Quotes about donkey (77 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Time , Dead

“All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Friendship , Question

“Even the donkeys were quiet.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

“"Mulla, I want to borrow your donkey."
"I am sorry," said the Mulla, "but I have already lent it out."
As soon as he had spoken, the donkey brayed. The sound came from Nasrudin's stable.
"But Mulla, I can hear the donkey, in there!"
As he shut the door in the man's face, Nasrudin said, with dignity, "A man who believes the word of a donkey in preference to my word does not deserve to be lent anything."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Idries Shah, The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin (1968), , p. 62

“What is love? For the rabble love is a kind of variety, a transient vulgarity; the rabble's conception of love is best found in their obscene ditties, in prostitution and in the foul idioms they use when they are halfway sober, such as "shoving the donkey's foreleg in mud," or "putting dust on the head." My love for her, however, was of a totally different kind. I knew her from ancient times— strange slanted eyes, a narrow, half-open mouth, a subdued quiet voice. She was the embodiment of all my distant, painful memories among which I sought what I was deprived of, what belonged to me but somehow I was denied. Was I deprived forever?”

Sadegh Hedayat book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Love , Pain , Distant , Memory

“By wearing a mark of ash one were to reach heaven, a donkey (that rolls in ash) should reach there surely.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

“Gentlemen, you have fought like lions and been led by donkeys.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Said to captured British officers during the Siege of Tobruk, as quoted in The Guinness History of the British Army (1993) by John Pimlott, p. 138

“Here's what any skeptic will find hard to swallow. The Lord Jesus Christ owned that donkey. He created every hair on its little head (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16), and you can't steal what you own. The temporal 'owner' was in reality just taking care of it for Him. How incredible that the Lord had need of a little donkey. But He did. He chose to be carried into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey. God has also chosen lowly creatures like us to carry the Savior to this sinful world. How incredible.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

God , World , Reality , Christ

“Nasrudin, your donkey has been lost.”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

"Thank goodness I was not on the donkey at the time, or I would be lost too."
Paul Blenkiron, Stories and Analogies in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (2010), ISBN 047005896X, p. 43

“It is now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Variant: God has granted you a special talent. It's now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his God-given talents is a donkey.
Source: The Kite Runner

God , Personality

“It doesn't matter! From waist down, my best friend is a donkey…..”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“I rode out of the stables on top of an eight-foot-tall donkey that looked like she had robbed a Holstein cow and was now wearing the stolen clothes.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Clothes

“Hey anyone who thinks a non-military–grade rappelling cable can support the weight of two grown men and a miniature donkey deserves to fall off a cliff.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Men , Support , Thinking

“New York City vagrant:
"What sort of 'nese are you people? Are you Chinese, or Japanese, or Javanese?"

Kakuzo Okakura responds:
"We are Japanese gentleman. But what sort of 'key are you? Are you a Yankee, or a donkey, or a monkey?”

Kakuzo Okakura (1862–1913) Japanese scholar, author of The Book of Tea

People

“When they passed the centaur king's cell, Volos pointed at Regin and slid his forefinger across his throat.

She replied, "Hey, didn't I see you in a donkey show down in Tijuana? No? You've got a twin then--”

Kresley Cole American writer

Variant: When they passed the centaur king’s cell, Volós pointed at Regin and slid his forefinger across his throat.

She replied, “Hey, didn’t I see you in a donkey show down in Tijuana? No? You’ve got a twin then—
Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“We'de have to get in and get out the hard way; and if we made a mistake, there was no telling what sort of curse we'de unleash: monster guardians, plagues, fires, exploding donkeys(don't laugh; they're bad news).”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Way

“I take back what I said about the donkey,’’ Ascanio said. ‘’She’s awesome”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

“Never take advice from a donkey.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

“What the hell is this?” Desandra asked
“This is Cuddles. She's a mammoth donkey.”
Derek grinned, leaning on the fence. “Do you have any self-respect left?”
“Nope.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Hell

“You can’t blame me,” Ascanio said. “Anybody in my place would be concerned. You don’t even have a proper horse. You’re riding a mutant equine of unknown origin.”
“Don’t disrespect my donkey”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Horse

