Quotes about sheep
page 2

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Frederick Russell Burnham photo

“I am more afraid of an army of a hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of a hundred lions led by a sheep.”

Frederick Russell Burnham (1861–1947) father of scouting; military scout; soldier of fortune; oil man; writer; rancher

Taking Chances (1944)

T. H. White photo
Anthony Trollope photo
Will Eisner photo
Anton Mauve photo

“I ordered Major [transport company] tomorrow afternoon 2 o'clock to pack the paintings, I am still completely in all the paintings - as nightmares they are flying around me, now you know as of old how that is, but tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock I am free. I believe there are nice things among them, the drawing has become a little too fat, but there is much good in it, and it is very well-finished. I send to Peacock. The forest with wood hackers, which was hanging above the door of my studio, then the sheep [small composition-sketch of a sheep herd with shepherd] and... I believe you know them all, 7 pieces together, afterwards I have to start working for Arnold & Tripp [art-sellers in Paris], I let those guys wait and that's not right to do..”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) Morgen middag 2 uur heb ik Majoor [transportbedrijf] besteld om de schilderijen in te pakken ik ben nu nog geheel in alle die schilderijen als nacht merries zijn ze om me heen nu je weet wel van ouds, hoe of dat is maar morgen om 2 uur ben ik vrij. Ik geloof dat er aardige dingen bij zijn, de teekening is wel wat dik geworden, doch veel goeds er in, en erg af ik verzend aan Peacock Het bosch met hout hakkers, dat boven de deur van mijn atelier hing dan de schapen [klein compositieschetsje schaapskudde met herder] en [klein compositieschetsje schapen op bospad] en [klein compositieschetsje met schaapskudde] en [klein compositieschetsje koe?] en [klein compositieschetsje schaapskudde met vliegdennen] en de teekening (schapen uit het bosch komende) ik geloof dat je ze allen kent, 7 stuks te zamen, ik moet daarna ook voor Arnold & Tripp [kunsthandelaars in Parijs] aan de gang, die luitjes laat ik maar wachten en dat mag niet..
In a letter of Mauve from Laren, 27 June 1887 original text of the letter in RKD Archive https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/10, The Hague
1880's

Thomas Sturge Moore photo

“A sheep in sheep's clothing.”

Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) British playwright, poet and artist

Edmund Gosse, quoted in Ferris Greenslet Under the Bridge: An Autobiography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943) p. 104.
Sometimes misattributed to Yeats.
Criticism

Dashiell Hammett photo
Oliver P. Morton photo
Jack Kevorkian photo

“The American people are sheep. They're comfortable, rich, working. It's like the Romans, they're happy with bread and their spectator sports. The Super Bowl means more to them than any right.”

Jack Kevorkian (1928–2011) American pathologist, euthanasia activist

Quoted in "Between the dying and the dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's life and the battle to Legalize Euthanasia"‎ - Page 247 - by Neal Nicol, Harry Wylie - 2006
2000s, 2006

Anton Mauve photo

“I am busy working on a large painting with sheep; the last days I am working with real pleasure, the weather is.... not too hot and with nice skies. It's great here!!!! I shout with joy the whole day and more and more I desire to stay here until the end.”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) Ik ben druk bezig aan een groot schilderij met schapen, in de laatste dagen ben ik met waar genoegen aan het werk, het weer is.. ..niet al te warm en mooie luchten. 't Is hier heerlijk!!!! Ik jubel steeds en verlang hoe langer hoe meer hier te blijven tot het einde.
In a letter of Mauve, from Laren 1885, to his student nl:Arina Hugenholtz, as quoted by Arina Hugenholtz in In Memoriam Anton Mauve; as cited in Van IJs naar Sneeuw - De ontwikkeling van het wintergezicht in de 19de eeuw, Arsine Nazarian, Juli 2008 Utrecht University; studentnummer: 0360953, p. 85
Mauve's mood was frequently moving between depression and cheerful moods, as many related people knew
1880's

Giovanni Boccaccio photo

“The nature of wit is such that its bite must be like that of a sheep rather than a dog, for if it were to bite the listener like a dog, it would no longer be wit but abuse.”

