Pigs

“Pig, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.”

“Shear swine, all cry and no wool.”

“You have a wrong sow by the ear.”

“I am vegetarian. … I became one at 20 when I was working in a pig farm. I got attached to the pigs and I couldn’t stand the thought that they would have to go off to be slaughtered.”

“Making the movie Babe opened my eyes to the intelligence and the inquisitive personalities of pigs. These highly social animals possess an amazing capacity for love, joy and sorrow that makes them remarkably similar to our beloved canine and feline friends.”

“We can make an animal without a heart. We have engineered pigs that lack skeletal muscles and blood vessels.”

“[Describes visiting a factory-farm shed where she saw a large male boar,] his huge head hanging low towards the barren floor. As I came level with him he raised his head and dragged himself slowly towards me on lame legs. With deliberation he looked straight at me, staring directly into my eyes. It seemed to me that I saw in those sad, intelligent, penetrating eyes a plea, a question to which I had no answer: "Why are you doing this to me?"”

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. You waste your time and you annoy the pig.”

“But as the old saying went, "If wishes were wings, pigs would fly."”

“Many times I've looked into a pig's eye and convinced myself that inside that brain is a sentient being, who is looking back at me observing him wondering what he's thinking about.”

“In The Land of the Pig, The Butcher Is King”

“… of all animals their flesh most resembles human flesh, which is somewhat disconcerting when you consider that more than 40 percent of all meat raised in the world is pork.”

“Those who live with pigs often speak of them as we normally speak of dogs—intelligent, loyal, and above all, affectionate. Each one, I am continually reminded by people who know them, is a complete individual, like no other pig.”

“How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.”

“The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,Lives on the labours of this lord of all.”

“We continue to live in ignorance concerning the harm we inflict on animals; very few of us have ever visited an industrial breeding site or a slaughterhouse. We maintain a kind of moral schizophrenia that has us lavishing pampering our pets and at the same time planting our forks in the pigs that have been sent to the slaughter by the millions, even though they are in no way less conscious, less sensitive to pain, or less intelligent than our cats and dogs.”

“A pig which was about to be slaughtered by the pig-butcher squealed. (The butcher said:) "Your ancestors and forebears walked this road, and now you too are walking it, so why are you squealing?”

“The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.”

“Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”

“Then on the grounde As pigges do in a poke.”