Quotes about sheep (321 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Conditioned like sheep in a flock, they have only managed to say “beee”, which translated into martial language would be “Yes, sir.””

José Baroja book El lado oscuro de la sombra y otros ladridos

“Only few people, the leaders, have graduated from the school of religion. The others continue to swing back and forth like a pendulum. The lost sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

School , Religion , People

“All kings will be reincarnated as lions and employees as flocks of sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Leadership

“Those who are confused and refer to Jesus as a god, there is no doubt that Jesus was a great man of God sent to carry the message to the lost sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Freedom

“Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas

Death , Freedom

“Real education must ultimately be limited to one who INSISTS on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”

Ezra Pound book ABC of Reading

Source: ABC of Reading (1934), Ch. 8

Education

“I fear being like everyone I hate, I fear failure, I fear losing control. I love balancing between chaos and control with everything I do. I always have a fear of going one way or another, getting lost in something, or losing everything to get lost in. And I fear being a completely acceptable sheep in society.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Love , Hate , Fear , Way

“As sheep come issuing forth from out the fold
By ones and twos and threes, and the others stand
Timidly, holding down their eyes and nostrils,
And what the foremost does the others do,
Huddling themselves against her, if she stop,
Simple and quiet and the wherefore know not.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto III, lines 79–84 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Berlin says: "… You cannot combine full liberty with full equality—full liberty for the wolves cannot be combined with full liberty for the sheep…." …. Are women sheep ("led like sheep to the slaughter")? Must women become wolves? Is violence against women a direct result of the fact that there is no inevitable, painful, retaliatory consequence for hurting women?”

Andrea Dworkin book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation

Source: Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000), pp. 245–246.

Women , Pain , Hurt

“Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Letter to Thomas Cushing (1773) http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/franklin-the-works-of-benjamin-franklin-vol-vi-letters-and-misc-writings-1772-1775#lf1438-06_head_007.
Context: But our great security lies, I think, in our growing strength, both in numbers and wealth; … unless, by a neglect of military discipline, we should lose all martial spirit …; for there is much truth in the Italian saying, Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.

“England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control — that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”

George Orwell book England Your England

Part I : England Your England, § III
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)

Family , Silence , Memory , Relation ships

“Since you cannot mix wolves with sheep, why would anyone dare to compare a lion with the lamb?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“You must know yourself first instead of following blindly like sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Is it not strange that sheep's guts could hail souls out of men's bodies?”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

Men , Soul

“Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lectures on Literature

Source: Lectures on Literature

“I've always thought that anyone who needs to join a herd so badly must be a bit of a sheep himself.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Prisoner of Heaven

Source: The Prisoner of Heaven

“He thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep moreover, that could afford to employ wolves.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

Edward R. Murrow (1908–1965) Television journalist

“We are a nation of sheep, and
someone else owns the grass.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Grass

“Can you row?" the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke.
"Yes, a little--but not on land--and not with needles--" Alice was beginning to say.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

“The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

Learning , Animals

“Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

“Now I remember why I hate eating sheep. Horrible, fluffy things that give me hair balls and indigestion. ( Saphira from the Eragon Series)”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

Hate

“There comes a point when the confused or abused person hears a voice saying in his head, Oh well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and, depending on the particular situation in which he finds him he either spends his last bit of money on a lottery ticket, or places on the gaming table the watch he inherited from his father and silver cigarette case that was a gift from his mother, or bets everything he has on red even though he knows that red has come up five times in a row”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 14 (Vintage 2003)

Money , Game , Time , Dependency

“The mistake made by all previous systems of ethics has been the failure to recognize that life as such is the mysterious value with which they have to deal. All spiritual life meets us within natural life. Reverence for life, therefore, is applied to natural life and spiritual life alike. In the parable of Jesus, the shepherd saves not merely the soul of the lost sheep but the whole animal. The stronger the reverence for natural life, the stronger grows also that for spiritual life.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 264

Life , Soul , Failure , Nature

“I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertook such a Government as this is.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Statement to Parliament (4 February 1658) quoted in The Diary of Thomas Burton, esq., volume 2: April 1657 - February 1658 (1828), p. 466

“Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.”

Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) American scientist (1894–1956)

Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)

World , Sex , Behavior , Understanding

“Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Attributed in Swami Vivekananda: The Charm of His Personality and Message by Swami Atmashraddhananda https://books.google.ca/books?id=Pwk7CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT234&lpg=PT234&dq=shake+off+the+delusion+that+you+are+sheep+vivekananda&source=bl&ots=CTkWW7sBV8&sig=g_L6z3fwVO6qBDIvfqP1sq7pPFk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIvvTTqo_OAhXB1IMKHaErBP8Q6AEILDAD#v=onepage&q=shake%20off%20the%20delusion%20that%20you%20are%20sheep%20vivekananda&f=false
Disputed

Soul

“An army of sheep, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions, led by a sheep.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Attributed to Napoleon in Napoleon (1941) by Yevgeny Tarle, this is a variant of an ancient proverb often attributed to many military and political figures, including Alexander the Great, and the even earlier figure Chabrias (Χαβρίας).
Misattributed

“I think I was more like the black sheep, maybe, that, I was someone that you could blame on, but we were actually agreed on, that we had to stop now, because we came to a point, when it doesn't feel good anymore.”

Agnetha Fältskog (1950) Swedish recording artist and entertainer

On her off-stage role in ABBA
BBC interview (May 2013)

Feeling , Thinking

“Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Attributed in "Duce (1922-42)" in TIME magazine (2 August 1943)
Also quoted by Generale Armando Diaz in "Il pensiero dei leoni" in Il Carroccio. The Italian review (1922) attributed to graffiti by an unknown soldier https://archive.org/stream/ilcarroccioitali15newyuoft#page/14/mode/2up
Though not precisely a repetition of any of them, this is somewhat resembles far earlier remarks attributed to others:
An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.
Attributed to Alexander the Great, in The British Battle Fleet : Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915) by Frederick Thomas Jane
To live like a lion for a day is far better than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.
Tipu Sultan, as quoted in Encyclopedia of Asian History (1988) Vol. 4, p. 104
It is far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.
Tipu Sultan, as quoted in Tipu Sultan : A Study in Diplomacy and Confrontation (1982) by B. Sheikh Ali, p. 329
I should prefer an army of stags led by a lion, to an army of lions led by a stag.
Chabrias, as quoted in A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places (1814) by Lazare Carnot, p. 50
He has been frequently heard to say, that in this world he would rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep.
Tipu Sultan, as quoted in A View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun; Comprising a Narrative of the Operations of the Army under the Command of Lieutenant-General George Harris, and of the Siege of Seringapatam (London, G. and W. Nicol, 1800) by Alexander Beatson, pp. 153-154. http://oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/7905/212261_Origin_And_Conduct_Of_The_War_With_Tipoo_Sultaun.pdf https://indianhistorybooks3.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/99999990039373-view-of-the-origin-and-conduct-of-the-war-with-tipoo-sultan.pdf
1940s

“We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa book The Leopard

Noi fummo i Gattopardi, i Leoni; quelli che ci sostituiranno saranno gli sciacalletti, le iene; e tutti quanti Gattopardi, sciacalli e pecore, continueremo a crederci il sale della terra.
Page 152
Il Gattopardo (1958)

Thinking

“At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words.”

Clarice Lispector book Near to the Wild Heart

Near to the Wild Heart (1943), p. 43

School , Dreams , Cats , Drink

“I'm a keeper of [[sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts. ]]I'm a keeper of sheep.
The sheep are my thoughts
And each thought a sensation.
I think with my eyes and my ears
And with my hands and feet
And with my nose and mouth.To think a flower is to see and smell it,
And to eat a fruit is to know its meaning.That is why on a hot day
When I enjoy it so much I feel sad,
And I lie down in the grass
And close my warm eyes,
Then I feel my whole body lying down in reality,
I know the truth, and I'm happy.</p”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

