These are the top 140 sheep quotes that’ll push you to voice your opinions and live your dreams.
So, if you’re interested in sheep and want to know what words of wisdom they can offer, then you’re in for a treat!
When you hear the word ‘sheep,’ ambition and drive are probably the last things you’ll think about, because humility, obedience, and conformity are usually what sheep are associated with.
However, going beyond their modest appearance, sheep can actually inspire us to be more vocal about what we think and what we want to achieve.
Check out the full list below.
And make sure to read our animal quotes and cow quotes too.
Best Sheep Quotes
1. “To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.” – Mahatma Gandhi
2. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” – Alexander The Great
3. “For millions of years, flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years, sheep have been eating them all the same.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
4. “A lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep.” – George R.R. Martin
5. “It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.” – Elizabeth Kenny
6. “Sheep, like people, are ungovernable when hungry.” – John Muir
7. “A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.” – Vernon Howard
8. “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” – George Washington
9. “A man, when he is making up with anybody, can be cordial and gallant and full of little attention and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love, he can’t help looking like a sheep.” – Agatha Christie
Great Sheep Quotes From Great People
10. “Be yourself. If you’re not yourself, who are you? But take advice; listen to people. If you’re not listening, you’re lost. You’re a sheep among wolves.” – Craig David
11. “The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.” – Edgar Fiedler
12. “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill
13. “New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.” – Barry Humphries
14. “Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we’re tired of hearing promises that we know they’ll never keep.” – Ray Davies
15. “Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights, because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.” – Larry Flynt
16. “If I lived my life over again, I would stay in the countryside. I prefer the countryside—the milking of the cows and the sheep.” – Alfred Di Stefano
17. “It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.” – Henry David Thoreau
18. “There are quite enough sheep already. Be a shepherd—be somebody who’s bold and who leads.” – Matt Bevin
19. “It would be nice to travel if you knew where you were going and where you would live at the end; or do we ever know, do we ever live where we live, we’re always in other places, lost, like sheep.” – Janet Frame
20. “After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.” – Ernest Lehman
21. “I am not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I’m a wolf in wolf’s clothing.” – RIcky Gervais
22. “We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.” – Bill Maher
23. “I’m a shepherd, not a sheep, and I’ve always prided myself on being a leader and not a follower.” – Dustin Diamond
24. “Pacifists are like sheep who believe that wolves are vegetarians.” – Yves Montand
Also read: Tiger Quotes
Sheep Quotes on Being Wise and Sensible
25. “Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.” – Sue Grafton
26. “It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them.” – Tiberius
27. “If a lion takes its advice from sheep, it will go hungry.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
28. “Do exactly the opposite of what the sheep are doing in order to become the shepherd.” – Marshall Sylver
29. “Assumptions are quick exits for lazy minds that like to graze out in the fields without bother.” – Suzy Kassem
30. “Men are like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one.” – Richard Whately
31. “The vain should be wise, for a giant is sometimes strangled by a fly, and there are times when towering giants stumble into pitfalls, and lions fear sheep.” – Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan
32. “The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart—the roar of freedom.” – Osho
33. “Blaming the wolf would not help the sheep much. The sheep must learn not to fall in the clutches of the wolf.” – Mahatma Gandhi
34. “A lion can lead sheep, but sheep cannot lead a lion.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
35. “If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
36. “The so-called ‘innocents’ are still wearing the skins of sheep to cover their evil intentions. Thus, we must avoid flatterers at any cost, so as not to become their victims.” – Mwanandeke Kindembo
37. “Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.” – Alexander Hamilton
38. “The statesman shears the sheep; the politician skins them.” – Austin O’Malley
39. “The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same.” – Aldous Huxley
Deep and Meaningful Sheep Quotes
40. “The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.” – Stendhal
41. “Rich people without wisdom and learning are but sheep with golden fleeces.” – Solon
42. “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.” – Isaiah Berlin
43. “The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.” – Carl Van Doren
44. “We are not sheep or cows. God didn’t create fences for us or boundaries to contain our nationalities. Man did.” – Suzy Kassem
45. “To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.” – Mark Twain
46. “Most people are like sheep—nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves who want nothing more than to eat the sheep.” – Barry Eisler
47. “Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
48. “No pawn or errand boy knows the truth. No sheep or shepherd managed to escape their fate. As long as humankind exists, there will be betrayals and murders.” – Robert Neil Flieischer
49. “Since the earliest days of our youth, we have been conditioned to accept that the direction of the herd, and authority anywhere, is always right.” – Suzy Kassem
50. “If wishes had wings, sheep would fly.” – Robert Jordan
51. “How was the wolf to blame, if the sheep were roaming free?” – Rachel Hartman
52. “We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass.” – George Carlin
53. “Sheep can befriend a hungry wolf only briefly.” – Jim Butcher
