Beasts

And know that the base are the more enduring in body and the noble the more enduring in soul, because endurance of what bodies meet with is among the qualities of beasts, while the praiseworthy endurance is that a man be a conqueror of his own soul, wary of caprice, a bearer of the hardships whose outcome is hoped to be good, and steadfast in the struggle against the appetites.

when a sea offers itself, cleansing with dust is not lawful for me — and upon the clearness of the nights turbidity comes to pass, and the beasts have learned the scent of lions — with the brow of the ass the hoof of the horse goes forth.

Let him know that the swiftness with which the good become well disposed when they are won over is like the swiftness with which rainwater mingles with the seas, and that the remoteness of the wicked from such concord, however long one consorts with them, is like the remoteness of beasts from mutual affection, however long they are fed together.

but I do not hold that the bestial spirit existed before the body of beasts, and in this there is a subtlety, namely that the body of man was created for his spirit, while the spirit of beasts was created for their body.

Animals likewise have spirits permeating them, save that the relation of human spirits to the spirits of beasts is as the relation of human acts to the acts of beasts — and we shall mention them.

And the beasts, since ignorance encompasses them and poverty pervades them, you see committing ugly deeds — such as copulating without covering, and eating the property of Zayd and ʻAmr.

Let him be counted among the beasts whose only end in this world is his own self.

let us concede pleasure to the beasts, whom you are wont to use as witnesses about the highest good.

Shall there be, then, in the beasts certain likenesses of the human virtues, severed from pleasure, and shall there be in men themselves no virtue except for the sake of pleasure?

We, indeed, if everything is in pleasure, are by far and greatly surpassed by the beasts, to whom the earth itself pours forth from itself various and abundant feed while they toil not at all;

for they were as firmly resolved to keep their hands off the states of Hellas as were the devout to abstain from the treasures stored up in the temples of the gods, conceiving that, second only to the war which we carry on in alliance with all mankind against the savagery of the beasts, that war is the most necessary and the most righteous which we wage in alliance with the Hellenes against the ba …

It has already passed that there are in existence earthly souls, strong, not in the grossness of the predatory and bestial souls and their density and their scant perception, nor upon the configurations of human souls and their preparednesses, such that their attachment to dense bodies over which earthiness predominates would be entailed — nor in the purity of the immaterial souls and their subtle …

and you see many of the beasts that have no speech, though they are living.

All are in accord that the jinn and the satans are not an expression for dense corporeal persons that come and go like men and beasts;

Had beasts established a government among themselves, to protect each individual in the exertion of his own skill and industry, in gathering the fruits of the forest, and this government should have passed laws to prevent the majority of beasts form eating clover and cherries, and confining them to broom straw and blackberries, that a few might indulge in the most delicious fruits;

For the animals of the differing species are used by the soul in the manner of instruments, and she appoints each one of them to something proper to it, from which there issues an act that does not issue from another, just as the act of the saw does not issue from the adze, on the example we set out above.

Pending a complete demonstration that this is not happiness, nor man's perfection and end for which and for the sake of which he was created, I shall say about it something convincing and plain, namely that the beasts obtain of these things the like of what man obtains — indeed their appetites in foods and drinks and mating are greater and more lasting than man's appetites in them, and they are stronger for them;

and a book on what is proper to those possessing souls that have senses, and named it the Book of Animals.

" Beasts grown fat through inactivity grow sluggish, and fail not only from labour but from their own movement and the mere weight of their bulk.

If for some woman there is a famous death from beasts, in the midst of peace, daily, of your own free will, you go to the beasts.

For though we do it in one way, yet not otherwise are you too infanticides — you who slay your infants once born, forbidden indeed by laws, but no laws are eluded so much, so safely, with the connivance of all, by the tablets of a single age.

if to be finished by beasts, the North will send forth the Bears, the zodiac its bulls and lions.