<p>Sou um guardador de rebanhos.
O rebanho é os meus pensamentos
E os meus pensamentos são todos sensações.
Penso com os olhos e com os ouvidos
E com as mãos e os pés
E com o nariz e a boca.
Pensar uma flor é vê-la e cheirá-la
E comer um fruto é saber-lhe o sentido.</p><p>Por isso quando num dia de calor
Me sinto triste de gozá-lo tanto,
E me deito ao comprido na erva,
E fecho os olhos quentes,
Sinto todo o meu corpo deitado na realidade,
Sei a verdade e sou feliz.</p>
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), IX — in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)

Truth , Lie , Sadness , Feeling

“To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (30 May 1902); also in Mark Twain : A Life, p. 611

Idea

“It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

The Life and Adventures of http://books.google.com/books?id=IZ9CAAAAYAAJ&q=%22better+to+have+a+Lyon+at+the+Head%22+%22an+Army+of+Sheep+than+a+Sheep+at+the+Head%22+%22an+Army+of+Lyons%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage Mrs. Christian Davies (1741)

Leadership

“If I should do so now it occurs that he places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the owner of the hundred sheep found the one that was lost and threw it upon his shoulders, and came home rejoicing, it was said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was lost and had been found than over the ninety and nine in the fold. The application is made by the Saviour in this parable thus: Verily I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Repentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness.
Regarding his debate with Judge S. A. Douglas, in his Springfield address (17 July 1858), published in The Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln: Together with a Sketch of the Life of Hannibal Hamlin: Republican candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States (1860), p. 50
Lincoln was alluding to the words of Jesus in Luke 15:7 http://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Luke%2015%3A7
1850s

Home , Mountain , Forgiveness , Personality

“The question is not put how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.”

Juvenal book Satires

III, lines 234-242, John Dryden, trans.
Satires, Satire III

Question , Business

“What modern apologists call 'true' Christianity is something depending upon a very selective process. It ignores much that is to be found in the Gospels: for example, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the doctrine that the wicked will suffer eternal torment in Hell fire. It picks out certain parts of the Sermon on the Mount, though even these it often rejects in practice. It leaves the doctrine of non-resistance, for example, to be practised only by non-Christians such as Gandhi. The precepts that it particularly favours are held to embody such a lofty morality that they must have had a divine origin. And yet … these precepts were uttered by Jews before the time of Christ.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?", in Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter, part II (11 November 1954)
1950s

Hell , Suffering , Time , Christ

“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Attributed to Alexander, as quoted in The British Battle Fleet: Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915) by Frederick Thomas Jane, but many variants of similar statements exist which have been attributed to others, though in research done for Wikiquote definite citations of original documents have not yet been found for any of them:
I should prefer an army of stags led by a lion, to an army of lions led by a stag.
Attributed to Chabrias, who died around the time Alexander was born, thus his is the earliest life to whom such assertions have been attributed; as quoted in A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places (1814) by Lazare Carnot, p. 50
An army of stags led by a lion would be better than an army of lions led by a stag.
Attributed to Chabrias, A History of Ireland (1857) by Thomas Mooney, p. 760
An army of stags led by a lion is superior to an army of lions led by a stag.
Attributed to Chabrias, The New American Cyclopaedia : A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge (1863), Vol. 4, p. 670
An army of sheep led by a lion are more to be feared than an army of lions led by a sheep.
Attributed to Chabrias, The Older We Get, The Better We Were, Marine Corps Sea Stories (2004) by Vince Crawley, p. 67
It is better to have sheep led by a lion than lions led by a sheep.
Attributed to Polybius in Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth Century Ireland (2005) by Deana Rankin, p. 124, citing A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, from 1641 to 1652 (1880) by John Thomas Gilbert Vol. I, i, p. 153 - 157; but conceivably this might be reference to Polybius the historian quoting either Alexander or Chabrias.
An army composed of sheep but led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep.
"Proverb" quoted by Agostino Nifo in De Regnandi Peritia (1523) as cited in Machiavelli - The First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance (2005) by Mathew Thomson, p. 55
Greater is an army of sheep led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a sheep.
Attributed to Daniel Defoe (c. 1659 - 1731)
I am more afraid of one hundred sheep led by a lion than one hundred lions led by a sheep.
Attributed to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754 – 1838) Variants: I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
I am not afraid of an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep. I am afraid of army of 100 sheeps led by a lion.
Variants quoted as an anonymous proverb:
Better a herd of sheep led by a lion than a herd of lions led by a sheep.
A flock of sheep led by a lion was more powerful than a flock of lions led by a sheep.
An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
It were better to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep.
An army of sheep led by a lion, will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
An army of sheep led by a lion would be superior to an army of lions led by a sheep.
Unsourced attribution to Alexander: I would not fear a pack of lions led by a sheep, but I would always fear a flock of sheep led by a lion.
As one lion overcomes many people and as one wolf scatters many sheep, so likewise will I, with one word, destroy the peoples who have come against me.
This slightly similar statement is the only quote relating to lions in The History of Alexander the Great, Being the Syriac Version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes (1889) as translated by E. A. Wallis Budge, but it is attributed to Nectanebus (Nectanebo II).
Disputed

“Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

1970s, BOBBY FISCHER SPEAKS OUT! (1977)

People , Support

“The so-called “innocents” are still wearing the skins of sheep to cover their evil intentions. Thus, we must avoid flatterers at any cost, so as not to become their victims.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Evil

“History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep.”

Scott Westerfeld book Uglies

Source: Uglies

People , History

“Julian: What's black inside, white outside, and hot?
Jenny: What?
Julian: A wolf in sheep's clothing.
Jenny: Is that what you are?
Julian: Me? No, I'm a wolf in wolf's clothing.”

L.J. Smith The Forbidden Game

Source: The Forbidden Game

Wolf , Clothes

“In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“Sheep are always looking for a new shepherd when the terrain gets rocky.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

“Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow.

-Lady Whistledown”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

Men

“If a wolf attacks his sheep, the shepard kills the wolf, but he eats the sheep when he's hungry.”

Charlie Higson book The Enemy

Source: The Enemy

Wolf

“Sheep hurt my father, and through my father, sheep have also hurt me.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 26, The Sheep Professor

Hurt

“Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get---people, storms, guardian angels, or sheep….”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

People , Angels

“When I was young, I asked my priest how to get to heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God told His children;'You are sheep among wolves, be wise as the serpent, yet innocent as doves.”

Dennis Lehane book Gone, Baby, Gone

Source: Gone, Baby, Gone

God , Children , World , Evil

“Sheep. I'm stuck in a boarding school filled with sheep.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

School

“Today the devil as a wolf in supposedly a new suit of sheep’s clothing is enticing some men to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security at the expense of our liberties.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Men , Wolf , Clothes

“A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.”

Agatha Christie book The Mystery of the Blue Train

Miss Viner
Source: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928)
Context: I was wrong about that young man of yours. A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep. Now, whenever that young man looked at you he looked like a sheep. I take back all I said this morning. It is genuine.

Love , Help

“Safety is a fence, and fences are for sheep. I would rather die at twenty-two, knowing the truth, then live in a cage of lies for a hundred years.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Truth

“May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense.”

Christopher Moore book Practical Demonkeeping

Author's Blessing
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (2002)
Source: Practical Demonkeeping
Context: If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it.
If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil.
If you seek an adventure, may this song sing you away to blissful escape.
If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions.
All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not.
May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them.
May you find perfection, and know it by name.

“In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein.
The New Quotable Einstein
variant translation from Ideas and Opinions: "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Perfection

“There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Joy in the Morning (1947)
Source: Jeeves in the Morning

Distant

“Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Idea

“Our problems started in Dallas, when the fire-breathing sheep destroyed the King Tut exhibit.”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

Problem

“You're in a horse race but you're thinking like a sheep. Sheep don't win horse races.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Thinking , Horse

“Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

“Vivian, I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient I've brought you someone else's."

"Rafe you jerk, this is a sheep's heart.”