Essere la natura de' motti cotale, che essi come la pecora morde deono cosi mordere l'uditore, e non come 'l cane: percio che, se come cane mordesse il motto, non sarebbe motto, ma villania.
Sixth Day, Third Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)

Philip Roth photo
John Bunyan photo
Horace Greeley photo

“V. We complain that the Union cause has suffered, and is now suffering immensely, from mistaken deference to Rebel Slavery. Had you, Sir, in your Inaugural Address, unmistakably given notice that, in case the Rebellion already commenced were persisted in, and your efforts to preserve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as rightfully held in Slavery by a traitor, we believe the Rebellion would therein have received a staggering if not fatal blow. At that moment, according to the returns of the most recent elections, the Unionists were a large majority of the voters of the Slave States. But they were composed in good part of the aged, the feeble, the wealthy, the timid--the young, the reckless, the aspiring, the adventurous, had already been largely lured by the gamblers and negro-traders, the politicians by trade and the conspirators by instinct, into the toils of Treason. Had you then proclaimed that Rebellion would strike the shackles from the slaves of every traitor, the wealthy and the cautious would have been supplied with a powerful inducement to remain loyal. As it was, every coward in the South soon became a traitor from fear; for Loyalty was perilous, while Treason seemed comparatively safe. Hence the boasted unanimity of the South--a unanimity based on Rebel terrorism and the fact that immunity and safety were found on that side, danger and probable death on ours. The Rebels from the first have been eager to confiscate, imprison, scourge and kill: we have fought wolves with the devices of sheep. The result is just what might have been expected. Tens of thousands are fighting in the Rebel ranks to-day whose, original bias and natural leanings would have led them into ours.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)

Lin Yutang photo
Thomas Love Peacock photo

“The mountain sheep are sweeter
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it...

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.”

Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company

"The War-Song of Dinas Vawr", stanzas 1 and 3, from The Misfortunes of Elphin, chapter XI (1829). In the same chapter this is described as "the quintessence of all the war-songs that ever were written, and the sum and substance of all the appetencies, tendencies, and consequences of military glory".

Aron Ra photo

“There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep”. I know lots of intellectual Christians, but I can’t get any of them to actually watch the televangelists, because they either already know how phony they are, or they don’t want to find out. But that only allows a radical fringe to claim support from they masses they now also claim to represent. So there’s nothing to stop them. Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or bilking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned… Were it not for this con, they’d have to go back to selling used cars, wonder drugs, and multi-level marketing schemes. They will never change their minds no matter what it costs anyone else.”

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

"1st Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY, Youtube (November 11, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Max Beerbohm photo
Francis Bacon photo

“Nay, number (itself) in armies, importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597), XXIX: "Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates."

Donald Barthelme photo
Kent Hovind photo

“If it came on the evening news tonight that there were five grizzly bears roaming around Cobb County, do you know what would happen by six o'clock in the morning? They would all be dead. Because every redneck in four states would be out there with a rifle, trying to shoot one, right? And whoever could shoot the biggest one would be a hero. They would have his picture on the front page, "Bubba shot the Grizzly Bear" and saved the village. That is exactly what happened to the dragons. If you could figure out a way to kill a dragon, they would be telling stories about you around the campfire. People killed dragons for meat, because they were a menace, to prove that you were a hero, or to prove that you are superior, in competition for land, or for medicinal purposes. Many ancient recipes call for dragon blood, dragon bones, dragon saliva, why? Gilgamesh is famous for slaying a dragon. A Chinese legend tells about a guy named Yu that surveyed the land of China. It says, that after the Flood he surveyed the land, he divided it off into sections. He built channels to drain water off to sea and make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands. You know that's normal that if you want to build a city. You have to drive off the dragons, then build your city. It was expected that you have got to drive the dragons away or kill them. Why would the Chinese calendar have eleven real animals: the pig, the duck, the dog, and … the dragon? Why would they put just one "mythical" animal in there? Could it be at the time they that they came up with these animals there were 12 real animals? There is one of the oldest pieces of pottery on Planet Earth. It's a piece of slate from Egypt; the first dynasty of United Egypt. It shows long necked dragons […] Why would they put long necked dinosaurs on pottery 3,800 years ago? Here are two long necked dinosaurs with a sheep in between them in their mouths. Here is a hippo tusk from the twelve century B. C., showing an animal with a long neck, and a long tail. Here's a cylinder seal, showing what appears quite obviously to be a long neck dinosaur. The Bible talks about a fiery flying serpent, in Isaiah 14.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

William Henry Davies photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
J.M. Coetzee photo
Muhammad photo

“In Christ you will find, a very dear Friend;
Who is of this mind, to love to the end;
Yet satan is seeking, His sheep to devour;
And God He is making some whole this bright hour.”

