Men go and come, but earth abides. - George R. Stewart

People certainly tended to overestimate the intelligence of dogs!

Oh, don't worry," he thought, putting it into words, "there never had been perfection yet, and it certainly isn't going to start now for me.

In the times of civilization men had really felt themselves as the masters of creation. Everything has been good or bad in relation to man. So you killed rattlesnakes. But now nature had become so overwhelming that any attempt at its control was merely outside anyone’s circle of thought. You lived as part of it, not as its dominating power.