Annette Curtis Klause Blood and Chocolate

Variant: I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's.
Source: Blood and Chocolate

Jerk , Heart

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

From a speech given at the Royal Academy of Art in 1953; quoted in Time magazine (11 May 1954).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Art

“It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Dark Lord of Derkholm

Source: Dark Lord of Derkholm

“And if you say that's because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I'm disowning all three of you.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

Home

“But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Idea

“Me? I'm the king of the twentieth century. I'm the bogeyman. The villain… The black sheep of the family.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Variant: I'm the king of the 20th century. I'm the boogeyman, the villian, the black sheep of the family.
Source: V for Vendetta

Family

“He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain-they're just the only ones who let it out. Then the other people don't have to.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Pain , People , Anger

“People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled them was a bite from a sheep.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

People , Wolf

“I find her anecdotes more efficacious than sheep-counting, rain on a tin roof, or alanol tablets…. you will find me and Morpheus, off in a corner, necking.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

“Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

Memory

“Better to live one year as a tiger, than a hundred as sheep.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Madonna: 50 Years Of Wit And Wisdom, The Insider http://www.theinsider.com/news/1130430_Madonna_50_Years_Of_Wit_And_Wisdom,

Good Night

“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels & free thinkers. It's overrun with sheep & conformists.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

People , Country

“Money to me had always been merely something the sheep used to show each other how wonderful they were.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dexter Is Delicious

Source: Dexter Is Delicious

Money

“Do you know how much women loathe it when guys think every show of negative emotion is tied to our menstrual cycle, like we're sheep or something?”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Women , Guy , Thinking

“In case you're wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn't smell that great. Imagine a winter sweater that's been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week. Something like that.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Imagination , Winter

“Safety is a fence, and fences are for sheep.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“Most people would rather be sheep than stand on their own with antlers on.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

People

“I hopehaven't given up on the S. Q.'s of the world, Reynie. As you see, there are a great many sheep in wolves' clothing. If not for S. Q.'s good nature, we'd never have escaped.”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

World , Nature , Clothes

“A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

Strong , Personality

“People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

From the poem "Sheep in Fog", 2 December 1962, 28 January 1963”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

People , Disappointment , Star

“Butch nodded as if he knew exactly what was doing. "Like I said, my man, it's whatever. You and me? Same as always, no matter who you screw. Although… if you're into sheep, that would be tough. Don't know if I could handle that.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

“The capacity for personal freedom is a rare talent. Talent exists to be used. We do not ask sheep to be wolves; we, the wolves, do not ask ourselves to be sheep. Sheep can make such rules as happen to suit them--but it's foolishly naive to expect wolves to obey.”

Matthew Stover book Blade of Tyshalle

Blade of Tyshalle (2001)

Freedom , Personality

“I, at any rate, acknowledge only one master, not forty-five million two-legged sheep, or two thousand million, but simply and absolutely the spirit.”

Olaf Stapledon book Sirius

Source: Sirius (1944), Chapter XII Farmer Sirius (an answer to Plaxy's rant about democracy).

“[ The wolfe eats oft of the sheep that have been warn'd. ]”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Wolf

“No one can eat the flesh of a slaughtered animal without having used the hand of a man as slaughterer. Suppose that we had to kill for ourselves the creatures whose bodies we would fain have upon our table, is there one woman in a hundred who would go to the slaughterhouse to slay the bullock, the calf, the sheep or the pig?… Dare we call ourselves refined if we purchase our refinement by the brutalization of others, and demand that some should be brutal in order that we may eat the results of their brutality? We are not free from the brutalizing results of that trade simply because we take no direct part in it.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

A speech given at Manchester UK (18 October 1897)

Animals , Parting

“But the conventional narrative is lumpy, a story that glosses what passes for quiescence to focus on "events": the appearance of Lewis and Clark and [Father Jean Pierre] DeSmut, the removal of the native Salish people, the arrival of the railroads, irrigation and logging and town-building, booms in sheep, busts in apples. Settlement, local politics, participation in the nation's wars, schemes to make money. And now the resources are tourism and real estate based on scenery and an amenity lifestyle in a mountain paradise. These seem to be what we think of as history.”

