A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on.

I love tattoos. And mine symbolise who I really am. I have a Samurai on my left arm. At a subconscious level, I connect to this warrior and model myself on his discipline, skills and honour. There is also a tribal tattoo and a Chinese symbol of faith. I have seen a lot of people getting tattoos just because it’s a trend.

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

Ritual will always mean throwing away something: destroying our corn or wine upon the altar of our gods.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

It seems strange that bears, so fond of all sorts of flesh, running the risks of guns and fires and poison, should never attack men except in defense of their young. How easily and safely a bear could pick us up as we lie asleep! Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

Vampires get the joy of flying around and living forever, werewolves get the joy of animal spirits. But zombies, they’re not rich, or aristocratic, they shuffle around. They’re a group phenomenon, they’re not very fast, they’re quite sickly. So what’s the pleasure of being one?

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: ‚This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.‘ Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they’re equally as good at reconciliation.

Cynicism is something which has become symbolic of imperial policy.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

As a Humanist, I love science. I hate superstition, which could never have given us A-bombs.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender!

Even an animal, if you show genuine affection, gradually trust develops… If you always showing bad face and beating, how can you develop friendship?

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.

The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.

I don’t like allegories.

It was both fascinating and appalling to learn that chimpanzees were capable of hostile and territorial behavior that was not unlike certain forms of primitive human warfare.

Ritual is another word for fear, manifested in a different way.

It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp.

There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

I do not think I should care to go on worshipping a Madonna even if she did wink. One cannot make much out of a wink. We want something more than that from the object of our adoration.

We’re the only animal that wakes up and doesn’t stretch.

Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.

The Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of the self, apart from the figure of the Buddha.

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.

I’ve come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it’s just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.

The part that always shocked me was the inter-community violence among the chimps: the patrols and the vicious attacks on strangers that lead to death. It’s an unfortunate parallel to human behavior – they have a dark side just as we do. We have less excuse, because we can deliberate, so I believe only we are capable of true calculated evil.

It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.

A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won’t let go.

The three most powerful and most apparent means used by Rome to retain her power over the minds of her votaries are Ignorance, Superstition, and Persecution.

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending!

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it’s just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

I usually don’t like to ‚spoon feed‘ my audience, because I grew up idolizing story tellers who tell stories using symbolism, so it was in my nature to do the same.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.

On the day-long follows that I used to do with mothers and their offspring – these chimp families that I knew so well – there was hardly a day when I didn’t learn something new about them.

I got a chain letter by fax. It’s very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.

I am inclined to think that the realm of mythology is where the Yeti rightly belongs.