Dorothy Ripley (1767–1832) missionary

A Hymn From My Nativity (22 August 1819), p. 17
The Bank of Faith and Works United (1819)

Propertius photo

“The sailor tells of winds, the ploughman of bulls,
the soldier counts his wounds, the shepherd his sheep.”

Navita de ventis, de tauris narrat arator, Enumerat miles vulnera, pastor oves.

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

II, i, 43–4.
Elegies

Richard Brautigan photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“Ye are the children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, lions! and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal.”

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

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Calcutta, 1985, Vol I. p. 11. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1996). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 13 ISBN 9788185990354

Emily Brontë photo

“A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dreamlike charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

Stanza vii.
A Little While, a Little While (1846)

Luís de Camões photo

“To be a lion among sheep, 'tis poor.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

É fraqueza entre ovelhas ser leão.
Stanza 68, line 8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto I

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
George Herbert photo

“[ Hee that makes himself a sheep shall be eat by the wolfe. ]”

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

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

John Harvey Kellogg photo
Joan Robinson photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“A sheep in sheep's clothing.”

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

On Ramsay MacDonald. This is often taken as referring to Clement Attlee, but Scottish historian D. W. Brogan is cited in Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008), William Safire, Oxford University Press US, p. 352 ISBN 0195343344 as follows: ‘Sir Winston Churchill never said of Clement Attlee that he was a sheep in sheep’s clothing. I have this on the excellent authority of Sir Winston himself. The phrase was totally inapplicable to Mr. Attlee. It was applicable, and applied, to J. Ramsay MacDonald, a very different kind of Labour leader.’
Early career years (1898–1929)

Nas photo

“I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat
chocolate blunts will make me see him drop in my weed smoke”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

Memory Lane (Sittin' in Da Park)
On Albums, Illmatic (1994)

Orson Pratt photo
Muhammad photo
Colin Wilson photo

“It is better to give away the wool than the sheep.”

Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593) Italian writer

Dell'Honore, p. 313.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 294.

Norman Mailer photo
Will Eisner photo

“Graves: “…Tigers with the souls of sheep and heads full of wind…” A CLEVER METAPHOR…NO WONDER THE “PROTOCOLS” COPIES IT!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.81

George Herbert photo

“To a close-shorn sheep God gives wind by measure.”

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

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Aron Ra photo
Clement Attlee photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Bill Mollison photo
Sienna Guillory photo
John Milton photo

“Blind mouths! That scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook.”

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 119

Alexander Berkman photo

“"Man's inhumanity to man" is not the last word. The truth lies deeper. It is economic slavery, the savage struggle for a crumb, that has converted mankind into wolves and sheep.”

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912), Ch. 18: "The Solitary" http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/prison/chapter18ii.html

Michael Moorcock photo
Diogenes Laërtius photo
William Winwood Reade photo

“Our enlightened posterity will look back upon us who eat oxen and sheep, just as we look upon cannibals.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect"

Will Eisner photo
Bram Stoker photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
John Constable photo
Annie Besant photo
Robert Lynn Asprin photo
Denis Healey photo
A.E. Housman photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Benito Mussolini photo

“The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone's eyes who are not blinded by dogmatism, is that men are perhaps weary of liberty. They have a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for … we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty … the Italian people are a race of sheep.”

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

Written statement (1934), quoted in Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind : A Bridge Between Mind and Society (2006) by Israel W. Charny, p. 23
Variant translation: The truth is that men are tired of liberty.
Attributed to Mussolini in Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (2007) by Derek Swannson, p. 507; similar remarks are also attributed to Adolf Hitler
A similar statement appears in "Forza e Consenso" Gerarchia magazine (March 1923), excerpted in Cos'è il fascismo https://www.liberliber.it/online/autori/autori-m/benito-mussolini/cose-il-fascismo/ (1983)
1930s

Joseph Goebbels photo
Carl Van Doren photo

“The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.”