“Safety from what? Who's after me?"
Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Dead

“Okay," Juke said. "Your horse is a donkey, your poodle is a giant wolf breed, and your boyfriend is whatever the hell he is. You have problems.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

Hell , Problem , Wolf , Horse

“You are a man. Is it necessary for you to tell others that you are a man? No. But if you are living among donkeys, you would vehemently declare that you are a man. In the same way, I am God, but I have not to speak of it, because it is quite natural. Yet sometimes, I have to declare it.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

p. 5729 http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=page.jsp&nextPage=5729
Lord Meher (1986)

God , Way , Nature

“A king without instruction is like a donkey crowned.”

Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593) Italian writer

Il Re senza lettere era come un Asino coronato.
Della Prudenza et Dottrina del Re. p. 25.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 320.

“The Donkey whispered in His ear:
"Child, in thirty-some-odd years,
You'll ride someone that looks like me (untriumphantly)."”

Aaron Weiss

A Stick, a Carrot and String.
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)

“"Well, Nasreddin. I know you lose your only donkey. Life may be difficult without it. But, don't be too sad brother," the man tried to cheer him up.
"Do I look sad?"
"Yes, you look very sad. You looked much sadder than you did when your wife died." […]
"At that time you all tried to cheer me up by saying 'Don't be too sad, my brother Nasreddin. We'll get you a new wife.'”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

But now you see, nobody offers me a donkey to replace my lost one."
Sugeng Hariyanto, Nasreddin, A Man Who Never Gives Up (1998), ISBN 9789796721597, p. 13

Life , Sadness , Time

“How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Dreams http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjdrm10.txt

Life , Lie , Dreams , Hope

“Knowledge is like the carrot, few know by looking at the green top that the best part, the orange part, is there. Like the carrot, if you don't work for it, it will wither away and rot. And finally, like the carrot, there are a great many donkeys and jackasses that are associated with it.”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Dan Keding, Elder Tales: stories of wisdom and courage from around the world (2008), ISBN 1591585945, p. 151

Knowledge , Parting

“I think Donkey Punch is an extreme thriller or an extreme reality-based thriller. The whole point of the film is it's grounded in reality.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Exclusive interview with Oliver Blackburn, Total Film, http://www.totalfilm.com/trailers/donkey-punch-exclusive-interview-with-oliver-blackburn, 2011, Future Publishing Limited, 23 February 2012]

Thinking , Reality

“I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green.' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one's strength, and keep one at full collar.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to William Purton (6 February 1836), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 380
1830s

Horse , Summer , Parting , Painting

“I started looking into these groups in America, campaigns groups who want to put stickers on the front of all school science text books saying that Evolution is only one possible theory of life on earth. Now, although this seems like a stupid idea at first, second, and thirty ninth glance, look at it once more. Give it that fortieth view. Because it's brilliant. Let's have stickers on the front of all books! Slap one on the front of the Bible saying "Of course this could all be bullsh*t. Maybe he never died! Perhaps he opened a donkey sanctuary. He had a clear bond with donkeys." Or slap one on the Theory of Gravity! "Look, that's just one man's opinion. Maybe we could all fly! R. Kelly believed it so. Why would he lie to us? What does he possibly stand to gain?"”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

John Oliver: Terrifying Times (2008)

Life , Lie , Books , Stupidity

“Over the years, I know you've heard a lot of Nintendo people say, "we're all about the games". Well, guess what? We are. Whether you're talking about Donkey Kong or Tetris, Madden or Mario, Metal Gear or Resident Evil, he with the best games wins. Always been that way, always will.”

