Cattle

A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden. —Samuel Johnson

Cattle (colloquially cows) are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius. Cattle are raised as livestock for meat (beef and veal), as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals (pulling carts, plows and the like). Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel. In some countries, such as India, cattle are sacred. It is estimated that there are 1.3 billion cattle in the world today.

Quotes

Cows

B

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.

• I never saw a purple cow,
  I never hope to see one;
  But I can tell you, anyhow,
  I'd rather see than be one!
  • Gelett Burgess, The Purple Cow (1895) [1]

C

• The Moo-cow-moo's got a tail like a rope
  En it's ravelled down where it grows,
  En it's just like feeling a piece of soap
  All over the moo-cow's nose.
  • Edmund Vance Cooke, "The Moo-Cow-Moo", reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 145

D

• Bitch, I'm a cow. I'm not a cat, I don't say meow. Bitch, I'm a cow, bitch, I'm a cow. Bitch, I'm a cow, bitch, I'm a cow: I go moo!
  • Doja Cat, "Mooo!", Amala (2018), Los Angeles: Kemosabe Records

E

• To country people Cows are mild,
  And flee from any stick they throw;
  But I’m a timid town bred child,
  And all the cattle seem to know.
  • T. S. Eliot, "The Country Walk"^{[citation needed]}

F

• All is not butter that comes from the cow.
  • Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, No. 527

H

You may rezoloot till the cows come home.

• You may rezoloot till the cows come home.
  • John Hay, "Little Breeches, Banty Tim", Pike County Ballads and Other Pieces (1871), p. 24

J

• A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
  • Samuel Johnson, reported in James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1772)

P

• The cattle upon a thousand hills.
  • Psalms 50:10 (KJV)

R

• The ever-increasing cattle population is wreaking havoc on the earth's ecosystems, destroying habitats on six continents. Cattle raising is a primary factor in the destruction of the world's remaining tropical rain forests. … Cattle are also a major cause of global warming. … The devastating environmental, economic, and human toll of maintaining a worldwide cattle complex is little discussed in public policy circles. … Yet, cattle production and beef consumption now rank among the gravest threats to the future well-being of the earth and its human population.
  • Jeremy Rifkin, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture (London: Thorsons, 1993), pp. 1-2

S

• God sends a curst cow short horns.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (c. 1598), Act 2, Scene 1
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651)
  • Variant: "A curst cow hath short horns." Note: "Curst" here refers to being ill-tempered, and "short horns" to being ineffectual, as illustrated by this earliest known example:
    • Often lacke of myght asswagyth cruelnes
      To a wylde cowe god doth short hornys sende
      Wrath is great foly, where myght may nat extende
      • Alexander Barclay (1509), Ship of Fools, i, 182; adapted in English from Sebastian Brant's German book of the same title (1494)

• Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear. ... May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.
  • Guru Gobind Singh, according to Arun Shourie; quoted in Koenraad Elst, Who is a Hindu? (2002)

• Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs may probably agree to pay jiziya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice.
  • Ahmad Sirhindi, quoted in S. A. A. Rizvi, Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Agra, 1965), pp. 248-249, and in Sita Ram Goel, Muslim Separatism: Causes and Consequences (1995)

• The friendly cow all red and white,
  I love with all my heart:
  She gives me cream with all her might
  To eat with apple-tart.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), "The Cow"

• I warrant you lay abed till the cows came home.
  • Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversations (c. 1738), Dialog. 2

P

• His knowledge of country lore was a little hazy, but he felt fairly sure that if the cows lay down, it meant rain. If they were standing it would probably be fine. These cows were taking it in turns to execute slow and solemn somersaults; and Tyler wondered what it presaged for the weather.
  • Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

N

• The cow is of the bovine ilk;
  One end is moo, the other, milk.
  • Ogden Nash, The Face is Familiar (1940), "The Cow"

T

• Thank you, pretty cow, that made
  Pleasant milk to soak my bread.
  • Anne Taylor, "The Cow", reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 145

W

The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising:
There are forty feeding like one!
— William Wordsworth

• The cattle are grazing,
  Their heads never raising:
  There are forty feeding like one!
  • William Wordsworth, "The Cock is Crowing", Poems (1815)

