Elephant Quotes To Celebrate Animals & Nature

These elephants quotes will inspire and intrigue your spiritual nature.

Elephants are beautiful, gentle giants and the current largest existing land animals.

They say an elephant never forgets, which explains why these creatures are so intelligent.

Read this list of incredible elephant quotes to gain a new appreciation for these amazing creatures.

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Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth, with males weighing up to 12,000 pounds, and females weighing up to 8,000 pounds.

A study published in the Journal of Zoology found that elephants are essential for maintaining the biodiversity of their habitats, and their presence helps maintain the ecosystem’s ecological balance.

What makes elephants special?

If you’ve ever seen an elephant up close, either at the zoo or on safari, you know that these animals are truly majestic.

Elephants are wise, friendly, fascinating beasts.

These elephant quotes highlight the power and beauty of the earth’s mightiest mammal.

Despite how beloved elephants are by many, poaching and environmental destruction has taken a toll on them.

African elephants are classified as vulnerable species, and Asian elephants are listed as endangered.

It would be a tragic and profound loss if elephants were to go extinct.

These inspirational quotes about elephants will motivate you to protect them at all costs.

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Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

Check out our entire collection of motivational quotes here. 

Elephant quotes that will intrigue your spiritual nature

A study in the journal PLOS One found that the loss of elephants from an ecosystem can significantly impact plant and animal populations.

Embracing elephant quotes can inspire us to take action and make a difference in the world, no matter how small our contribution may seem

1. “Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant ― the only harmless great thing.” – John Donne

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2. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent!” – Dr. Seuss

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3. “I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I’ve ever met.” – Herb Caen

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4. “Only elephants should own ivory.” – Yao Ming

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5. “When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him run.” – Abraham Lincoln

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6. “We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.” – Graydon Carter

7. “God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.” – Pablo Picasso

8. “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

9. “There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the Elephant.” – Edward Topsell

10. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” – Desmond Tutu

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Elephant quotes about the power and beauty of earth’s mightiest mammal

A study by the University of Sussex found that elephants have remarkable cognitive abilities and can recognize individual humans by sight and sound.

The study shows that elephants have highly developed social intelligence and emotional awareness, and they use this to navigate their complex social hierarchies and maintain strong bonds with family members.

11. “But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those 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

12. “Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There’s bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine.” – Jennifer Richard Jacobson

13. “Of all African animals, the elephant is the most difficult for man to live with, yet its passing ― if this must come ― seems the most tragic of all. I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange such as mow grass with its toenails or draw the tusks from the rotted carcass of another elephant and carry them off into the bush. There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.” – Peter Matthiessen

14. “Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on.” – Christopher Hitchens

15. “If elephants didn’t exist, you couldn’t invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense.” – Lyall Watson

16. “And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze; About a star of deathless and painless peace; But no astronomer can find where it is.” – Ted Hughes

17. “It is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not heroic, and certainly it is not easy; it is just one of those preposterous things that men do like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth of whose volume could engulf the whole of mankind without disturbing the domestic life of a single catfish.” – Beryl Markham

18. “Elephants don’t know anything about the world of ants; the peaks of mountains are oblivious of what is happening on the plains!” – Mehmet Murat ildan

19. “I’m not much for cats. I’m terrified of mice. I’ve worked a lot with elephants, and they are extremely intelligent and sensitive, and thankfully, they seem to like me. You never want to get on the bad side of an elephant. And never trust a chimp.” – Mary Ellen Mark

20. “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

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Elephant quotes that will inspire you to stand up for these incredible creatures

21. “The elephant can survive only if forests survive.” – Mark Shand

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22. “I don’t know how many lions and leopards I’ve shot. I’ve shot two elephants, which was enough – never again. It’s a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It’s like shooting an old man.” – Wilbur Smith

23. “We already live a very long time for mammals, getting three times as many heartbeats as a mouse or elephant. It never seems enough though, does it?” – David Brin

24. “I feel as if I go to Africa, I may never come back. I’m just going to live with the animals and adopt an elephant, and it’s going to be my friend.” – Dianna Agron

25. “An elephant always puts his foot into the hole which another elephant’s foot has made so that a frequented track is nothing but a series of pits filled with mud and water.” – Isabella Bird

26. “Who rides on a tiger can never dismount; asleep on an elephant, that is repose.” – Marianne Moore

