“I knew that scent was important and I discovered that if I put on different clothes or washed or at different food, the beta male would start nipping me again until he was satisfied that the new smell didn't mean I was going to react differently to his approach or that my mood had changed. The other high-ranking wolves did the same thing, but it didn't involve every wolf in the enclosure. The lower-ranking members of the pack, I was to learn, don't question what the higher-ranking members decide; they are foot soldiers - they have an important job to do, but it is not to think for themselves.”

—  Shaun Ellis

The Man who lives with Wolves (2010)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I knew that scent was important and I discovered that if I put on different clothes or washed or at different food, the…" by Shaun Ellis?
Shaun Ellis photo
Shaun Ellis 17
American football player, defensive end 1977

Related quotes

Clarence Thomas photo

“I knew that until I was ready to tell the truth as I saw it, I was no better than a politician- but I didn't know whether I would ever be brave enough to break ranks and speak my mind.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Page 116
2000s, (2008)

Eugene V. Debs photo

“I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)
Context: I never had much faith in leaders. I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.

Frank Buckles photo

“I had many different assignments and I was doing things that I thought were important… no, I didn't either: I didn't think they were important. But I found out afterwards when I read up on my history that some of the things that I did were quite important.”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

Tampa Bay Online.

Shaun Ellis photo

“The alphas are the most important members because they are the decision makers and without them the pack is leaderless. So their survival is paramount. If food is scarce, they will eat first and they may be the only ones who do eat. Other members of the pack will go hungry, even the pups, and starve if necessary. And the rest of the pack knows better than to touch something that has the beta's scent on it.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

The Man who lives with Wolves (2010)

“I reacted to Cézanne almost the same way as you [= Rosalyn Drexler ], the first time I saw him when I was 14... Then I saw my first Cezanne and it jolted me. It was a 'Bathers' [Cézanne painted several of them]. I didn't think he drew well at all. I thought the figures looked stiff and wooden, but I was enthralled by it. I knew there was something there that was going to take me a lifetime to understand. What I took to be the crudity of his technique — that opened a door for me. I began to look at everything differently. That was the year [1932] I discovered Matisse, Picasso, Degas, Soutine — I began to go to the Museum of Modern Art every week. At the same time, I loved New Yorker covers — and El Greco. I didn't mind mixing things up. Nobody was going to tell me what to like or what not to like. Until I was 17 I thought all real artists (I didn't count commercial artists) were dead or foreign with the exceptions of Georgia O'Keeffe and John Marin, whose work I had seen at 'An American Place.”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Iain Banks photo

“Sometimes the thoughts and feelings I had didn't really agree with each other, so I decided I must be lots of different people inside my brain.”

Iain Banks book The Wasp Factory

Source: The Wasp Factory

Russell L. Ackoff photo

“The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things.”

Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist

Source: 2000s, A little book of f-laws: 13 common sins of management, 2006, p. 2 cited in: Gregory H. Watson (2010) "By rejecting the status quo, Russ Ackoff took systems thinking to greater heights" in: QP. vol 27, March 2010, p. 30.

L. David Mech photo

“Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information. Why not refer to an alpha female as the female parent, the breeding female, the matriarch, or simply the mother? Such a designation emphasizes not the animal's dominant status, which is trivial information, but its role as pack progenitor, which is critical information.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/. Canadian Journal of Zoology 77:1196-1203 (1999).

“Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

George S. Patton IV photo

“No officer I ever met, either above or below me in rank, could touch General Creighton W. Abrams. He was the best soldier I have ever known, including all the members of my family.”

George S. Patton IV (1923–2004) U.S. Army general

Source: The Fighting Pattons (1997) by Brian M. Sobel, p. 176

Related topics