Reggie Fils-Aimé (1961) American businessman

On Nintendo
Source: E3 2004

People , Way , Game , Evil

“We who live abroad are accustomed to believe that almost all Eretz Yisrael is now uninhabited desert and whoever wishes can buy land there as he pleases. But this is not true. It is very difficult to find in the land [ha'aretz] cultivated fields that are not used for planting. Only those sand fields or stone mountains that would require the investment of hard labor and great expense to make them good for planting remain uncultivated and that's because the Arabs do not like working too much in the present for a distant future. Therefore, it is very difficult to find good land for cattle. And not only peasants, but also rich landowners, are not selling good land so easily…We who live abroad are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all wild desert people who, like donkeys, neither see nor understand what is happening around them. But this is a grave mistake. The Arab, like all the Semites, is sharp minded and shrewd. All the townships of Syria and Eretz Yisrael are full of Arab merchants who know how to exploit the masses and keep track of everyone with whom they deal – the same as in Europe. The Arabs, especially the urban elite, see and understand what we are doing and what we wish to do on the land, but they keep quiet and pretend not to notice anything. For now, they do not consider our actions as presenting a future danger to them. … But, if the time comes that our people's life in Eretz Yisrael will develop to a point where we are taking their place, either slightly or significantly, the natives are not going to just step aside so easily.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Wrestling with Zion, pp. 14-15.

Life , People , Mountain , Understanding

“I think most journalists are pretty lazy, number one. A little lazy and also they're spoon-fed information, such as the weapons of mass destruction back in 2003…. you have these people who create a package of news, develop it as a story line, a scenario, and they find, as Mailer once said about the press, that they're like a donkey. You have to feed the donkey. The donkey every day has to eat. So [special interests] throw information at this damn animal that eats everything. Tin cans, garbage.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

Interview with Gay Talese, David Shankbone, Wikinews, October 27, 2007.

People , Thinking , Animals

“The peak of my school experience of Shakespeare came in my senior matriculation year; the set play was "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and it was taught by a solemn donkey who understood nothing but the political organization of fairyland. I well remember him dictating a long note which began, "The fairies live in fairyland full stop. They have a king comma and a queen."”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Shakespeare over the Port (1960)

School , Dreams , Night

“There was Riley pushing it, shoving it, shushing it
Hogan, Logan and ev'ryone in town lined up
Attacking it and shoving it and smacking it
They might as well have tried to push the Town Hall down.
The donkey was eyeing them,
Openly defying them
Winking, blinking and twisting out of place,
Riley reversing it,
Ev'rybody cursing it
The day Delaney's donkey ran the half mile race.”

William Hargreaves (1880–1941) English composer

Song Delaney's Donkey.

“A rational man must be guided by the incentive system within which he operates. No matter what his own personal desires, he must be discouraged from certain activities if they carry penalties and attracted toward others if they carry large rewards. The carrot and the stick guide scientists and politicians as well as donkeys.”

George Stigler (1911–1991) American economist

Stigler (1975, p. 171) as cited in: Owen E.Hughes (2003) Public Management and Administration. p. 11

Penalty , Personality

“For some variation it would be better
to place the donkey seen from behind
[to avoid] all faces looking out of the picture [forward]
And the tree could also have more foliage.
1. Joseph has been portrayed too fat and too recklessly
2. Mary should hold the child more gently
because a vulnerable child can't stand being held so firmly
Joseph is too short fat - his head is growing from his trunk
and both [Joseph & Mary] their heads are too big”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

1640 - 1670

Tree

“Better a live donkey than a dead lion.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

Quoted in [Moss, Stephen, Captain Scott centenary: Storm rages around polar explorer's reputation, The Guardian, 28 March 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/mar/28/captain-scott-antarctic-centenary-profile]

Dead

“.. But it doesn't frighten me, because I studied in France, thank God, and I know of no artist in history who was not 'literary' when it came down to it. Not a single one. And even if they don't appear to be, I know of none and you at least don't recall them, because there is nothing to recall... Sometime or other I'd like to see a << pure >> artist, but I didn't even find one in France. Obviously the trouble is that one approaches painting from the other side, so that the word << sujet >> conceals the point of the thing. Yet even the most beautiful and << emptiest >> sujet (an apple, a grape or any << non-figurative painting >>) doesn't help if there are no foundations, either innate or acquired through hard work... Why don't we say clearly: << That is freedom, and this is commitment to the subject >> and << to each tree its berries >>, but let it be a tree and not a donkey..”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Chagall's letter to A. N. Benois, 1918; as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 150
1910's

