Popular quotes about Animals! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 39
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 GannonTypically, defenders of experiments on animals do not deny that animals suffer. They cannot deny the animals' suffering, because they need to stress the similarities between humans and other animals in order to claim that their experiments may have some relevance for human purposes. The experimenter who forces rats to choose between starvation and electric shock to see if they develop ulcers (which they do) does so because the rat has a nervous system very similar to a human being's, and presumably feels an electric shock in a similar way.
Peter SingerNow everything was changed. She walked about with cautious, anxious steps, staring constantly at the ground, on the lookout for things that crept and crawled. Bushes were dangerous, and so were sea grass and rain water. There were little animals everywhere. They could turn up between the covers of a book, flattened and dead, for the fact is that creeping animals, tattered animals, and dead animals are with us all our lives, from beginning to end. Grandmother tried to discuss this with her, to no avail. Irrational terror is so hard to deal with.
Tove JanssonA bear and a deer are both wild animals. We allow the deer to roam in our backyard but we do not give the same right to the bear. It is because the bear is dangerous. Neither the bear nor the deer have rights. We humans give them rights. Taking in account our own security, we give to some animals some rights and deny the same to other animals.
Ali SinaIf a drought strikes them, animals perish--man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish--man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish--man writes the Constitution of the United States.
Ayn RandThose that would say Satanist would like to kill animal's, sacrifice animals I would say they would make ideal animal sacrifices, I love animals and animals have always been part of me.
Anton Szandor LaVeyRain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.
Samuel JohnsonIt's not that humans and non-humans are identical... but the lack of understanding that led to the slave trade is the same lack of understanding many people have about animals today. When slaves were brought over from Africa, many people believed they were not humans, that they didn't have feelings. Many people believe that primates and other animals don't have feelings, too, but they do.
Jane GoodallVeganism can resurrect Eden and create heaven on Earth. We can have a place where humans view animals in awe, and animals view humans with a curious aloofness.
Gary YourofskyMen are having sex with animals and we wonder why the animals attack us. And I'll tell you why: it's cuz of that one sick man, and it's up to me and a half-mexican to stop him.
Dave AttellFeeding plants to animals then eating the animals is like filtering water through a sewer then drinking it.
Bruce FriedrichOur revenge is to live. We may be hunted like animals but we will not become animals. We have all chosen this - to live free, like human beings, for as long as we can. Each day of freedom is a victory. And if we die trying to live, at least we die like human beings.
Tuvia BielskiCompassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
Arthur SchopenhauerBut complex animals had obtained their adaptive flexibility at some cost--they had traded one dependency for another. It was no longer necessary to change their bodies to adapt, because now their adaptation was behavior, socially determined. That behavior required learning. In a sense, among higher animals adaptive fitness was no longer transmitted to the next generation by DNA at all. It was now carried by teaching.
Michael CrichtonPeople are the only animals that drink the milk of the mother of another species. All other animals stop drinking milk altogether after weaning. It is unnatural for a dog to nurse from a mother giraffe; it is just as unnatural for a human being to drink the milk of a cow.
Michael KlaperAfter I saw how badly animals were treated to en up in our plates, how bad it was for our health and for the environment, I decided to stop this nonsense and educate others. After all, animals canโt talk and they need people that have notoriety like me to be their voices.
Georges LaraqueI see myself as the God who will protect all of the animals that have no other way of voicing themselves. I am God, I see that, and I accept who I have become with open arms. All along I had no idea that those who will come to protect the animals and restore the balance won't be a God on a cloud, but us, this being, the being that I am!
Timothy TreadwellAmusement 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 MeyerI love living with animals. And my children love animals. I love walking around and being with the horses. But the deer? They're naughty.
Stephanie SeymourAnimal abuse is rampant in the U.S., right under everyone's eyes, for the entertainment of the public. The brutal confinement and pain of training methods of wild animals in the circus, the aquatic and theatrical shows, leads to retaliation by the animals. Eventually they find the right time to strike out, and they will.
Tippi HedrenThe animal liberation movement is saying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding physical pain as an example, for it is an interest that humans clearly share with other animals - those interests are to be counted equally, with no automatic discount just because one of the beings is not human.
Peter SingerConfining marine animals to tanks and separating them from their families and their natural surroundings, just so people can watch them swim in endless circles, teaches us far more about humans than it does about animals - and the lesson is not a flattering one.
