If you are looking for the best quotes about zoos, you’re in the right place! 🐯
Below, you will find a wide range of quotes that show insights into how animals are living in captivity, their pros and cons, plus some answers.
Side note: If you have your very own quotes about zoos, please share it below in the comments and I will be sure to add it in future updates!
57+ Revealing Quotes About Zoos
1. “Life is a zoo in a jungle.” – Peter De Vries
2. “A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” – Phyllis Diller
3. “Nature is to zoos as God is to churches.” – Margaret Atwood
4. “A king can’t be a king without the strength of his queen.” – Proverb
5. “An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.” – Evan Esar
6. “The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.” – Desmond Morris
7. “Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.” – Jack Hanna
8. “Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” – Proverb
9. “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir
10. “A zoo is the only place where all the prisoners are innocent.” – Unknown
11. “Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.” – Proverb
12. “Zoos should concentrate more on the preservation side of things.” – Gerald Durrell
13. “Traveling with a big band is like being an inmate in a traveling zoo.” – Proverbs
14. “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” – Unknown
15. “Because we have put ourselves in our own zoo, we find it difficult to break out.” – Edward T. Hall
16. “A true queen will protect three things: her king, her throne, and her kids.” – Unknown
17. “Reverse petting zoo. You pet the animals, and they pet you back.” – Andy Biersack
18. “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France
19. “You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” – Paul McCartney
20. “Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.” – A.A. Milne
21. “If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. Go to the jungle.” – Jim Stengel
22. “Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.” – Yann Martel
23. “Within the prison walls of every zoo sit tortured souls with empty eyes and broken spirits.” – Proverb
24. “The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.” – Hippocrates
25. “If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” – Albert Einstein
26. “The only creature on earth whose natural habitat is a zoo is the zookeeper.” – Robert Breault
27. “We’re in Jurassic Park territory. If we go to the zoo in the future, we’ll have zoos for extinct animals.” – Michio Kaku
28. “Each and every animal on earth has as much right to be here as you and me.” – Anthony Douglas Williams
29. “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi
30. “No language can express the power and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother’s love.” – Edwin Hubbell Chapin
31. “Don’t treat animals as animals. Treat them as living beings. That’s what they are.” – Anthony Douglas Williams
32. “Comedians are the monkeys of acting. When you go to the zoo, everybody loves the monkey exhibit.” – Tracy Morgan
33. “How much ever lion heart you may be. Your heart will always be soft for your mom and the lady you love.” – Rizwan Mokashi
34. “If they stand behind you, protect them. If they stand beside you, respect them. If they stand against you, defeat them.” – Unknown
35. “The caged eagle becomes a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is a prison.” – Nadine Gordimer
36. “Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.” – Michael Chabon
37. “The only place that works and motion are the same things is the zoo where people pay to see the animals move around.” – Taiichi Ohno
38. “Most people are really nice but some stare, like you’re some kind of zoo exhibit and not a real person with real feelings.” – Emma Watson
39. “I would rather be amongst forest animals and the sounds of nature, than amongst city traffic and the noise of man.” – A.D. Williams
40. “People forget the good that zoos do. If it weren’t for zoos, we would have so many species that would be extinct today.” – Betty White
41. “A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.” – David Sedaris
42. “Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us.” – John Updike
43. “We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.” – Rigoberta Menchu
44. “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” – Rachel Carson
45. “Each living art object, taken out of its native habitat so we can conveniently gaze at it, is like an animal in a zoo. Something about it has died in the removal.” – Daniel J. Boorstin
46. “Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.” – Angela Davis
47. “The Central Park Zoo is a little gem in the middle of the city. Its penguin exhibit is terrific, and the seals are a permanent center of attraction for children.” – Newt Gingrich
48. “Living in a zoo means it wasn’t always sparkly dresses, but I would still dress up. I had this pink sparkly dress and fairy wings, and I’d put those on and then go and dance in the zoo.” – Bindi Irwin
49. “We don’t understand the power of nature and the world because we don’t live with it. Our environment is designed to sustain us. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo called civilization.” – Laurence Gonzales
50. “A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be – will be – a human zoo. A high-tech slum.” – Edward Abbey
51. “The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it Let’s do it, let’s fall in love. I’m sure giraffes on the sly do it, Even eagles as they fly do it, Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.” – Cole Porter
52. “Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.” – Suzy Kassem
53. “For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in him will, from that point on, be considered weird by the rest of the world, which means the church should be more like a zoo than a tomb of identical mummies.” – Unknown
54. “More than just a zoo, the Animal Kingdom is an extraordinary experience of animals, rides, and performances. The exhibits have the scale and creativity you associate with Disney. The African safari ride is terrific and worth riding several times.” – Newt Gingrich
55. “For a time, I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids. They seemed as logical and possible to me as the brittle twig of a seahorse in the zoo aquarium or the skates lugged up on the lines of cursing Sunday fishermen – skates the shape of old pillowslips with the full, coy lips of women.” – Sylvia Plath
56. “Even if you can’t afford to travel the world, you can take your children to the museum, zoo, or local park. And don’t be afraid to take them to grown-up spots. Eating out in a restaurant teaches children how to be quiet and polite and gives them the pleasure of knowing you trust them to behave.” – Kimora Lee Simmons
Conclusion
Whether you love or hate zoos and think they should all be closed, these quotes about zoos share a balanced view on the pros and cons of their existence, especially to the well beings of the animals.
To learn more about zoos and why there is a shift away from them, this article covers some valid points on why zoos are becoming less popular.