God , Beauty , History , Tree

“This was the behaviour pattern of hoodlums who got extremely annoyed with the donkey which had carried them so far but which did not have the strength left to carry the load any farther. This was the behaviour pattern of gangsters who felt frustrated because the victims of their deep-laid designs had seen through their wiles and refused to be duped any longer. But, at the same time, these Mullahs were in the forefront of Muslim society. Leading politicians like the Ali Brothers had bowed before them in reverence. The behaviour pattern of the exponents and custodians of Islam, therefore, cannot but lead us to the inescapable conclusion that Islam itself has always been, and remains, a thinly veiled theorisation of gangsterism.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Muslim Separatism – Causes and Consequences (1987)

Time

“the streams buck like rams in a tent
whips crack and from the hills come the crookedly combed
shadows of the shepherds.
black eggs and fools' bells fall from the trees.
thunder drums and kettledrums beat upon the ears of the donkeys.
wings brush against flowers.
fountains spring up in the eyes of the wild boar.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Dada poetry lines from his poem 'Der Vogel Selbdritt', Jean / Hans Arp - first published in 1920; as quoted in Gesammelte Gedichte I (transl. Herbert Read), p. 41
1910-20s

Fools , Spring , Flowers , Tree

“Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question. You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

From the 2004 DNC

Way , Question

“Making Donkey Punch was all about energy, speed and intense work.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Edinburgh International Film Festival, www.edfilmfest.org.uk, http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/2008/06/self-portrait-olly-blackburn, Olly Blackburn, News - Self portrait: Olly Blackburn, 20 June 2008, 23 February 2012]

Speed

“Some children saw Nasreddin coming from the vineyard with two baskets full of grapes loaded on his donkey. They gathered around him and asked him to give them a taste.
Nasreddin picked up a bunch of grapes and gave each child a grape.
"You have so much, but you gave us so little," the children whined.
"There is no difference whether you have a basketful or a small piece. They all taste the same," Nasreddin answered, and continued on his way,”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Idries Shah, The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin (1985), ISBN 0863040403, p. 60

Children , Way

“However, there are all sorts of behaviours in the Bible that might be called mad now, but aren't designated as insanity by the text itself. People see visions — of angels going up and down ladders, of fiery chariots — and, like Moses, who hears a bush talking, and Balaam the prophet who has a conversation with his donkey, they hear voices of those who cannot be said to be present in any usual sense of the word. They also speak in tongues, as the disciples do at Pentecost. Like madness, the visions, the voices and the speaking in tongues are due to external and usually divine agencies. In a world so permeated with supernatural powers, there are no accidents, and in one so riddled with prophets — who went into a frenzy while prophesying — many more kinds of behaviour were accepted as normal, at least for a prophet or an inspired person, than would be the case now. John the Baptist, dressed in animal skins and wandering around in the wilderness denouncing his social superiors, was not thought of as a de-institutionalized street person who's gone off his medications, but as a saint. And this was the pattern for mediaeval views of aberrant behaviour — if you were acting crazy it was a divine punishment, or else you were possessed, by powers either divine or demonic — perhaps aided, in the latter case, by witches.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Ophelia Has a Lot to Answer For (1997)

People , World , Angels , Sense

“Some people are against porno movies. And I say hey, Ohio, Kentucky, and Iran: I say, hey - whatever a man, and a woman, and another woman with a penis and a midget do to a donkey, that's their garsh-darn business.”

Dave Attell (1965) comedian

Comedy Central Presents: Dave Attell

People , Business

“Platero is a small donkey, a soft, hairy donkey: so soft to the touch that he might be said to be made of cotton, with no bones. Only the jet mirrors of his eyes are hard like two black crystal scarabs.”

Juan Ramón Jimenéz book Platero

Source: ‪Platero and I‬ (1917), Ch. 1 : Platero, as translated by Eloïse Roach (1957).

