National Elephant Appreciation Day is observed every year on Sept. 22 to highlight the importance of conservation of the animals and create awareness about the various threats they face.

This day was created in 1996 by Mission Media, a graphics and publishing company. It is believed the day’s origins are largely based on owner Wayne Hepburn’s personal fascination with elephants.

Even though these animals are highly adored, each day poachers kill nearly 100 elephants for their ivory, meat, bones and skin.

Here are some quotes about elephants, collected from Everyday Power, to share on this day:

1. "Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant – the only harmless great thing." – John Donne

2. "If elephants didn't exist, you couldn't invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense." – Lyall Watson

3. "But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves." – Lawrence Anthony

4. "Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There's bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine." – Jennifer Richard Jacobson

5. "I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I've ever met." – Herb Caen

6. "Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on." – Christopher Hitchens

7. "Elephants don't know anything about the world of ants; the peaks of mountains are oblivious of what is happening on the plains!" – Mehmet Murat ildan

8. "The elephant can survive only if forests survive." – Mark Shand

9. "I feel as if I go to Africa, I may never come back. I'm just going to live with the animals and adopt an elephant, and it's going to be my friend." – Dianna Agron

10. "And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze; About a star of deathless and painless peace; But no astronomer can find where it is." – Ted Hughes

A female African bush elephant munches on an acacia tree in Kenya's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
A female African bush elephant munches on an acacia tree in Kenya's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy AFP / Tony KARUMBA
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