Dan Flores (1948) American historian

The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (2003)

Money , War , People , History

“Sheep are especially sensitive to the exact moment of the turn of the tide. In this game, nine tethered sheep react, pull on the stakes, jolt the chairs and rattle the tea-cups. Bets are taken on the combined sensitivity of any three lines of sheep -- read vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Since there are normally three tide-turns every twenty-four hours, it is normal practice to take the best of three results. Reliable clocks, calendars, and time-tables are used to determine the accuracy of the sheep's forecast.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Drowning By Numbers

Game , Time , Reading , Tea

“He's (Michael Moore) going to wake up every day for the rest of his life, and he's going to tell us how he hates everything about this country except his right to hate it. And then we say that we love it and he's going to tell us what naive sheep we are and that he's the true patriot because he hates it and he sees all the problems in it. Yeah, right, Mike. You know something, if my yawn got any bigger they'd have to assign it a hurricane name, okay? Michael Moore simultaneously represents everything I detest in a human being and everything I feel obligated to defend in an American. Quite simply, it is that stupid moron's right to be that utterly, completely wrong.”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (3 April 2003)

Love , Life , Hate , Stupidity

“Like is he to a wolf that has forced an entrance to a rich fold of sheep, and now, his breast all clotted with foul corruption and his gaping bristly mouth unsightly with blood-stained wool, hies him from the pens, turning this way and that his troubled gaze, should the angry shepherds find out their loss and follow in pursuit, and flees all conscious of his bold deed.”
Ille velut pecoris lupus expugnator opimi, pectora tabenti sanie grauis hirtaque saetis ora cruentata deformis hiantia lana, decedit stabulis huc illuc turbida versans lumina, si duri comperta clade sequantur pastores, magnique fugit non inscius ausi.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book IV, Line 363 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Way , Wolf , Loss

“By them saying I should fall in line is an insult. I'm not asking for an invitation. I think they should get behind me, not fall in line like sheep. They're so paranoid, it makes me think they have weak candidates and they're afraid. The more they attack, the more they show their hand, and I mean that across party lines. It's not politics as usual. We're running a different campaign, and they're scared to death.”

Scott Ashjian (1963) American businessman

[Jourdan, Kristi, Tea Party activists say candidate uninvited, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1B, March 18, 2010]

Death , Thinking

“A flock of sheep was moving slowly down a country lane which was bounded by high banks. A motorist in a hurry came up behind the flock and urged the shepherd to move his sheep to the side so that the car could drive through. The shepherd refused since he could not be sure of keeping all the sheep out of the way of the car in such a narrow lane. Instead he reversed the situation. He told the car to stop and then he quietly turned the flock round and drove it back past the stationary car.”

Edward de Bono (1933) Maltese physician

Source: Lateral Thinking : Creativity Step by Step (1970), p. 100; Cited in Virginia K. Baillie et al. (1989) Effective Nursing Leadership: A Practical Guide. p. 244.

Cars , Way , Past , Country

“By now it has become a formula to attach new ideas on the grounds of extremism and unintelligibility. Every phase of modern art has in turn been attacked on these grounds, until the new phase became acceptable. Although the present attacks are focused on those who emphasize the subjective side of abstract painting, the threat to other sections of the modern painting is implicit. The attacks are always focused on those who are considered the black sheep, for reasons of non-conformity. They are conspicuous, because they are different, and therefore may be easy targets.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Gottlieb's comment on the attacks on artistic freedom in the United States, 1948
Quote from Gottlieb's lecture at Forum: the Artist Speaks, museum of Modern Art, New York, May 5, 1948.
1940s

Art , Idea , Freedom , Painting

“A family without a black sheep is not a typical family.”

Heinrich Böll book Black Sheep

Eine Familie, die keine schwarzen Schafe hat, ist keine charakteristische Familie.
"Die schwarzen Schafe" (1951); cited from 1947 bis 1951 (Köln: F. Middelhauve, 1963) p. 478. Translation: "Black Sheep", in Leila Vennewitz (trans.) The Stories of Heinrich Böll (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1995) p. 408.

Family

“The eloquent Lysias, posing as a non-lover, had concealed designs upon Phaedrus, so that his fine speech was really a sheep’s clothing. Socrates discerned in him a “peculiar craftiness.” One must suspect the same today of many who ask us to place our faith in the neutrality of their discourse.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 22.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

Faith , Lovers , Clothes