darrell Waltrip

To say I have played through four World Cups, two Lions tours, 91 international games and a ridiculous number of injuries and other setbacks gives me an incredibly special feeling of fulfilment. I know myself well enough to know that I will never truly be satisfied. — Jonny Wilkinson

As I look back on my own life, I recognize this simple truth: The greatest opportunities were the scariest lions. Part of me has wanted to play it safe, but I've learned that taking no risks is the greatest risk of all. — Mark Batterson

Course, mountains serve as homes to mountain goats and mountain lions, who enjoy attacking helpless picnickers and eating sandwiches or children. So — Lemony Snicket

Because of their DNA, most men loved a damsel in distress. Every time a man sees a pretty lass in trouble, even the boorish slob-of-a-man transforms into a chivalrous knight-in-shining-armour. This was why most women (no matter how strong, competent or resourceful) were forced to act shy, demure and helpless so that their men could feel like strong grizzly bears or ferocious mountain lions. — Mallika Nawal

Just imagine how difficult it would've been to create churches, states or laws, if we could only speak about things that really exist, like lions or rivers — Yuval Noah Harari

But there are others of my kind ... those who see themselves as lions among sheep. As kings
superior to man in every way. Why, then, should they be confined to darkness? Why should they fear man? — Seth Grahame-Smith

One does not judge the gazelle by the lions that attack it — Edgar Rice Burroughs

If you could cross a lion and a monkey, that's what I'd be, because monkeys are funny and lions are strong. — Marlon Wayans

When lions fight over a goat, it's usually the hyena that gets away with the prize. — Ashwin Sanghi

A baited cat may grow as fierce as a lion — Samuel Palmer

Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intelligent effort to lay the axe at the root of this weaknss and misery ? Will you allow the noted chivalry and the noble hardihood of the Indian to sink into oblivion ? Will you make it a thing entirely of the past ? I implore you, I beseech you, I exhort you my brethren in the name of all that is dearest to you to shake off the lethargy, to show to this world that you were sleeping the sleep of lions only, to rise again with redoubled energy and courage to take the work of rebuilding your nation in right earnest. — Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

ANTHONY DOERR is the author of the story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won numerous prizes both in the United States and overseas, including four O. Henry Prizes, three Pushcart Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Raised in Cleveland, Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons. — Anthony Doerr

-The guy who feeds the lions at the zoo — Kelli Dunham

Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think in rural settings, people have a different appreciation for animals than might the city dweller. In parts of India where poisonous snake bite is common, people have a much different value system. I live in a city. I'm not thinking about wolves, lions, etc. — Henry Rollins

The lions sing and the hills take flight. The moon by day, and the sun by night. Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool. Let the Lord of Chaos rule.
-chant from a children's game heard in Great Arvalon, the Fourth Age — Robert Jordan

Saddam was tranquillised when captured ... He would be a lion even when caged. Every honest person who knows Saddam knows that he is firm and powerful. — Raghad Hussein

Adult ant-lions come in a variety of sizes and, for the most part, rather drab colouring. They look like extremely untidy and demented dragon-flies. They have wings that seem out of all proportion to their bodies and these they flap with a desperate air, as though it required the maximum amount of energy to prevent them from crashing to the earth. — Gerald Durrell

We humans are herd animals of the monkey tribe, not natural individuals as lions are. Our individuality is partial and restless; the stream of consciousness that we call 'I' is made of shifting elements that flow from our group and back to our group again. Always we seek to be ourselves and the herd together, not One against the herd. — Anna Louise Strong

I have a generally liberal audience, but they will applaud when I nail a liberal lion. — Stephen Colbert

Love has the face of a goddess, but the talons of a lion. — Ivan Panin

Cats are small lions. Lions are big cats. — Mitsuaki Iwago

A trapdoor had slammed open at the edge of the arena, followed by another and another. Slowly, reluctantly, animals were forced through the gaps. Lions, tigers, bears. "Oh my!" said the Doctor, as the trapdoors slammed shut again. — Jacqueline Rayner

Many travelers are essentially fantasists. Tourists are timid fantasists, the others - risk takers - are bold fantasists. The tourists at Etosha conjure up a fantastic Africa after their nightly dinner by walking to the fence at the hotel-managed waterhole to stare at the rhinos and lions and eland coming to drink: a glimpse of wild nature with overhead floodlights. They have been bused to the hotel to see it, and it is very beautiful, but it is no effort....My only boast in travel is my effort... — Paul Theroux

In the old stories, despite the impossibility of the incidents, the interest is always real and human. The princes and princesses fall in love and marry
nothing could be more human than that. Their lives and loves are crossed by human sorrows ... The hero and heroine are persecuted or separated by cruel stepmothers or enchanters; they have wanderings and sorrows to suffer; they have adventures to achieve and difficulties to overcome; they must display courage, loyalty and address, courtesy, gentleness and gratitude. Thus they are living in a real human world, though it wears a mythical face, though there are giants and lions in the way. The old fairy tales which a silly sort of people disparage as too wicked and ferocious for the nursery, are really 'full of matter,' and unobtrusively teach the true lessons of our wayfaring in a world of perplexities and obstructions. — Andrew Lang