“He loved hitherto-unthought-of, thereafter-unthinkable combinations of instruments. When some extraordinary array of players filed half-proudly, half-sheepishly on to the stage, looking like the Bremen Town Musicians—if those were, as I think they were, a rooster, a cat, a dog, and a donkey—you could guess beforehand that it was to be one of Gottfried’s compositions. His Joyous Celebration of the Memory of the Master Johann Sebastian Bach had a tone-row composed of the notes B, A, C, and H (in the German notation), of these inverted, and of these transposed; and there were four movements, the first played on instruments beginning with the letter b, the second on instruments beginning with the letter a, and so on. After the magnificent group that ushered in the piece (bugle, bass-viol, bassoon, basset-horn, bombardon, bass-drum, baritone, and a violinist with only his bow) it was sad to see an Alp horn and an accordion come in to play the second movement. Gottfriend himself said about the first group: “Vot a bunch!””

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

When I asked him how he had thought of it he said placidly: “De devil soldt me his soul.”
Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 4: “Constance and the Rosenbaums”, p. 136

Love , Sadness , Dogs , Soul

“He was just a young man who'd come to town on a donkey, bored to death or something, who'd taken advantage of the chance to be entertained by a small-town kid who was bored to death, too. That's the only way I could figure it out without accepting the general theory that he was crazy.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

"Locomotive 38, the Ojibway" (1940)

Death , Way , Chance

“The unknown mountain nests in the inhospitable interior of southern Calabria are usually connected only by a mule track with the railway that runs close to the coast: whoever wants to go there has to walk on foot if he has no donkey at his disposal. I think back to that warm afternoon in the month of May when we the four of us, after a long, tiring ride in the harsh sun, packed with the heavy burden of our backpacks, sweat-dripping and a little gasping, entered the city gate of Palizzi..”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van M.C. Escher, in het Nederlands): De onbekende bergnesten in het onherbergzame binnenland van Zuid-Calabrië zijn meestal slechts door een muilezelpad met den spoorweg, die vlak langs de kust loopt, verbonden: wie er heen wil, dient te voet te gaan zoo hij geen ezel tot zijn beschikking heeft. Ik denk terug aan dien warmen namiddag in de maand Mei toen wij met ons vieren, na een lange, vermoeiende tocht in de barre zon, bepakt met de zware last onzer rugzakken, zweetdruppelend en een beetje hijgend de stadspoort van Palizzi binnentraden..
Quote from Escher's article about his Calabria trip, in the Dutch magazine 'De Groene Amsterdammer', 23 April, 1932, p 18 – No 2864 (translation of museum 'Escher in the Palais', the Hague)
In the following Autumn and Winter Escher used the many sketches and photos from this trip to make series of woodcuts and lithography https://www.escherinhetpaleis.nl/story-of-escher/from-photo-to-fantasy/?lang=en
1940's

Mountain , Thinking , Sun

“The dog may be man
Horse, donkey, too
But the bull-
Man can not
Anytime.”

Ravindra Prabhat book Smriti Shesh

Smriti Shesh (Poetry Collection), Kathyaroop Books, 2002.

Dogs , Horse

“To make that long, last donkey-ride between the pikeman and the stake, to hear the shouting and the chant of hypocrites, to be a spectacle for animals in human masks!”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

The Heretic (1968)

Animals

“Deck us all with Boston Charlie
Walla Walla, Wash, and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower Alleygaroo!
Don't we know archaic barrel,
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola Boola Pensacoola Hullabaloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker n' too-da-loo!
Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!

Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloup, 'lope with you!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo

Duck us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' Polly Voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, Woof, Woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, Goof, Goof!”

Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American cartoonist

Pogo comic strip (1948 - 1975), Others

Love , Boy , Sea

“The fact that we have been forgiven our debts does not mean that our president has to use the donkey as a means of travel. Does this also mean we can't buy clothes and therefore walk naked?”

Basil Mramba (1940) Tanzanian politician

Quoted in "Tanzania defends presidential jet plans," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2146298.stm BBC News (2002-07-23). Mramba was defending the purchase of a Presidential Jet while he was the Minister of Finance.