Anonymous

• They are as numerous, as numerous as the grasses which break through the earth. [...] They are as numerous as the grasses which break through the earth. Their are translucent lapis lazuli. Their are the colour of the rising moon. The cows with their calves are numerous and are precious cuba stone. [...] He who loves the cows herds them into the pen. [He] who loves the cows rounds up the cows. [...] Their butter is holy butter, their milk is holy milk.
  • A Subscript (Balbale) to Nanna (Nanna D), late 3rd millennium BCE, at ETCSL [2]

• My troops are bound to me as a cow is bound to its calf.
  • Enmerkar to Lugalbanda, in Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird, Ur III Period (21st century BCE), at ETCSL [3]

• While farmers grow the majority of the crops they feed their cows, a number of common feeds like flax, canola, corn, and other plants have been used for decades in a targeted way to ensure cows are meeting their energy requirements
  • Dairy Farmers of Canada, "Dairy farmers advised to stop adding palm oil to feed as butter controversy heats up", cbc.ca (February 25, 2021)

• If you want to own cows you must sleep in the fields with them.
  • Rwandan proverb, as quoted in Paul Rusesabagina, An Ordinary Man (2006), ch. 10

Bulls

I

• Although things about bulls in reality are more complicated, some bulls do charge if they see something red. Anti-cultists react in the same way. Call a group a “cult” and they will react like the proverbial bull. They would not pause to ask who is calling the group a “cult” and whose propaganda their action may benefit—or if they are becoming “useful idiots” favoring a bloody Communist Party officially recognized as guilty of "crimes against humanity."
  • Massimo Introvigne, "New Zealand: 'Useful Idiots' Against Shen Yun and Falun Gong", Bitter Winter (February 18, 2025)

R

• I'm as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the limit.
  • Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to Mark Hannah (27 June 1900)

V

• Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit:
  qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
  taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.
  • The while he lifts to heaven hideous cries, like the bellowings of a wounded bull that has fled from the altar and shaken from its neck the ill-aimed axe.
  • Virgil, Aeneid, Book II, lines 222–224 (tr. Fairclough); the death of Laocoön

Anonymous

• He who ignores a rival, does not get to eat everything up, like the bull which ignores the bull at its side. But he who acknowledges a contest can be the outright winner, like the bull which acknowledges the bull at its side.
  • Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, Neo-Sumerian period (ca. 21st century BCE), at ETCSL [4]

• The heavens were separated from the earth, … my father Enlil created me in a single day, and then the Tigris charged like a great wild bull.
  • Strong Copper, in Debate between Silver and Copper, middle to late 3rd millennium BCE^{[citation needed]}

• Bullfight critics row on row
  Crowd the vast arena full
  But only one man’s there who knows
  And he's the man who fights the bull.
  • Quoted in a letter to the editor by Representative F. Edward Hébert, chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, who said, "President Kennedy was fond of quoting some lines from the Spanish poet García Lorca". Reported in The Washington Post (April 11, 1971), p. C7. These lines are believed not to be García Lorca's.^{[citation needed]}

Oxen

I

• The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib.
  • Isaiah 1:3 (KJV)

J

• Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.
  • Samuel Johnson, parody on "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free," from Henry Brooke's Earl of Essex. In Boswell's Life of Johnson (1784)

P

• As an ox goeth to the slaughter.
  • Proverbs 7:22; Jeremiah 11:19 (KJV)

T

• And the plain ox,
  That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
  In what has he offended? he whose toil,
  Patient and ever ready, clothes the land
  With all the pomp of harvest.
  • James Thomson, The Seasons (1726-1730)

Anonymous

• A wilful plough-ox should be put back in the track, a balking ass should be made to take the straight path.
  • Anzû, in Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, Ur III Period (21st century BCE), at ETCSL [5]

• You should not move the oxen from their places!
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection II, 3rd millennium BCE, at ETCSL

• Furrows are pleasant to a threshing ox.
  • Sumerian proverb, Collection II, 3rd millennium BCE, at ETCSL

See also

• Bull of Heaven
• Calves
• Cattle in religion and mythology

External links

• Media related to Cattle on Wikimedia Commons
• Encyclopedic article on Cattle on Wikipedia