Carl Van Doren (1885–1950) American biographer

As quoted in Building A Speech (1990) by Sheldon Metcalfe

Antonio Negri photo

“The sheep are down at the water, a-drinkin' their bloomin' fill,
An' me and the dog are dozin', as herders and collies will;
The world may be movin' somewheres, but here it is standin' still.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

The Herder's Reverie http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#Reverie, st. 1.
Out Where the West Begins and Other Western Verses http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#outbk (1917)

Prem Rawat photo
William Langland photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Samuel Butler photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
Statius photo

“Beyond the cloud-wrapt chambers of western gloom and Aethiopia's other realm there stands a motionless grove, impenetrable by any star; beneath it the hollow recesses of a deep and rocky cave run far into a mountain, where the slow hand of Nature has set the halls of lazy Sleep and his untroubled dwelling. The threshold is guarded by shady Quiet and dull Forgetfulness and torpid Sloth with ever drowsy countenance. Ease, and Silence with folded wings sit mute in the forecourt and drive the blustering winds from the roof-top, and forbid the branches to sway, and take away their warblings from the birds. No roar of the sea is here, though all the shores be sounding, nor yet of the sky; the very torrent that runs down the deep valley nigh the cave is silent among the rocks and boulders; by its side are sable herds, and sheep reclining one and all upon the ground; the fresh buds wither, and a breath from the earth makes the grasses sink and fail. Within, glowing Mulciber had carved a thousand likenesses of the god: here wreathed Pleasure clings to his side, here Labour drooping to repose bears him company, here he shares a couch with Bacchus, there with Love, the child of Mars. Further within, in the secret places of the palace he lies with Death also, but that dread image is seen by none. These are but pictures: he himself beneath humid caverns rests upon coverlets heaped with slumbrous flowers, his garments reek, and the cushions are warm with his sluggish body, and above the bed a dark vapour rises from his breathing mouth. One hand holds up the locks that fall from his left temple, from the other drops his neglected horn.”
Stat super occiduae nebulosa cubilia Noctis Aethiopasque alios, nulli penetrabilis astro, lucus iners, subterque cavis graue rupibus antrum it uacuum in montem, qua desidis atria Somni securumque larem segnis Natura locavit. limen opaca Quies et pigra Oblivio servant et numquam vigili torpens Ignauia vultu. Otia vestibulo pressisque Silentia pennis muta sedent abiguntque truces a culmine ventos et ramos errare vetant et murmura demunt alitibus. non hic pelagi, licet omnia clament litora, non ullus caeli fragor; ipse profundis vallibus effugiens speluncae proximus amnis saxa inter scopulosque tacet: nigrantia circum armenta omne solo recubat pecus, et nova marcent germina, terrarumque inclinat spiritus herbas. mille intus simulacra dei caelaverat ardens Mulciber: hic haeret lateri redimita Voluptas, hic comes in requiem vergens Labor, est ubi Baccho, est ubi Martigenae socium puluinar Amori obtinet. interius tecti in penetralibus altis et cum Morte jacet, nullique ea tristis imago cernitur. hae species. ipse autem umentia subter antra soporifero stipatos flore tapetas incubat; exhalant vestes et corpore pigro strata calent, supraque torum niger efflat anhelo ore vapor; manus haec fusos a tempore laevo sustentat crines, haec cornu oblita remisit.

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 84 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Oriana Fallaci photo
Henry Adams photo
Philip Kapleau photo
Matthew Arnold photo

“Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself;
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd! to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

St. 9
Rugby Chapel (1867)

Muhammad photo
Evelyn Underhill photo
Sylvia Plath photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“Didn't I tell you, Don Quixote, sir, to turn back, for they were not armies you were going to attack, but flocks of sheep?”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Unplaced as yet by chapter

“Poor shepherdless sheep! it was His delight, as the Good Shepherd, to lead them to rich pastures; and as they sat and stood around Him, they forgot their bodily wants in the beauty and power of His words.”

John Cunningham Geikie (1824–1906) Scottish Presbyterian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 59.

Geoffrey Howe photo
Paul Weller (singer) photo

“Those braying sheep on my TV screen -
Make this boy shout! Make this boy scream!”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

Going Underground (1980)

Antonin Scalia photo

“Sooth't were a pleasant life to lead,
With nothing in the world to do
But just to blow a shepherd's reed,
The silent season thro'
And just to drive a flock to feed,—
Sheep—quiet, fond and few!”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Dolce far Niente", Stanza 1, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“To you liberals, of course, goats are just sheep from broken homes.”

Malcolm Bradbury (1932–2000) English author and academic

The After Dinner Game (1975); published in The After Dinner Game: Three Plays for Television (1982) p. 25.
Co-written with Christopher Bigsby.