The Wisdom of Wolves Quotes

“What does a lone wolf want? It wants to stop being a lone wolf. It wants togetherness, to be a part of something bigger. Survival depends on it.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

“Each singer adds his own voice to the chorus but sings a song all his own.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack

“EACH AND EVERY WOLF has a story to share. Can we be trusted to listen? In a time when humans are wantonly and brutally exploiting wolves and numerous other nonhuman animal beings, it is essential that we pay very close attention to what they are saying to us as they try to adapt to a world in which their interests are far too often and universally trumped “in the name of humans.” It’s pretty simple: We rule, other animals have to do what we want them to do or they suffer the consequences of our narrow and anthropocentric demands that seriously compromise their well-being and their very”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack

“They are a tribe, a family, a fierce confederacy. They are also an assembly of individual personalities, private desires and goals and inner lives largely unknown. They are a wolf pack howling.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

“Their lives and behaviors mirrored our own contradictions and complexities: social hierarchy tempered by compassion, contention mixed with cooperation, the admirable side by side with the abhorrent. Among all their qualities there were many we admired, but one stands out more than any other, especially considering all that has befallen them at the hands of man. Wolves can forgive.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

“Like many other animals, they are emotionally intelligent beings. A wolf knows who he is, and he sees his packmates as individuals. He has a concept of how his actions are perceived by others. He is capable of empathy, compassion, apology, and encouragement.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack

“In the closing paragraphs of one of the greatest books ever written on wolves, Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat writes: "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be - the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer - which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”
― Jamie Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

“Lakota may have had to endure the omega status at the bottom of the hierarchy for many years, but he was as much a cherished member of the family as any of the others. He always ate, he howled with the group, he played with his packmates, and he helped raise the pups. We have marveled at each individual wolf’s intelligence and been fascinated by observing each unique personality, but the family bond shared among these wolves is what we have admired the most. Caring for the young ones—and for each other—was the central mission in their lives. A wolf is impelled by many individual desires—it wants to breed, hunt, perhaps explore—but its most profound desire is the one that touches us at our very core as human beings: A wolf wants to belong.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

“As years went by we would receive heartbreaking news that one had passed, then another: feisty Wyakin, fearless Kamots, gentle Matsi. Piyip, one of Kamots and Chemukh’s three pups, was the last to die, in 2013. In one day 98,000 people shared his passing with us over the Internet. Emotional messages poured in. The Sawtooth Pack had touched the hearts of people around the world.”
― Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack