Sheep

Sheep (Ovis aries) are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over 1 billion, domestic sheep are the most numerous species in their genus. A lamb is a young sheep. Sheep and lambs are often used as symbols of peacefulness or meekness.

Quotes

The shepherd adorns the plain with his ewes and lambs. ~ Debate between the Hoe and the Plough

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion. ~ William Ralph Inge

• The ewe with its lambs expresses deep affection.
  • To Suen, a lament (ululumama) to Nanna (Nanna J) by Anonymous, late 3rd millennium BCE, text online at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

• The shepherd adorns the plain with his ewes and lambs.
  • Debate between the Hoe and the Plough (middle to late 3rd millennium BCE). [1]

• Mary had a little lamb
  Its fleece was white as snow,
  And everywhere that Mary went
  The lamb was sure to go.
  • Sarah J. Hale, Mary's Little Lamb, first published in her Poems for our Children (1830). Claimed for John Roulston by Mary Sawyer Tyler. Disproved by Mrs. Hale's son, in a Letter to the Boston Transcript, April 10, 1889. Mrs. Hale definitely asserted her claim to authorship before her death.

• A black sheep is a biting beast.
  • Bastard's Chrestoleros (1598), p. 90, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 740.

• It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
  • William Ralph Inge, "Patriotism" (August 1919), in Outspoken Essays (1919), pp. 42-43.

• She walks — the lady of my delight —
  A shepherdess of sheep.
  Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
  She guards them from the steep.
  She feeds them on the fragrant height,
  And folds them in for sleep.
  • Alice Meynell, "The Shepherdess", in Later Poems (London: John Lane, 1902), p. 9.

• Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious "right" a revolution was fought.
  • Octave Mirbeau, Voters' strike

• [It] is better to live one single day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep
  E' meglio vivere un giorno da leone che cent'anni da pecora
  • Anonymous WWI Italian soldier's graffiti on a broken wall after Battle of the Piave River (1918).

Bible

The Bible on Wikisource.

I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. ~ Jesus

• My sheep were straying on all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the surface of the earth, with no one searching for them or seeking to find them.
  • Book of Ezekiel 34:1-6 NWT.

• I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
  • Jesus, to his disciples, as quoted in Gospel of Matthew 10:16].

• What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.
  • Jesus, to the Pharisees, in Gospel of Matthew 12:11–12 (KJV).

• If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
  • Jesus, in the parable of Parable of the Lost Sheep, in the Gospel of Matthew 18:12–13 (KJV).

• When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
  When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
  • Jesus, in the parable of The Sheep and the Goats, in the Gospel of Matthew 25:31-40.

• These are the ones who did not defile themselves with women; in fact, they are virgins. These are the ones who keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes. These were bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.
  • John of Patmos, Book of Revelation 14:4.

Proverbs

An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep. ~ Anonymous

• An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.
  • Attributed to Alexander the Great, as quoted in The British Battle Fleet: Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915) by Frederick Thomas Jane, but many variants of similar statements exist which have been attributed to others, though in research done for Wikiquote definite citations of original documents have not yet been found for any of them:
  • An army of sheep led by a lion are more to be feared than an army of lions led by a sheep.
    • Attributed to Chabrias, in The Older We Get, The Better We Were, Marine Corps Sea Stories (2004) by Vince Crawley, p. 67.
  • It is better to have sheep led by a lion than lions led by a sheep.
    • Attributed to Polybius in Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth Century Ireland (2005) by Deana Rankin, p. 124, citing A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, from 1641 to 1652 (1880) by John Thomas Gilbert Vol. I, i, p. 153 - 157; but conceivably this might be reference to Polybius the historian quoting either Alexander or Chabrias.
  • An army composed of sheep but led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep.
    • "Proverb" quoted by Agostino Nifo in De Regnandi Peritia (1523) as cited in Machiavelli - The First Century: Studies in Enthusiasm, Hostility, and Irrelevance (2005) by Mathew Thomson, p. 55.
  • Greater is an army of sheep led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a sheep.
    • Attributed to Daniel Defoe (c. 1659 - 1731).
  • I am more afraid of one hundred sheep led by a lion than one hundred lions led by a sheep.
    • Attributed to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754 – 1838) Variants: I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
      I am not afraid of an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep. I am afraid of army of 100 sheeps led by a lion.
  • Variants quoted as an anonymous proverb:
    Better a herd of sheep led by a lion than a herd of lions led by a sheep.
    A flock of sheep led by a lion was more powerful than a flock of lions led by a sheep.
    An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
    It were better to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep.
    An army of sheep led by a lion, will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
    An army of sheep led by a lion would be superior to an army of lions led by a sheep.
    Unsourced attribution to Alexander: I would not fear a pack of lions led by a sheep, but I would always fear a flock of sheep led by a lion.
  • Other variants substitute "stag" for "sheep".

• It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
  • Anonymous western American proverb, quoted in Arizona Highways, Vol. 73 (1997), p. 50.
  • Variant:
  • It doesn't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
    • The Routledge Book of World Proverbs (2006), p. 184.

Dialogues

• Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?

Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.

Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?

Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.

Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?

Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.

Hannibal Lecter: What was it?

Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.

Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?

Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.

Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?

Clarice Starling: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.

Hannibal Lecter: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?

Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.

Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?

Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.

Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?

Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.

Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?

Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.

Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lamb, Clarice?

Clarice Starling: They killed him.

• Silence of the Lambs, screenplay by Ted Tally, based on The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.