Travel , Clothes

“A willingness to satisfy contradictory objections to one's manner of writing might turn one's work into the donkey that finally found itself being carried by its masters, since some readers suggest that quotation marks are disruptive of pleasant progress; others, that notes to what should be complete are a pedantry or evidence of an insufficiently realized task. But since in anything I have written, there have been lines in which the chief interest is borrowed, and I have not yet been able to outgrow this hybrid method of composition, acknowledgements seem only honest. Perhaps those who are annoyed by provisos, detainments, and postscripts could be persuaded to take probity on faith and disregard the notes.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (1967), "A Note On The Notes", p. 262

Faith

“A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakeable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habbit of the blood. At five years old, mortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated by abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that prejudice in favour of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of the way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Daniel Deronda (1876)

Love , Life , Men , World

“He is walking up an incline. There are tracks below him and the slow clatter of a freight, the hiss of an engine. At the top of a hill he stops to look back. He can see nothing but fog spaced with a file of blurred archlights. Then he walks on, taking pleasure in breathing, in the beat of his blood, in the tread of his feet on the pavement, between rows of otherworldly frame houses. Gradually the fog thins, a morning pearliness is seeping in from somewhere. Sunrise finds him walking along a cement road between dumping grounds full of smoking rubbishpiles. The sun shines redly through the mist on rusty donkey-engines, skeleton trucks, wishbones of Fords, shapeless masses of corroding metal. Jimmy walks fast to get out of the smell. He is hungry; his shoes are beginning to raise blisters on his big toes. At a cross-road where the warning light still winks and winks, is a gasoline station, opposite it the Lightning Bug lunchwagon. Carefully he spends his last quarter on breakfast. That leaves him three cents for good luck, or bad luck for that matter. A huge furniture truck, shiny and yellow, has drawn up outside.
"Say will you give me a lift?" he asks the redhaired man at the wheel.
"How fur ye goin?"
"I dunno.... Pretty far."”

John Dos Passos book Manhattan Transfer

Source: Manhattan Transfer (1925), pp. 403-404

Bad luck , Pleasure , Shoe , Light

“I do believe the [Democratic] party has moved far to the right. I do believe that the party has a bunch of elephants running around in donkey clothes.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Interview with Robert Novak (January 2003)[citation needed]

Clothes

“We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

Medium Raw (2010)

Family , Birth , Problem , Suicide

“"Nasrudin, your donkey has been lost."
"Thank goodness I was not on the donkey at the time, or I would be lost too."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Paul Blenkiron, Stories and Analogies in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (2010), , p. 43

Time

“The Bible was very definitely written by men, and not superior men either; far from it! This is why so much of it can be shown to be historically and scientifically dead wrong about damned-near everything back-to-front. We’re talking about people who believe snakes and donkeys can talk, who believe in incantations, blood sacrifice, ritual spells, enchanted artifacts, pyrotechnic potions, astrology, and the five elements of witchcraft. They thought that if you use a magic wand to sprinkle blood all over someone, it will cure them of leprosy. We’re talking about people who think that rabbits chew cud, and that bats are birds, and whales are fish, and that π is a round number. These folks believed that if you display striped patterns to a pregnant cow, it would bare striped calves. How could anyone say that who knows anything about genetics? Obviously the authors of this book didn’t.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"2nd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrkjEgUDZA&list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC&index=2, Youtube (November 24, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , People , Books , Bird

“India is like a donkey carrying a sack of gold. The donkey does not know what it is carrying but is content to go along with its load on the back.”

Nanabhoy Palkhivala (1920–2002) Indian jurist and economist

Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa., p. 10

“i often disagree with DigimonOtis, but his efforts to keep Sharia Law out of the donkey kong 64 wiki are much needed in this wolrd of danger”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/892825482814771203]
Tweets by year, 2017

Law , Effort

“She wears a artful bonnet, feathers stuck upon it,
Coverin' a fringe all curled;
She's just about the sweetest, prettiest and neatest
Doner in the wide, wide world!
And she'll be Missis 'Awkins, Missis 'En'ry 'Awkins,
Got 'er for to name the day;
Settled it last Monday, so to church on Sunday,
Off we trots the donkey shay!”