54. “She walks, the lady of my delight—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
Sheep Quotes That Are Great Pieces of Advice
55. “It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf.” – Thomas Fuller
56. “Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.” – Benjamin Franklin
57. “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.” – Abraham Lincoln
58. “I would rather be feared by lions than be respected by sheep.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
59. “Like sheep that get lost nibbling away at the grass because they never look up, we often focus so much on ourselves and our problems that we get lost.” – Allen Klein
60. “In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep.” – Albert Einstein
61. “You are human, so stop acting as though you are a sheep and start thinking for yourself.” – Stephen Richards
62. “Learn well how to think right and then be your own shepherd. Otherwise, you shall be the unlucky sheep of all sorts of cunning shepherds!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
63. “Sheep only need a single flock, but people need two—one to belong to and make them feel comfortable, and another to blame all of society’s problems on.” – James Rozoff
64. “Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone and following one after the other like a flock of sheep. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods.” – Alexander Graham Bell
65. “Even if sheep could talk, they’d never ask questions.” – Andrew Vachss
66. “We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter.” – Abba Kovner
67. “You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once.” – Amarillo Slim
68. “If a man’s got talent and guts to buck society, he’s obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you’ve got left are the sheep.” – Alfred Bester
69. “Don’t let mediocre people talk you out of your dreams; lions have little in common with sheep.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
Sheep Quotes That Will Make You Think
70. “The cycles of humankind—sheep in control of sheep—were part of an ingenious process taught to errand boys that were in charge of supervising others like them.” – Robert Neil Flieischer
71. “Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security.” – Norman Vincent Peale
72. “To be an individual is the hardest thing in the world, because nobody likes you to be an individual. Everybody wants to kill your individuality and to make a sheep out of you. Nobody wants you to be on your own.” – Rajneesh
73. “Light is a shepherd, the blind are its sheep.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
74. “We laugh at sheep because sheep just follow the one in front. We humans have out-sheeped the sheep, because at least the sheep need a sheepdog to keep them in line. Humans keep each other in line. And they do it by ridiculing or condemning anyone who commits the crime, and that’s what it’s become, of being different.” – David Icke
75. “When sheep grow blind, it is only wolves that rejoice.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
76. “We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.” – Mark Twain
77. “But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
78. “Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men.” – Alexander Herzen
79. “In a nation of sheep, one brave man forms a majority.” – Edward Abbey
80. “Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep, Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep.” – Alexander Pope
81. “I was the black sheep of the family, and my mother never really understood me.” – Andre Rieu
82. “If a sheep eats bushes, does it eat flowers too? A sheep eats whatever it finds, even a flower with a thorn. Then, what’s the good of thorns?” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
83. “Look at the sky. Ask yourselves—has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
84. “It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.” – William Inge
Sheep Quotes on Leadership
85. “It is for sheep to eat grass and for lions to eat meat.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
86. “A sheep who teaches something to the shepherd is no more a sheep but a teacher!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
87. “A good shepherd always feeds his sheep first, even when he himself is hungry.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
88. “Only a few people—the leaders—have graduated from the school of religion. The others continue to swing back and forth like a pendulum—the lost sheep.” – Mwanandeke Kindembo
89. “The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year.” – Elvis Presley
90. “‘Tis a dainty thing to command, though ‘twere but a flock of sheep.” – Miguel de Cervantes
91. “People, like sheep, tend to follow a leader—occasionally in the right direction.” – Alexander Chase
92. “It is better to swallow a sheep or a goat than swallow what he has been swallowing.” – Arjuna Ranatunga
93. “It is better to have a lion at the head of an army of sheep, than a sheep at the head of an army of lions.” – Daniel Defoe
94. “Work—other people’s work—is an intolerable idea to a cat. Can you picture cats herding sheep or agreeing to pull a cart? They will not inconvenience themselves to the slightest degree.” – Louis J. Camuti
Philosophical Sheep Quotes
95. “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” – Edward R. Murrow
96. “If a wolf attacks his sheep, the shepherd kills the wolf, but he eats the sheep when he’s hungry.” – Charlie Higson
97. “Only a sheep with a lion’s heart can attack a wolf, not the sheep with lion’s teeth or with lion’s claw.” – Mehmet Murat ildan
98. “A lion conquers more in one day than a sheep in a lifetime.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
99. “It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep there may be.” – Virgil
100. “No sheep wants to be first through the gate, but every sheep will be second.” – Tucker Max
101. “Either you get eaten by a wolf today or else the shepherd saves you from the wolf so he can sell you to the butcher tomorrow.” – Ogden Nash
102. “The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year, then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive.” – Halldór Laxness
103. “Don’t be afraid of being alone; a lion does not rule the jungle with sheep at its side.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
