They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end.

~ Robert Mccammon

Robert Mccammon Africa Death Elephants

If the shrike did not eat the grasshoppers, then the grasshoppers would eat all the grass, and there would be none left for the deer...and the deer are food for the tiger. Life in the jungle is a giant spiderweb; if you touch one strand, it will vibrate at the other end. We cannot separate nature into good and bad, Rita. The gods do not will it so.

~ Eric Dinerstein

Eric Dinerstein Animals Book Elephants Grass Interesting Jungle Knowledge Life Nature Spiderweb Tiger

An agile, well-trained, brave elephant, ridden by a good mahout, its trunk armed with the kind of sabre known as a qartal and covered with chain mail, while the rest of its body is protected by sheets of bark and iron, surrounded by 500 men to defend it and protect it to the rear, can fight against 6000 men on horseback.

~ Al-Mas'udi

Al-Mas'udi Battle Elephants War

But wasn't that progress too, that the elephants were killed off like the mastodon and giant rhino before them, like all other wildlife and wild places? 'We can't stop time,' MacAdam said. 'But you can change the way it goes,' Nehemiah insisted.

~ Mike Bond

Mike Bond Africa Change Conservation Elephants Progress Rhinos Stop Time The Last Savanna Wild Places Wildlife

The Babar the Elephant book is sitting in front of me. I pick it up and start reading it. I remember reading it as a small Boy and enjoying it and imagining that I was friends with Babar, his constant Companion during all of his adventures. He went to the moon, I went with him. He fought Tomb Raiders in Egypt, I fought alongside him. He rescued his elephant girlfriend from Ivory Hunters on the Savanna, I coordinated the getaway. I loved that goddamn Elephant and I loved being his friend. In a childhood full of unhappiness and rage, Babar is one of the few pleasant memories that I have. Me and Babar, kicking some motherfucking ass.

~ James Frey

James Frey Babar Childhood Elephants Reading

Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants.

~ Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Children Elephants Loyalty Temptation

If there were no goodness in people, mankind would still be confined to loping across a Savannah somewhere on Earth, watching the elephants rule, or some other more compassionate species.

~ Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card Compassion Elephants Evolution

I have spent hours and hours watching elephants, and to come to understand what emotional creatures they are...it's not just a species facing extinction, it's massive individual suffering.

~ Mike Bond

Mike Bond Conservation Creatures Elephants Emotional Extinction Species Suffering The Last Savanna Wildlife

I was still excited. Big or small, elephants are elephants, after all. Just before we mounted, when I was sure no one could see me, I quickly kissed the shoulder of my beast and murmured, 'Hey, sweetie.''Hey, darlin'. That was Tonio, appearing suddenly by my shoulder. He gave me a laughing look that suggested he was either amused by or attracted to women who kiss elephants for no good reason.

~ Karen Lord

Karen Lord Elephants Kiss

Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants.

~ Thomas French

Thomas French Animals Elephants Stealth

If you do not have a memory like an elephant, leave impressions like one.

~ Hafiz

Hafiz Animals Elephants Inspirational Motivational Nature

But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.

~ Lawrence Anthony

Lawrence Anthony Animal Rights Animals Elephants Inspirational

If you're gonna shoot an elephant Mr. Schneider, you better be prepared to finish the job.

~ Gary Larson

Gary Larson Commitment Elephants Revenge

Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.

~ Elizabeth Wein

Elizabeth Wein Elephants Ghosts Hippos Moonlight Simile

A mouse can fall down a mine shaft a third of a mile deep without injury. A rat falling the same distance would break his bones; a man would simply splash ... Elephants have their legs thickened to an extent that seems disproportionate to us, but this is necessary if their unwieldy bulk is to be moved at all ... A 60-ft. man would weigh 1000 times as much as a normal man, but his thigh bone would have its area increased by only 100 times ... Consequently such an unfortunate monster would break his legs the moment he tried to

~ John Scott Haldane

John Scott Haldane Elephants Fall Injury Mouse Rat Relative Science

Solomon breathed a sigh of relief ever so slightly, thankful that the cricket had not been eaten. Not that he was concerned for the cricket being eaten. No, he was simply relieved that the voice in the closet, which could be a monster, had not eaten it. If the voice had eaten the cricket, that meant that he was a monster that eats things in the night, and Solomon too could be eaten. Being eaten by a closet monster was perhaps the scariest thing that could happen to an elephant, not to mention a cricket, as far as Solomon was concerned.

~ Michael Delaware

Michael Delaware Childrens Books Closets Elephants Monsters Monsters In The Dark Scary

At independence, Tanzania had 350,000 elephants... in 1987, there were only 55,000 elephants left.

~ Jakaya Kikwete

Jakaya Kikwete Elephants Only Left