Popular quotes about Animals! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Some meat eaters defend meat eating by pointing out that it is natural: in the wild, animals eat one another. The animals that end up on our breakfast, lunch, and dinner plates, however, aren't those who normally eat other animals. The animals we exploit for food are not the lions and tigers and bears of the world. For the most part, we eat the gentle vegan animals. However, on today's farms, we actually force them to become meat eaters by making them eat feed containing the rendered remains of other animals, which they would never eat in the wild.
Sharon GannonSo far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this argument to justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also prepared to allow experiments on human infants and retarded adults; and if we make a distinction between animals and these humans, on what basis can we do it, other than a bare-faced - and morally indefensible - preference for members of our own species?
Peter SingerI was aware of what animals go through because I had driven animals to slaughter and I'd killed animals. And I was aware that there were certain ethical issues, but they weren't preying on my mind very heavily.
Neal BarnardI don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice - and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.
Brigid BrophyIn the grand scheme of nature, I believe that it is very natural that animals eat animals, and that humans eat animals. It is only in the last couple of decades that meat-processing factories have come to rise, and I believe we should take time to reflect on that reality.
Bong Joon-hoIt must be stressed that there is nothing insulting about looking at people as animals. We are animals, after all. Homo sapiens is a species of primate, a biological phenomenon dominated by biological rules, like any other species. Human nature is no more than one particular kind of animal nature. Agreed, the human species is an extraordinary animal; but all other species are also extraordinary animals, each in their own way, and the scientific man-watcher can bring many fresh insights to the study of human affairs if he can retain this basic attitude of evolutionary humility.
Desmond MorrisWe do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.
Gary L. FrancioneI love animals. With animals you never know what you're getting. Everybody says don't mess with animals and little kids in movies but those are the funniest things because you can't be in control. I like to lose control as a director.
David Gordon GreenBeing kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.
Tom ReganIf having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs ...[they] are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty.
James HerriotOnce people spend time with farm animals in a loving way ... a pig or cow or a little chicken or a turkey, they might find they relate with them the same way they relate with dogs and cats. People don't really think of them that way because they're on the plate. Why should they be food when other animals are pets? I would never eat my doggies.
Alicia SilverstoneConsider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms โ if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.
E. O. WilsonThey are all beasts of burden in a sense, ' Thoreau once remarked of animals, 'made to carry some portion of our thoughts.' Animals are the old language of the imagination; one of the ten thousand tragedies of their disappearance would be a silencing of this speech.
Rebecca SolnitI think breeds of dogs and breeds of men are quite a bit alike. If you think itโs insulting that I compare people with animals, well, if you knew how I love animals, you would understand that coming from me, this is a compliment.
Zsa Zsa GaborPETA has a proven track record of success. Each victory PETA wins for the animals is a stepping stone upon which we build a more compassionate world for all beings - and we will never give up our fight until all animals are treated with respect and kindness.
Bea ArthurPeople underestimate the power we have to make real change for animals; it's with our vote. Representatives may not care about animals, but they care about our vote and that is our leverage.
Shane BarbiAnimals on factory farms all face pain and fear, just like the animals we share our homes with, yet are repeatedly abused in shocking ways.
Peter DinklageMan is unique in that, unlike animals, he knows he is going to die, and unlike animals he can do something about it.
Ray ComfortAmusement touched the corner of his lips. "Animals love me." "Oh, I'm sure they do," Scarlet said, beaming with fake encouragement. She shut the door before muttering, "What farm animals don't love a wolf?
Marissa MeyerThe consciousness of the animal begins to change when it interacts with a human who's gone beyond thinking. It's not only the animals assisting us; we are also assisting the animals.
Eckhart TolleThe problem is that humans have victimized animals to such a degree that they are not even considered victims. They are not even considered at all. They are nothing. They don't count; they don't matter; they're commodities like TV sets and cell phones. We have actually turned animals into inanimate objects - sandwiches and shoes.
Gary YourofskyI view cats as more like wild animals. We feed it, but a lot of times it's not eating the food because it's murdering other animals outside and eating their meat.
Jake M. JohnsonI slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I'd notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings.
