As one of the most intelligent and complex animals, who are also loyal, playful, and family-orientated, wolves have captured the human imagination since ancient times. A symbol of loyalty, power, intuition, communication, and instinct, wolves can be found in the mythology and legends of folklore around the world.
A wolf is a social animal, one that needs its packs. In this sense, it’s representative of the importance of family and of belonging. Even the lone wolf, the individualistic and independent wolf who doesn’t belong to a pack, is searching for another wolf. According to Livingwithwolves.org, “Everything in a wolf’s nature tells it to belong to something greater than itself: a pack”. Wolves share bonds, have social lives, educate their young, and communicate effectively. The complex social hierarchy and behavior of wolves have even influenced popular psychology, impacting our understanding of personality types.
To celebrate wolves and everything they represent, let’s take a look at 70 quotes and sayings. These will surely make you howl (or not).
“A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.”
Lana Turner
“Where there are sheep, the wolves are never very far away.”
Plautus
“A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf.”
George R.R. Martin
“When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.”
Robin Hobb
“A true lone wolf wishes not to lead the pack, but to lead itself.”
Eric Kay
“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
Lord Byron
“Wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep.”
Aristotle
“The wolf is the arch-type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“I think I’m still a lone wolf, internally. And I always will be.”
Rob Halford
“Wolves were everywhere. In politics, on thrones, in beds. They cut their teeth on history and grew fat on war.”
Roshani Chokshi
“Wolves don’t hunt singly, but always in pairs. The lone wolf was a myth.”
John Fowles
“The tiger and the lion may be more powerful. But the wolf does not perform in the circus.”
Earl Derr Biggers
“I woke up one morning thinking about wolves and realized that wolf packs function as families. Everyone has a role, and if you act within the parameters of your role, the whole pack succeeds, and when that falls apart, so does the pack.”
Jodi Picoult
“The wolf on the hill is not as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“An intelligent wolf is better than a foolish lion.”
Matshona Dhliwayo
“It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.”
Virgil
“The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they’d lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.”
Jodi Picoult
“There are nights where the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”
George Carlin
“A lone wolf doesn’t tread paths its ilk leaves; it makes its own footprints in the snow.”
Savas Mounjid
“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
James Bovard
“If you live among wolves, you have to act like a wolf.”
Nikita Khrushchev
“Like crying wolf, if you keep looking for sympathy as a justification for your actions, you will someday be left standing alone when you really need help.”
Criss Jami
“In the calm, deep waters of the mind, the wolf waits.”
F.T. McKinstry
“The wolves in the woods have sharp teeth and long claws, but it’s the wolf inside who will tear you apart.”
Jennifer Donnelly
“In life there are only two types of people: wolves and lambs.”
Patricia Cornwell
“Life is a lone wolf, scratching out a living with teeth and claws and a heart of stone.”
Dan Wells
“Pacifists are like sheep who believe that wolves are vegetarians.”
Yves Montand
“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”
Rudyard Kipling
“Wolves were everywhere. In politics, on thrones, in beds. They cut their teeth on history and grew fat on war.”
Roshani Chokshi
“Report makes the wolf bigger than he is.”
German Proverb
“We are never alone, we are all wolves, howling to the same moon.”
Atticus
“The howling wolf is a real danger.”
David Attenborough
“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.”
Hugh Maclead
“Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.”
Isaiah Berlin
“In real life, wolves will do anything to avoid contact with mankind.”
Liam Neeson
“The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears.”
J. R. R. Tolkien
“Man is to man either a god or a wolf.”
Desiderius Erasmus
“The black wolf’s curse awakes every time that a full moon points in the middle of the sky.”
Pet Torres
“Live like a wolf: Wild, free and hungry.”
C. Pacific
“The lone wolf is stronger than the pack and so it survives.”
Michael Alvear
“The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.”
Carl Clinton Van Doren
“Wolves and people were not natural enemies. The humans’ relationship with other animals established their rivalry with wolves.”
Jon T. Coleman
“As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.”
Plato
“When shepherds quarrel, the wolf has a winning game.”
German proverb
“A howl is as infectious to a wolf as a yawn is to a human.”
Kevin Ansbro
“Even a wolf knows how to be polite when animalistic humans have no clue about politeness.”
Munia Khan
“For a wolf, the world is about understanding, knowledge and respect, attributes that many humans have cast off, along with an appreciation of the natural world.”
Jodi Picoult
“Throw me to the wolves. I learn faster when I’m around wolves and sharks.”
Baron Davis
“Some girls are full of heartache and poetry and those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves instead of running away from them.”
Nikita Gill
“The wolf may fight the bear but the rabbit always loses.”
Robert Jordan.
“That night the wind was howling almost like a wolf and there were some real wolves off to the west giving it lessons.”
George R.R. Martin
“There is no better way to know us than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.”
Ted Hughes
“We humans fear the beast within the wolf because we do not understand the beast within ourselves.”
Gerald Hausman
“If you are not willing to be a lone wolf, keep your truth to yourself. If you want acceptance and your truths to be spoken, it is a slippery slope.”
Pooja Bhatt
“You know, I’m cursed with morals. I was raised a certain way. I wish I wasn’t. I wish I was raised by wolves.”
Carson Daly
“A wolf eats sheep but now and then;
Ten thousand are devoured by men.
An open foe may prove a curse,
but a pretend friend is worse.”
John Gay
“Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm and share our strengths.”
George R. R. Martin
“A wolf is no less a wolf because he’s dressed in sheepskin and the devil is no less the devil because he’s dressed as an angel.”
Lecrae
“To protect the sheep you got to catch the wolf, and it takes a wolf to catch a wolf.”
David Ayer
“We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us, there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.”
Anthony Marra
“The Lord God had created all animals, and had chosen out the wolf to be his dog.”
Jacob Grimm
“Throw me to the wolves and I will return, leading the pack.”
Seneca
“I am not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I’m a wolf in wolf’s clothing.”
Ricky Gervais
“Deep down inside me there’s this wolf howling to get out.”
Johnny Cash
“Fierce as the prowling wolves at close of day, and swift as eagles in pursuit of prey.”
Thomas Parnell
“Wolves go after a wounded deer, it is the nature of the beast.”
Barbara Delinsky
“She slept with wolves without fear, for the wolves knew a lion was among them.”
R.M. Drake
“A lone wolf howls and the wind plays tricks with the howling giving the sound a mesmerizing quality.”
J.L. Haynes
“The Canis Lupus, both wolf, and man were meant to be a family with one another. We gain strength through our bond with each other.”
Quinn Loftis
“The wolf will never lose sleep, worrying about the feelings of sheep. But no-one ever told the sheep, that they outnumber the wolves.”
Bray Wyatt
Wrapping Up
We hope these 70 wolf quotes inspired you and gave you insight into perspectives on the wolf. If you’re looking for more inspiring quotes, check out our quote collections on attitude and self-worth. If you want to know more about personality types, which are derived from the animal world, check out our articles on the alpha male, beta male, and sigma male.
