Pigs

Pigs are animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig and its ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), along with other species; related creatures outside the genus include the peccary, the babirusa, and the warthog. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents. Juvenile pigs are known as piglets. Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals.

• Sus Minervam.
  • A pig teaching Minerva.
  • Latin proverb, quoted by Cicero, Academica, I, iv
  • Festus, De verborum significatione, ed. C. O. Müller (Lipsiæ, 1839), p. 310: Sus Minervam (sc. docet) in proverbio est, ubi quis id docet alterum, cujus ipse inscius est.—"'A sow teaching Minerva' has passed into a proverb for any one who attempts to instruct another upon a subject of which he himself is ignorant." Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 2667

• De rabo de puerco nunca buen virote.
  • You will never make a good arrow of a pig's tail.
  • Spanish proverb, reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 473

• PIG, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

• Shear swine, all cry and no wool.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 852

• You have a wrong sow by the ear.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto III, line 580. Jonson—Every Man in his Humour, Act II, scene 1

• Ὗς διὰ ῥόδων.
  • Α pig in a rose-garden.
  • Crates, Fragment 6, quoted by Photius, p. 633.21
  • In idiomatic English, "A bull in a china-shop." Reported in Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 2846

• These highly social animals possess an amazing capacity for love, joy and sorrow that makes them remarkably similar to our beloved canine and feline friends.
  • James Cromwell, on his experience making the movie Babe, said in a press statement for SaveBabe campaign, as quoted in "James Cromwell: King Lear, Babe and the Black Panthers" in Nouse (26 October 2007)

• Never try to teach a pig to sing. You waste your time and you annoy the pig.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973); Dawn Steel, They Can Kill You But They Can't Eat You (1993)

• Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises, ...Epicuri de grege porcum.
  • You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared for hide,—...a hog from Epicurus' herd.
  • Horace, Epistolæ, Book I, IV, 15, 16, as reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotatioins, 9th ed. (1891), p. 393

• But as the old saying went, "If wishes were wings, pigs would fly."
  • Robert Jordan, Lord of Chaos, Wheel of Time VI (1994)

• Many times I've looked into a pig's eye and convinced myself that inside that brain is a sentient being, who is looking back at me observing him wondering what he's thinking about.
  • Dick King-Smith, said on a television show, cited in Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), ch. 1, p. 22.

• In The Land of the Pig, The Butcher Is King
  • Meat Loaf: Bat out of Hell III.

• They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him; and crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” And he begged him eagerly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him, “Send us to the swine, let us enter them.” So he gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.
  • Gospel of Mark 5:1-20 (ESV)

• Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.
  • Gospel of Matthew 7:6 (KJV)

• The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.
  • William Mason, An Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers (1773)

• Then on the grounde
  Togyder rounde
  With manye a sadde stroke,
  They roll and rumble,
  They turne and tumble,
  As pigges do in a poke.
  • Sir Thomas More, "How a Sergeant would learn to Playe the Frere", reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 775

• … of all animals their flesh most resembles human flesh, which is somewhat disconcerting when you consider that more than 40 percent of all meat raised in the world is pork.
  • Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), ch. 1, p. 21

• Those who live with pigs often speak of them as we normally speak of dogs—intelligent, loyal, and above all, affectionate. Each one, I am continually reminded by people who know them, is a complete individual, like no other pig.
  • Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), ch. 1, p. 52

• Piglets are very fond of play. They chase one another, play-fight, are affectionate, tumble around, and generally enjoy themselves. They do not grow into normal pigs when deprived of play.
  • Lauren Ornelas and Juliet Gellatley, "When Pigs Cry: A Report on the USA Pig Industry", Viva! (2002), p. 6

• How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 221

• The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,
  Lives on the labours of this lord of all.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 41

• We continue to live in ignorance concerning the harm we inflict on animals; very few of us have ever visited an industrial breeding site or a slaughterhouse. We maintain a kind of moral schizophrenia that has us lavishing pampering our pets and at the same time planting our forks in the pigs that have been sent to the slaughter by the millions, even though they are in no way less conscious, less sensitive to pain, or less intelligent than our cats and dogs.
  • Matthieu Ricard, A Plea for the Animals, translated by Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2016), Introduction, p. 4.

• Meantime, heedless of all these things, the men upon the floor were going about their work. Neither squeals of hogs nor tears of visitors made any difference to them; one by one they hooked up the hogs, and one by one with a swift stroke they slit their throats. There was a long line of hogs, with squeals and lifeblood ebbing away together; until at last each started again, and vanished with a splash into a huge vat of boiling water.
  It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was porkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests—and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense of apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.
  • Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906), ch. 3

• As Pastor Martin Niemöller might have said, “First they came for Piglet and I did not speak out because I was not a Disney character, and if I was, I’d be more of an Eeyore. Then they came for the Three Little Pigs and Babe, and by the time I realized the Western world had turned into a 24/7 Looney Tunes, it was too late, because there was no Porky Pig to stammer, ‘Th-th-th-that’s all folks!’, and bring the nightmare to an end.”
  • Mark Steyn, "Lights Out on Liberty", Imprimis, vol. 37, no. 8 (August 2008)

• Once ... I was offered a lift by some carters … It was the Thursday before Easter. I was seated in the first cart, with a strong, red, coarse carman, who evidently drank. On entering a village we saw a well-fed, naked, pink pig being dragged out of the first yard to be slaughtered. It squealed in a dreadful voice, resembling the shriek of a man. Just as we were passing they began to kill it. A man gashed its throat with a knife. The pig squealed still more loudly and piercingly, broke away from the men, and ran off covered with blood. Being near-sighted I did not see all the details. I saw only the human-looking pink body of the pig and heard its desperate squeal; but the carter saw all the details and watched closely. They caught the pig, knocked it down, and finished cutting: its throat. When its squeals ceased the carter sighed heavily. 'Do men really not have to answer for such things?' he said.
  • Leo Tolstoy, The First Step (1892), ch. IX

• And as the swine always look for dirt and filth even when in the midst of a flower-garden, so the wicked always choose the evil out of both evil and good that others speak.
  • Vyasa, Mahabharata, LXXIV, as translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

• A pig which was about to be slaughtered by the pig-butcher squealed. (The butcher said:) "Your ancestors and forebears walked this road, and now you too are walking it, so why are you squealing?
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection VIII at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, 3rd millennium BC.

• Bacon
• Gestation crate
• Intensive pig farming
• Pork
• Wild boar