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27. “All around the edges of the platform where she sat, elephants stood patiently waiting for their breakfast. Occasionally, one would grunt or snort or flap its ears, but otherwise, they were as quiet as apparitions.” – Dawn Reno Langley

28. “Seriously, a smaller, leaner, cleaner, tuskless and more secretive elephant is exactly what is needed. It definitely would live longer.” –  Lyall Watson

29. “They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies… the medium doesn’t matter, so long as it inspires you.” – Aaron Koblin

30. “Wallowing was for elephants, depressing people, and depressing elephants.” – Cassandra Clare

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Elephant quotes that will make your day better

31. “The strange rhythm seemed now to be coming from behind me, from the land, so I turned to look across the gorge … where my heart stopped … Standing there in the shade of the tree was an elephant … staring out to sea!… A female with a left tusk broken off near the base … I knew who she was, who she had to be. I recognized her from a color photograph put out by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry under the title “The Last Remaining Knysna Elephant.” This was the Matriarch herself … She was here because she no longer had anyone to talk to in the forest. She was standing here on the edge of the ocean because it was the next, nearest, and most powerful source of infrasound.” – Carl Safina

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32. “Without being an elephant sycophant, it is relevant to note that an infant elephant is a lieutenant giant.” – Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

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33. “Scientists have reported that elephants grieve their dead, monkeys perceive injustice and cockatoos like to dance to the music of the Backstreet Boys.” – Hal Herzog

34. “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

35. “A man might be uncertain about how many wives he had, but never about elephants. Either you had one, or you didn’t.” – Terry Pratchett

36. “We must have bearers, and outriders, and perhaps an elephant — they are so imposing, nothing says ‘Get out of the way’ quite like an elephant in the front.” – Neil Gaiman

37. “Don’t ask why the elephants wear such large shoes, And why the kangaroos are reborn kidnappers, And why the sailing birds are all Romantics.” – Robert Bly

38. “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 move.” – John Scott Haldane

39. “A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane.” – Jackie Kennedy

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40. “For the herds of wild elephants show no resentment when domesticated animals join them. They have none of that herd instinct directed against the stranger that one finds in cattle, in small boys and among many grown-up men. This tolerance is just one of the things about elephants which makes one realise they are big in more ways than one.” – Lt.-Col. J. H. Williams O.B.E.

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More elephant quotes to inspire and motivate

41. “Th’ unwieldy elephant, to make them mirth, us’d all his might, and wreathed His lithe proboscis.” – John Milton

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42. “It seems safe to say that apes know about death, such as that is different from life and permanent. The same may apply to a few other animals, such as elephants, which pick up ivory or bones of a dead herd member, holding the pieces in their trunks and passing them around. Some pachyderms return for years to the spot where a relative died, only to touch and inspect the relics. Do they miss each other? Do they recall how he or she was during life?” – Frans de Waal

43. “They say an elephant never forgets. What they don’t tell you is, you never forget an elephant.” – Bill Murray

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44. “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” – Pierre Trudeau

45. “As he was leaving it occurred to him that he would not come back, to this zoo or to any of them. With the elephants more than any of the others, he thought as he left them ― as he left behind these great beasts who recognized him when he came, who rumbled and swayed sadly ― he could feel them waiting.” – Lydia Millet

46. “Love will draw an elephant through a key-hole.” – Samuel Richardson

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47. “There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the Elephant.” – Edward Topsel

48. “Elephants are quite enough.” – Agatha Christie

49. “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

50. “The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?” – David Attenborough

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Elephant quotes that will inspire awe about this beautiful creature

51. “Right now I’ve got just two rules to live by. Rule one: don’t taunt elephants.

Rule two: don’t stand next to anybody who taunts elephants.” – Howard Tayler

52. “It is the ant, not the lion, which the elephant fears.” – Matshona Dhliwayo 

53. “It is pitiful how elephants, once plentiful, are depleted because of their beautiful ivory.” – Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

54. “Run after an elephant and you will find out why you are not a mouse.” – Anthony T. Hincks 

55. “To me, the word wisdom means ancient knowledge.

