"In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant — a new Elephant — an Elephant's Child — who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions."

"The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant, The saplings reeling in the path he trod, Declare his might — our lord the Elephant, Chief of the ways of God."

"His services are like so many white elephants, of which nobody can make use, and yet that drain one's gratitude, if indeed one does not feel bankrupt."

"Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant, The only harmless great thing."

"Keith Sommerville’s new book, “Africa’s Threatened Rhinos: A History of Exploitation and Conservation” (London: Pelagic Publishing, 2025), is a sweeping chronicle of centuries of slaughter. He reminds us that rhinos have been killed for every conceivable reason or unreason. Early indigenous hunters obtained meat and leather. Taken to the circuses by the Romans, they were killed by gladiators. Sport, with American President Theodore Roosevelt alone killing hundreds. Yemeni dagger culture, where only a rhino-horn handle confers respect. And most devastatingly, Chinese medicine has transformed horn powder into a panacea for everything from fever to cancer. …As animal lovers, Rosita [Šorytė] and I dream of a time when rhinos will no longer need to be dehorned to survive. Sommerville’s book reminds us that conservation is not only about protecting animals—it is about confronting corruption, dismantling myths, and exposing the cynical bureaucrats who profit from extinction."

"The rhino is a homely beast, For human eyes he's not a feast. Farwell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, I'll stare at something less prepoceros."

"Pity the poor old rhino with A bodger on its bonce."

"Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight."

"If ever you meet a rhinoceros And a tree be in sight, Climb quick! for his might Is a match for the gods: he could toss Eros!"

"Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight."

"Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him."

"The muckle hippopotamus spelders in glaur apo’ his kite. A solid fact he seems tae some. They arena right. The hippo’s coorse digestive tract erodes through frequent emptying. The KIRK’s the only solid fact that winna ding."

"There is something about a blurb-writer paying his respects to a funny book which puts one in mind of a short-sighted lord mayor raising his hat to a hippopotamus."

"Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair His fair Hippopotamine maid. The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus And sang her this sweet serenade: Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow, And there let us wallow in glorious mud."

"The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood."

"A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake."

"I shoot the Hippopotamus With bullets made of platinum, Because if I use leaden ones His hide is sure to flatten 'em."

"He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!'"

"Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side."

"It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep."

"The lust of the goat is the bounty of God"

"The goat with its kids honours you."

"When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."

"Rats and mice are not generally regarded as pets, but as pests; they have few defenders. Yet the pain a rat or a mouse feels is every bit as real as that of any pet. In laboratories, they suffer, as anybody who has heard them moan, cry, whimper and even scream knows. The experimenters dissimulate about this by insisting that they are merely vocalising."

"If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble."

"How now? a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!"

"[city laws were] designed to penalize homeowners for failing to take steps to prevent and control rodents"

"There are so many different roles that the rat plays in human life. When it is an object of admiration it is usually in, say, the show cage at an exhibition, or in a laboratory cage (where is has often been described as a hero/heroine or martyr to science). In the wild, or in the margins of human life, the rat is commonly loathed, the object of vermin control. Either way, one could say that it loses."