I am an employment hyena. I am happy to make a meal of what the lions leave behind. — Henry Rollins

A tiny portion of the population controls the lions share of the wealth and most of the command positions of state, manufacturing, banking, investment, publishing, higher education, philanthropy, and media ... these individuals exercise a preponderant influence over what is passed off as public information and democratic discourse. — Michael Parenti

Leadership: Lions led by donkeys. — Erich Ludendorff

In first grade, I told my friends I had a third story in my house filled with jewels and lions. — Kendall Jenner

Damn everything but the circus! ... The average 'painter' 'sculptor' 'poet' 'composer' 'playwright' is a person who cannot leap through a hoop from the back of a galloping horse, make people laugh with a clown's mouth, orchestrate twenty lions. — E. E. Cummings

Why having been endowed with the courageous heart of a lion, do we live as mice? — Brendon Burchard

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, 'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate a camel. The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed them you.' ... 'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up'. What a downright weird story. What a peculiar psychology. — Yann Martel

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

Id like to be a lion ... they are very family-oriented. Unfortunately. too many wild animals are afraid at what man can do to them. — Connie Stevens

The Christians to the lions sold out every night. — Ray Davies

Lions care not for the opinions of sheep. — George R R Martin

Narrow-minded provincialism: Sad to say but true
I am more interested in the mountain lions of Utah, the wild pigs of Arizona, than I am in the fate of all the Arabs of Araby, all the Wogs of Hindustan, all the Ethiopes of Abyssinia ... — Edward Abbey

And there shall come a kingdom in which the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Unfortunately for the lamb it shall be inside the lion! — Greg Curtis

I don't know who first said it, but this proverb is something I believe: A lion leading a lot of sheep can defeat a sheep leading many lions. The important part is that I must decide when I am a lion and when I must be a sheep. I don't believe you are always one or the other. — Yao Ming

Wait a while; there will come to you mounts, carrying lions in shining armor, battalions followed by battalions. — Khalid Ibn Al-Walid

They run amuck; I let them. Pride of lions in the yard. Stare and they burn a hole in your retina. A common flower, a weed that no one sees, yes. But for us, a noble thing, the dandelion. — Ray Bradbury

The Lord will give His righteous servants opportunities to be bold as lions when they speak in His name and as witnesses in His priesthood. — Henry B. Eyring

Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world, to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion. — John Barth

Science has done absolutely nothing about noise. The worst design flaw in the human body is that you can't close your ears. The reason you can't close your ears is, if a lion was coming, you had to wake up. Today no lions are coming. Beeping trucks are coming. I read the other day that the guy who invented the beep when trucks go backward, he died. I thought: Of course-he dies, I have to listen to it. — Fran Lebowitz

When cops are on the job they love lawyers like lions love hyenas, only minus the mutual respect. — Reed Farrel Coleman

The truth of death is a peculiar thing. For when they leave us the beloved are as if they never were. They vanish from this earth and vanish from the air. What remains are moors and mountains, the solid world upon which we find ourselves, and in which we reign. We are the wolves. We are the lions. After so many nights treading the banks with the dogs and my brothers, intent on some mettlesome purpose I did not truly understand, night after night I dreamed of the river. I dream it now: a river of stolen perfumes, winding its way through our inverse Eden. — Sarah Hall

The lioness giveth birth to cubs which remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion, breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life. — Bill Vaughan

The group will not prosper if the leader grabs the lion's share of the credit for the good work that has been done. — Laozi

Neither numbers nor powers nor wealth nor learning nor eloquence nor anything else will prevail, but purity, living the life, in one word, anubhuti, realisation. Let there be a dozen such lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth nor power nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world. — Swami Vivekananda

Ghana is like a lion without a head — Ama Ata Aidoo

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee. — Rob Zombie

Some entertainers have tried to make art of coarseness, but in their public crudeness they have merely revealed their own vast senses of personal inferiority. When they heap mud upon themselves and allow their tongues to wag with vulgarity, they expose their belief that they are not worth loving and in fact are unlovable. When we as an audience indulge then in their profanity, we are like the audience at the Roman Colosseum being thrilled as the raging lions kill the unarmed Christians. We not only participate in the humiliation of the entertainers, but we are brought low by sharing in the obscenity. We need to have the courage to say obesity is not funny and vulgarity is not amusing. Insolent children and submissive parents are not the characters we want to admire and emulate. Flippancy and sarcasm are not qualities which we need to include in our daily conversations. — Maya Angelou