It’s the kind of knowledge you not only see but feel when you look into the eyes of an elephant or stop for a moment to marvel at the deep wrinkles on its skin, both of which I believe contain the truths learned from each intentional step their feet and those of their ancestors have placed upon the earth.” – Molly Friedenfeld 

56. “That is why, when you are close to an elephant, you feel so deeply. If they so choose, they have the ability to hold your sadness, so you may safely sit in the lonely seat of loss, still hopeful and full of love.” – Kira Jane Buxton

57. “Elephants operate on a steadfast principle that all other lifeforms must give way to them, and as far as they were concerned, foreign tourists at a sit down dinner around a swimming pool were no different than a troop of baboons at a swimming hole.” – Lawrence Anthony

58. “No one in the world needs an elephant tusk but an elephant.” – Thomas Schmidt

59. “People don’t realize how amazing elephants are.” – Prince Harry

60. “Elephants are magnificent creatures.” – Paul Craig Roberts

Elephant Quotes for you to ponder how majestic they are

61. “The elephant, the huge old beast, is slow to mate.” – David Herbert Lawrence

62. “Elephants ear are full of blood vessels and help cool the blood as it travels through the extensive vein network that runs close to the surface.” – Jeff Henschel

63. “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” – General John B. Sedgwick

64. “People are so difficult. Give me an elephant any day.” – Mark Shand

65. “God is not troubled by one who is conservative or liberal, and He certainly never inclines His ear toward a donkey or an elephant.” – Max Lucado

66. “The elephant is never won by anger; nor must that man who would reclaim a lion take him by the teeth.” – John Dryden

67. “If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so.” – Peter Corneille

68. “Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other. It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant.” – Frans de Waal

69. “I’m an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.” – Jesse Ball

70. “We are all a tiger with feelings. An elephant who never forgets. We are tiger, panther, monkey – we are all of these things, all of the life rhythms.” – Ruby Dee

Famous Quotes about Elephants

71. “I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.” – Noel Coward

72. “An elephant: A mouse built to government specifications.” – Lazarus Long

73. “Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.” – Mira Nair

74. “It’s nice to have an elephant in the room. There’s nothing more helpful than something everybody’s thinking about.” – Seth Meyers

75. “Mediocrity is the elephant in the room.” – Kevin Spacey

76. “I was called ‘Dumbo,’ like the elephant, as a child because I couldn’t understand things at school.” – Anthony Hopkins

77. “You don’t shoot elephants, you ride them–you might as well shoot your charger.” – King George V

78. “She owned the road as an elephant owns the veldt and like a big blue elephant moved with massive grace and dignity.” – David Drake

79. “The knife flaying the elephant does not have to be large, only sharp!” – Andre Norton

80. “The elephant’s love for him was a love I have never known – yet always longed to. For why should he be remembered always, and not I?” – Benson Bruno

Funny Elephant Quotes

81. “I always think I look like the Elephant Man – I can’t get used to my own image.” — Brian Cox

82. “Plastic surgery is like a big elephant sitting in the Hollywood living room.” — Patricia Heaton

83. “I have a face like the behind of an elephant.” — Charles Laughton

84. “If there’s a pink elephant in the room, I’ll identify it and say it.” — Angela Rayner

85. “The worst place to be is in the middle. When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” —  Andrew Vachss

86. “It is better to own 10% of an elephant than 100% of a rat.” — Arthur Mutambara

87. “… you thought elephants were all sweetness… this one had the time of her life scaring the bejeezus out of those dudes.” — James Patterson

88. “When there’s an elephant in the room, introduce him.” — Randy Pausch

89. “When there is an invisible elephant in the room, one is from time to time bound to trip over a trunk.” — Karen Joy Fowler

90. “Big or small, elephants are elephants, after all.” ― Karen Lord

Cute elephant quotes

91. “I’m an elephant today. I will need to have lots of room and also a bowl of water on the floor.” – Jesse Ball

92. “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” – Creighton Abrams

93. “Elephants and grandchildren never forget.” – Andy Rooney

94. “Save the elephants… and then you save yourself.” – Mark Shand

95. “The worst place to be is in the middle. When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.” – Andrew Vachss

96. “The young elephant is born with a thick skin.” – African proverb

97. “When the elephants walk, the forests walks with them.” – Sudha Ramen

98. “Elephants make good dance partners.” – Anthony T. Hincks

99. “Elephants are contagious.” – Paul Eluard

100. “An elephant will never go chasing after a fly.” – Matshona Dhliwayo

Elephant Quotes To Make You Miss Wildlife

101. “Elephants are so wise and so funny and so endangered and so intelligent. I just think there is a lot to learn from them.” ― Gloria Steinem

