The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 15 Page 5

’ asked Olenin.

‘What do you think? You think the beast’s a fool? No, he is wiser than a man though you do call him a pig! He knows everything. Take this for instance. A man will pass along your track and not notice it; but a pig as soon as it gets onto your track turns and runs at once: that shows there is wisdom in him, since he scents your smell and you don’t. And there is this to be said too: you wish to kill it and it wishes to go about the woods alive. You have one law and it has another. It is a pig, but it is no worse than you — it too is God’s creature. Ah, dear! Man is foolish, foolish, foolish!

’ The old man repeated this several times and then, letting his head drop, he sat thinking.