Ryan McGinleyAfter having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable.
Jean-Baptiste LamarckEvidence of this [transformation of animals into fossils] is that parts of aquatic animals and perhaps of naval gear are found in rock in hollows on mountains, which water no doubt deposited there enveloped in sticky mud, and which were prevented by coldness and dryness of the stone from petrifying completely. Very striking evidence of this kind is found in the stones of Paris, in which one very often meets round shells the shape of the moon.
Albertus MagnusBritain makes it absolutely, blindingly clear that it is liberal social welfare policies. And they have turned a good chunk of their native population into animals. They are absolute animals. They are not humans with free will. They eat, they screw, they drink.
Ann CoulterWeโre built to deal with death, disease, failure, struggle, heartbreak, problems. Itโs what separates us from the animals and why we envy and love animals so much. Weโre aware of it all and have to process it. The way we each handle being human is where all the good stories, jokes, art, wisdom, revelations, and bullshit come from.
Marc MaronI have a huge passion for animals and while retirement is a long way off, when I do I would love to do something with animals.
Sally PearsonIn relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.
Isaac Bashevis SingerI love animals, but I don't really like riding animals. Like, I don't love being on a horse - it's just not my thing.
Miley CyrusIt's not about loving animals. It's about fighting injustice. My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals.
Gary YourofskyI've loved singing since forever. Whether it was with my sisters while cleaning the kitchen, putting shows on for my stuffed animals, writing songs about my stuffed animals, starting an a capella group with my cousins while on vacation, or awkwardly singing along to karaoke tracks alone in my bedroom - singing always found a way into my life.
Kina GrannisThink of the beginning of the story of the beginning of everything: Adam (without Eve and without divine guidance) names the animals. Continuing his work, we call stupid people bird-brained, cowardly people chickens, fools turkeys. Are these the best names we have to offer? If we can revise the notion of women coming from a rib, canโt we revise our categorizations of the animals that, draped with barbecue sauce, end up as the ribs on our dinner plates โ or for that matter, the KFC in our hands?
Jonathan Safran FoerI often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them. Most of us think of vegetarians as nuts and I'm not a vegetarian but I wouldn't be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals.
Andy RooneyCertainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.
John Rawls. . . it is difficult for Europeans to appreciate the sentiment. Other nations kill animals by wholesale and kill one another; they exist in a sea of blood. A European said that the reason why in India animals were not killed was because it was supposed that they contained the spirits of ancestors. This reason was worthy of a savage nation who are not many steps from the brute.
Swami VivekanandaThe raising of animals for food and all that it entails is the single most destructive force impacting our planet's fragile ecosystems. Our planet simply cannot sustain the greed of billions of human beings who are eating other animals.
Sharon GannonEver occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals' suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote.
Paul HarveyRemember that even just watching animals has an impact. Intrusion into their living space can expose them to predation, keep them from feeding or other essential activities, or cause them to leave their young exposed to predation or the elements. No photo or viewing opportunity is worth harassing or stressing wildlife. In appreciating and watching them, we have a responsibility to protect and preserve the animals that share our state.
Mary TaylorFor man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, and the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.
AristotleI refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pain of others by recalling my own sufferings.
David SztybelI certainly believe that we have a moral obligation to care for the dogs, cats, and other nonhumans whose existence we have caused or facilitated as part of the institution of 'pet' ownership. But I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more 'companion' animals.
Gary L. FrancioneI blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you.
James CameronSome, while deploring animal abuses, on the same breath approve 'benefits to humans from certain animal abuses'! Who would criticize the Jewish holocaust or Black slavery, and YET praise the benefits to Germans or Whites??? This convenient ambiguity at the expense of animals is unacceptable!!!
Adela PopescuOne road to happiness is to cultivate curiosity about everything. Not only about people but about subjects, not only about the arts but about history and foreign customs. Not only about countries and cities, but about plants and animals. Not only about lichened rocks and curious markings on the bark of trees, but about stars and atoms. Not only about your friends but about that strange labyrinth we inhabit which we call ourselves. Then, if we do that, we will never suffer a moment's boredom.
Gerald Brenan