102. “I’m like an elephant, ok? If I walk into a room, it’s like, OK, he’s in there.” ― Aziz Ansari

103. “When the elephant decides to walk through the village, all the dogs come out and bark.” ― Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

104. “I think the lion, besides the elephant, was the one animal that I just started thinking about so much.” ― Jillian Hervey

105. “Eat like a bird, poop like an elephant.” ― Guy Kawasaki

106. “Nothing appeases an enraged elephant so much as the sight of a little lamb.” ― Saint Francis de Sales

107. “I doubt if a charging elephant, or a rhino, is as determined or hard to check as a socially ambitious mother.” ― Will Rogers

108. “The pointes for girls, I always say, have to be like an elephant’s trunk; strong and yet flexible and soft.” ― George Balanchine

109. “The thing about movie musicals is that there have been some brilliant ones, but when they’re bad, they’re really bad – big white elephants.” ― Rob Marshall

110. “Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.” ― Frans de Waal

Elephant Quotes About its Nature and Lifestyle

111. “Do not be thoughtless, always be mindful, watch your thoughts! Draw yourself out of the path of evil, like an elephant sunk in mud.” — Gautama Buddha

112. “I had seen a herd of Elephant travelling through dense native forest … pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world.” — Isak Dinesen

113. “Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayest manage to guide an elephant by a hair.” — Saadi

114. “Loyalty was a great thing, but no lieutenants should be forced to choose between their leader and a circus with elephants.” — Neil Gaiman

115. “It is the little bits of things that fret and worry us; we can dodge a elephant, but we can’t dodge a fly.” — Josh Billings

116. “Elephants have a hard time adapting. Cockroaches outlive everything.” — Peter Drucker

117. “It may surprise people to learn that one elephant is killed every 15 minutes for its ivory.” — Li Bingbing

118. “The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.” — William Shakespeare

119. “The world is not a burden; we make it a burden by our desires. When the desires are removed, the world is as light as a feather on an elephant’s back.” — Baba Hari Dass

120. “As an elephant in the battlefield withstands arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall I endure abuse.” — Gautama Buddha

Elephant Quotes About Their Sensitivity

121. “Elephants have the largest brains of any mammal on the face of the Earth. They are creative, altruistic and kind.” — Ingrid Newkirk

122. “A blind elephant does not know a man from a tree.” — Oyekan Owomoyela

123. “All I want is a wild elephant; which swishes tones of water merrily all around with its trunk.” — Nikhil Parekh

124. “Elephants can sense danger. They’re able to detect an approaching tsunami or earthquake before it hits.” — Jennifer Richard Jacobson

125. “The elephant needs a thousand times more food than the ant but that is not an indication of inequality.” — Mahatma Gandhi

126. “Elephants are enslaved ensnared endangered exploited / Elephants are exterminated / They’re eradicated / Elephants are eaten / Elephants are forgotten / Fatally forgotten famished fossils / Elephants are gone.” — William Scott Bruford

127. “It was an elephant. Cause elephants bring good luck, especially if the trunks are up and his trunk was up.” — Dale Kerrigan

128. “While you sit on an elephant you will be able to break through your neighbor’s hedge.” — Stephen Arnott

129. “One digs a pit in the path of the elephant, but the elephant can read signs; the elephant does not go that way.” — Oyekan Owomoyela

130. “Elephants love to play around. They are very intelligent animals. They have a strong bond, at times stretching to several decades, with their mahouts.” — Mark Shand

Which of these quotes about elephants and extinction inspires you to change the world?

Elephants are some of the most incredible creatures on earth.

If you love animals, nature, or adventure, you’ll definitely enjoy this collection of elephant quotes.

These inspiring sayings and words of wisdom will give you a new perspective on how we treat the environment.

As long as humans continue to act in selfish, destructive ways, the elephant will be at risk of extinction.

Share these powerful quotes with everyone you know and inspire them to stand up for elephants.

If we all work together to change the world, we can save the mighty elephant.

This collection of amazing quotes will inspire you to fight against poachers and pollution.

Read these elephant quotes every time you need encouragement or inspiration.

What are your favorite elephant quotes and sayings about life, nature, and power?

Let us know in the comment section below.