104. “If a dog manages and directs a thousand sheep, it is not because of the genius of the dog, but because of the sheep’s folly!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
Also read: Wolf Quotes
Insightful Sheep Quotes
105. “Money, to me, had always been merely something the sheep used to show each other how wonderful they were.” – Jeff Lindsay
106. “Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana
107. “To the wolf, breaking sheep law or the alpha-wolf’s policy only becomes serious if caught. Getting caught is everything.” – Richard Kelly Hoskins
108. “Since you cannot mix wolves with sheep, why would anyone dare to compare a lion with the lamb?” – Mwanamke Kindembo
109. “We awaken by asking the right questions. We awaken when we see knowledge being spread that goes against our own personal experiences. We awaken when we see popular opinion being wrong but accepted as being right, and what is right being pushed as being wrong. We awaken by seeking answers in corners that are not popular. And we awaken by turning on the light inside when everything outside feels dark.” – Suzy Kassem
110. “A lion will never be afraid of sheep, no matter how many outnumber it.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
111. “Today, the Western powers and media want to domesticate us like sheep, to keep us tame and domesticated.” – Abu Bakar Bashir
112. “I hang around shepherds because I can’t talk to sheep.” – James Jean-Pierre
113. “A sheep in sheep’s clothing.” – Winston Churchill
114. “We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.” – Anne Lamott
Funny Sheep Quotes
115. “People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.” – Jess C. Scott
116. “A warsheep would be a cross between a dolphin and a small, limber elephant.” – Nick Harkaway
117. “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. And I fall asleep, counting my blessings.” – Bing Crosby
118. “Why do you have to be the same as the others? Most of them are stupid.” – Ken Follent
119. “If you and every person in the county mailed me an envelope of five to ten dollars, I think I could rehabilitate the sheep.” – Terrance Hays
120. “Why is it that one sheep is called a sheep and multiple sheep are also called sheep? It should be shoop and sheep. Like, ‘Oh, look, there goes a shoop,’ and ‘Wow, there goes a lot of sheep.’” – Riley Carney
121. “No sheep may leave the flock unless he comes back again.” – Leoni Swann
122. “You either run with lions or walk with sheep.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
123. “Too bad your inner sheep never forgets to follow.” – Aesop Rock
124. “I’m a little bit more unusual so I consider myself as the black sheep.” – Ann Wilson
Sheep Quotes From the Bible and Religious Figures
125. “Jesus Christ, Lord of all things! You see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am—You alone. I am your sheep; make me worthy to overcome the devil.” – Agatha of Sicily
126. “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” – Mark 6:34
127. “Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs. Cursed are the god-adorers, for they shall be shorn sheep!” – Anton Szandor LaVey
128. “In this way, they will know that I, the Lord, their God, am with them. And they will know that they, the people of Israel, are my people, says the Sovereign Lord. You are my flock, the sheep of my pasture. You are my people, and I am your God. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!” – Ezekiel 34:30-31
129. “Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” – Psalm 100:3
More Quotes About Sheep
130. “In the countryside, you’re always hearing sheep, birds, tractors, and farm equipment.” – Ben Howard
131. “He glanced at the sheep photograph and nodded to himself. In his present state, it did not seem strange to him that the police were apprehending sheep.” – John Ajvide
132. “Within three months, I had gone from being this black sheep of the town to suddenly becoming a pop star.” – Alison Moyet
133. “But Pooh couldn’t sleep. The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn’t. He tried counting sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps.” – A.A. Milne
134. “Trends die. That’s the natural thing about a trend. It’s natural for people to be followers and be sheep and go with a trend.” – Russ
135. “Everyone’s like sheep on social media; like, one person starts making noise, and everyone’s like, ‘Hey, yeah!’ and then you got a whole bunch of people making noise at you.” – Earl Sweatshirt
136. “Baseball regards us as sheep.” – Curt Flood
137. “Just because you want to be glamorous, don’t be a sheep about your eye makeup.” – Loretta Young
138. “There will always be people who will first wait for somebody’s comment and then attack them. I’ll say they are just cowards. They have no opinions of their own. It’s very easy to be a sheep; it’s not easy to be a shepherd. One should not give a damn about these trolls. One should not give them importance at all.” – Soni Razdan
139. “I grew up in a farming family. I hated cleaning out the chickens, but loved hatching them and feeding the newborn sheep. The smell of hot milk still has a special resonance for me. Harvest was back-breaking work, though. Where do you think Jesus got his biceps from?” – Joseph Mowle
140. “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” – George S. Patton
Also read: Owl Quotes, Hummingbird Quotes
Did These Sheep Quotes Inspire You to Be More Opinionated and Passionate About Your Goals?
It’s a well-known fact that sheep are obedient and humble animals. They’re usually seen with their heads down, just chomping off the grass. Because of this, sheep also came to be negatively associated with not caring much about their surroundings and what their future holds.
They’re said to lack the ambition and drive to pursue something beyond just nibbling grass. However, the quotes we’ve gathered today give us better insight to this. Because of how sheep are generally presented, we see how many opportunities we can have if we only just look up and stop being so focused on just one thing.
In hindsight, sheep inspire us to be less like them—to be more active and driven when it comes to telling the world about our opinions and acting more on our desires and dreams.
Which quotes from today’s collection were your favorites? What did you understand from the sheep quotes we’ve gathered today? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so be sure you comment them down below.