Albert Chevalier (1861–1923) English music hall comedian and singer

Song The Future Mrs 'Awkins http://www.amaranthdesign.ca/musichall/songs/hawkins.htm.

World , Art

“In Israel, death has no dominion over them…With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but (God) will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money. This is his servant…That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew. Gentiles were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”

Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013) Israeli rabbi

20 Octoboer 2010 on Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/adl-slams-shas-spiritual-leader-for-saying-non-jews-were-born-to-serve-jews-1.320235
2010

Life , Death , Money , God

“You messed up with me, birdie. No? You don't know much about history. You don't know much about anything, you know? A great ignorance is what you've got. You are ignorant, Mr. Danger. You are an ignorant. You are a donkey, Mr. Danger … By that I mean, you know, to say it with all its letters, to Mr. George W. Bush. You are a donkey, Mr. Bush. I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Danger. You are a coward, you know? You are a coward. Why don't you go to Iraq and command your army? It's so easy to command an army from afar. If you ever come up with the crazy idea of invading Venezuela, I'll be waiting for you in this savanna, Mr. Danger. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Come on here. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Coward, assassin, genocidal… Genocidal, you are a genocidal. You are an alcoholic, a drunk.. A drunk, Mr. Danger. You are immoral, Mr. Danger… You are the worst ever, Mr. Danger … The worst of this planet, the very worst is called George W. Bush. God save the world from this menace. Because he is an assassin. A sick man, a psychologically ill man, I know it. Personally, he is a coward. But he has a lot of power. He has a lot of power. And look at what's happening in Iraq. Yesterday the world marched against the war… 70%, according to the surveys I've seen, of your own people, Mr. Danger, are against you, against the war. You are a liar, Mr. Danger. You are killing children, Mr. Danger, who aren't responsible for your illnesses, of your complexes. Your soldiers in Iraq are bombing cities. Just yesterday we were watching images of five children who were murdered by you soldiers. They're not the murderers. You are the murderer, coward!”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Message to George W. Bush, in a nationally televised speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2_lJbIyzT64 in March 2006.
2006

God , War , Children , People

“Nasrudin used to take a donkey across a frontier every day, with the panniers loaded with straw. Since he admitted to being a smuggler when he trudged home every night, the frontier guards searched him again and again. They searched his person, staffed the straw, steeped it in water, even burned it from time to time. […] One of the customs officers met him years later.
"You can tell me now, Nasrudin," he said. "Whatever was it that you were smuggling, when we could never catch you out?"”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

"Donkeys," said Nasrudin.
N. Hanif (ed.), Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: Central Asia and Middle East (2002), ISBN 8176252662, p. 335

Home , Search , Water , Time

“Donkey Punch is a very extreme, real-world thriller – it’s about characters and events that are based in reality and it pushes them into very dark and extreme situations where they have to do things that they would never have imagined. The film shows all this quite realistically and doesn’t pull its punches.”

Olly Blackburn Film director and screenwriter

[Bloody Disgusting, Interview Donkey Punch: Writer/Directory Olly Blackburn, Mr. Disgusting, http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/interview/441, 23 February 2012, 2011, Bloody-Disgusting LLC]

World , Imagination , Reality

“The hybrid frustrates the purpose of creation. All things, we are told according to Genesis, were created with their seed in themselves, destined to be fertile. Hybridization seeks to improve God’s work. It seeks to gain the best of two diverse but somewhat related things. The result is a limited advantage but a long range launched including sterility. Second, these laws clearly require a respect for God’s creation. We are not to change one kind into another, or to attempt it. All things we are told were created good. Now when we hold to evolution we cannot see all things as created good. Because evolution is the survival of the fittest, and the best you can say about anything is that it is the fittest. Not that it is the best, not that it is morally the most desirable thing. And though it has survived thus far it may not survive in the next ten thousand years, so that man for example, we are told may be a mistake. Thus we cannot under an evolutionary perspective see all things as created good. But man under God has been created good and the world around him has been created good. Man can kill and eat plants and animals to use this creation under God’s law. But he cannot tamper with it, he cannot hybridize; which is to violate God’s kind. And the penalty for it, of course, is sterility. You can cross a horse and a donkey, but the mule is sterile. You can put all kinds of new variety of squash and carrots and the like on the market, but the penalty for these is sterility. They will not produce a seed. And while they will have certain advantages --the mule has certain advantages over the horse-- they have marked disadvantages, and a greater frailty, sensitivity, nervousness (as with the mule), so that they are a real handicap.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Hybridization and the Law (n. d.)

