Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a toolmaking animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But, in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal.
The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
I'm very concerned with what's going on the news, but I would not call myself a political animal, per se. I pay more attention during election years, or if I see some topic or issue that I care about. But I would never call myself a political animal or political junkie.
And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal.
To be a political poet means simply to be a poet, and any poet worth their salt will be a political animal in their own peculiar way - they have no choice: politics is one of the many fragments we thread into the tapestry of the poem.
The possibility of impeachment's always there, but impeachment's a political thing, not legal, despite how it's structured. And it's not gonna happen unless there's a political will for it, and by that I mean political will among the people.
Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness - or so good as drink.
I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason - as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.
I think when Aristotle said that man is a political animal, he was really saying that man is a pack animal.
I'm not a political animal, I'm a curious animal.
A political animal can be defined as a body that will go on circulating a petition even with its heart cut out.
Politics is still crucially important. Our choices are vital, and we've got to make them and not just say, 'Oh they're all the same.' They are all the same in certain ways, alas - a political animal is such an animal.
The relationship between human and animal is wholly symbiotic. The person needs the animal for comfort and companionship, and the animal needs the love and caring of the human. It is a classic "win-win" situation. It sounds simple - and it is. That is why it works so well. In most cases, it will be remarkably spiritually uplifting to both human and animal.
I always find you go back to an animal; it will always show you the sort of primal aspects of behavior. You always know how to respond if you choose that.
Until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on the edge of extermination, dependent for existence on the charity of a few human beings.
For millenia, man remained what he was for Aristotle: a living animal with the additional capacity for a political existence; modern man is an animal whose politics places his exitence as a living being in question.