Straw Dogs Quotes & Sayings

Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the various creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats others as straw dogs. — Laozi

Life was indeed cruel; but it was better to glorify the Will than deny it. — John N. Gray

They began work at 5:30 and quit at 7 at night. Children six years old going home to lie on a straw pallet until time to resume work the next morning! I have seen the hair torn out of their heads by the machinery, their scalps torn off, and yet not a single tear was shed, while the poodle dogs were loved and caressed and carried to the seashore. — Mary Harris Jones

You can tell a horse owner by the interior of their car. Boots, mud, pony nuts, straw, items of tack and a screwed-up waxed jacket of incredible antiquity. There is normally a top layer of children and dogs. — Helen Thompson Woolley

First time was instinct. I hear O'Leary go, "Jesus," and there's a skinny brown dog lapping up blood the same way he'd lap up water from a bowl. It wasn't American blood, but still, there's that dog, lapping it up. And that's the last straw, I guess, and then it's open season on dogs. — Phil Klay

The sound man, immune as to a sacrifice of straw dogs, faces the passing human generations. — Frederick Lenz

Today we have made a fetish of choice; but a chosen death is forbidden. Perhaps what distinguishes humans from other animals is that humans have learnt to cling more abjectly to life. — John N. Gray

Heaven and earth are not humanistic - they regard myriad beings as straw dogs; sages are not humanistic - they regard people as straw dogs, — Sun Tzu

Our lives are more like fragmentary dreams than the enactments of conscious selves. We control very little of what we most care about; many of our most fateful decisions are made unbeknownst to ourselves. Yet we insist that mankind can achieve what we cannot: conscious mastery of its existence. This is the creed of those who have given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational faith in mankind. — John Gray

If you believe that humans are animals, there can be no such thing as the history of humanity, only the lives of particular humans. If we speak of the history of the species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others wretched. None has a meaning that lies beyond itself. — John N. Gray