God , World , Law , Penalty

“After a while one is embarrassed not so much for them as for poetry, which is for these poor poets one more of the openings against which everyone in the end beats his brains out; and one finds it unbearable that poetry should be so hard to write — a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey in which there is for most of the players no tail, no donkey, not even a booby prize.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

"Verse Chronicle," The Nation (23 February 1946); reprinted as "Bad Poets" in Poetry and the Age (1953)
General sources
Context: Sometimes it is hard to criticize, one wants only to chronicle. The good and mediocre books come in from week to week, and I put them aside and read them and think of what to say; but the "worthless" books come in day after day, like the cries and truck sounds from the street, and there is nothing that anyone could think of that is good enough for them. In the bad type of thin pamphlets, in hand-set lines on imported paper, people's hard lives and hopeless ambitions have expressed themselves more directly and heartbreakingly than they have ever expressed in any work of art: it is as if the writers had sent you their ripped-out arms and legs, with "This is a poem" scrawled on them in lipstick. After a while one is embarrassed not so much for them as for poetry, which is for these poor poets one more of the openings against which everyone in the end beats his brains out; and one finds it unbearable that poetry should be so hard to write — a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey in which there is for most of the players no tail, no donkey, not even a booby prize.

Game

“An exam should be passed by every man. Because we have some examples: A man today, tomorrow - a donkey.”

Vasil Levski (1837–1873) Bulgarian revolutionary

to Hristo Popov, May 30 1871
Original: (bg) Трябва изпит за всеки. Защото има примери: Днес е човек, а утре — магаре.

“The American political system is like a gigantic Mexican Christmas fiesta. Each political party is a huge piñata — a papier-mâché donkey, for example. The donkey is filled with full employment, low interest rates, affordable housing, comprehensive medical benefits, a balanced budget and other goodies. The American voter is blindfolded and given a stick. The voter then swings the stick wildly in every direction, trying to hit a political candidate on the head and knock some sense into the silly bastard.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Parliament of Whores

Parliament of Whores (1991)

Sense , Christmas , Housing

“Freely and boldly I declare that I have never heard a single donkey-cunt doctor of theology, in the smallest of his divisions and points, even whisper, to say nothing of speaking loudly, and points, even whisper, to say nothing of speaking loudly, about the order (established in God and all his creatures).”

Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525) early Reformation-era German pastor who was a rebel leader during the German Peasants' War

"A Protest about the Condition of the Bohemians"
Wu Ming Presents Thomas Müntzer, Sermon to the Princes

God

“The ignorant creature knows nothing of the wise doctrines of Malthus, but spawns forth as many children of all sorts as ever she can, without the least prudential restraint. She has consequently far more than she can properly feed and rear; so that a large part perishes in infancy (and we are told that none of these except the human sucklings will rise to another life; poor bereaved monkey and donkey mothers, for instance, being altogether without the precious consolations of immortality); a considerable part is eaten up by mankind and other hungry animals, and the remainder can seldom get food enough.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 60
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Food , Children , Animals , Life

“Thrones and crowns of worldly kings carry worth less than shows of donkey for us.”

Bu Ali Shah Qalandar (1209–1324) Indian Sufi saint

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 270

“No matter what I do I could never become an English man. If you paint stripes on a donkey, that doesn’t make it a zebra.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Quoted while explaining about his early days in Britain, Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s ‘donkey’ reference creates waves on Twitter https://www.firstpost.com/world/watch-former-pakistan-pm-imran-khans-donkey-reference-creates-waves-on-twitter-10644561.html (May 7, 2022)

Painting