Pamela AndersonHumans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.
Jonathan Safran FoerI was so sad from losing two of my dogs and my mother. I had this vision of all these animals sitting behind bars. They had no control and were scared. That's why I got into fostering and adopting animals out.
Linda BlairThe newspapers do little better. Their coverage of nonhuman animals is dominated by "human interest" events like the birth of a baby gorilla at the zoo, or by threats to endangered species; but developments in farming techniques that deprive millions of animals of freedom of movement go unreported.
Peter SingerIt may be thought justifiable to require tests on animals of potentially life-saving drugs, but the same kinds of tests are used for products like cosmetics, food coloring, and floor polishes. Should thousands of animals suffer so that a new kind of lipstick or floor wax can be put on the market? Don't we already have an excess of most of these products? Who benefits from their introduction, except the companies that hope to profit from them?
Peter SingerThere is this really intimate connection that people have with the animals they're going to eat. A lot of people who eat meat say "I would never kill my own animals." Well, that means someone else is doing it for you, ultimately. This is the modern attitude that we have: Somebody else will do that for me. And to me, it just seemed wrong. I wanted to be part of the process of what it meant to eat meat. I wanted to be responsible.
Novella CarpenterA wealth of knowledge is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals, knowing that much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. Animals are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.
Suzy KassemLearning about factory farms and their horrendous treatment of animals is what made me become vegetarian in the first place. I also support the education of the public on adopting pets from animal shelters or saving homeless animals off the street in lieu of buying them from pet shops.
Laura MennellIt is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.
Blaise PascalWe are not in the home finding business, although it is certainly true that we do find homes from time to time for the kind of animals people are looking for. Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death to animals who no one wants.
Ingrid NewkirkWe have never understood why men mount the heads of animals and hang them up to look down on their conquerers. Possibly it feels good to these men to feel superior to animals, but does it not seem that if they were sure of it they would not have to prove it? Often a man who is afraid must constantly demonstrate his courage and, in the case of the hunter, must keep a tangible record of his courage.
John SteinbeckWith savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Charles DarwinI like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.
David AttenboroughThere is no difference between sitting around the pit watching dogs fight and sitting around a summer barbecue roasting the corpses of tortured animals or enjoying the dairy or eggs from tortured animals.
Gary L. FrancioneFor centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels-at the very least with the tongues of angels-they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes.
Joy WilliamsWe donโt like to think of ourselves as preyโit is a lessening thoughtโbut the truth is that in our arrogance and so-called knowledge we forget that we are not unique. We are part of nature as much as other animals, and some animalsโsharks, fever-bearing mosquitoes, wolves and bear, to name but a fewโperceive us as a food source, a meat supply, and simply did not get the memo about how humans are superior. It can be shocking, humbling, painful, very edifying and sometimes downright fatal to run into such an animal.
Gary PaulsenSo then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for Peace on Earth.
David C. CoatesIn their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults. They frolic with animals, caress them, share with them feelings neither has words for. Have they ever stroked any adult with the love they bestow on a cat? Hugged any grownup with the ecstasy they feel when clasping a puppy?
Jessamyn WestI respect animals. I have more sympathy for an injured or dead animal than I do for an injured or dead human being, because human beings participate and cooperate in their own undoing. Animals are completely innocent. There are no innocent human beings.
George CarlinWe know from the truths of evolution and ecology that we are all related and interdependent. Anthropomorphism (crediting animals with human emotions and traits) is, however, outdated. Rather we know that we are like animals.
Michael FoxMy main message to folks who love animals is that you can do something every day to help them. Even if you have no money or time, per se, you can find ways to contribute on any level: sharing shelter animals on social media, donating old blankets or towels to a local shelter, starting a petition online for an animal cause.
Alison EastwoodIt is a sobering thought that animals could do without man, yet man would find it almost impossible to do without animals.
Ruth HarrisonI got into animals by drawing hair follicles. I liked drawing hair, and from that I got into feathers and fur, then into images of animals. The patterning is the same, but the proportions of the body change from one animal to the next. A lot of it is just geometry and consciousness.
Kiki SmithOutside openings to attics, crawl spaces and similar locations should be sealed off so rats and squirrels cant get into houses, garages or other structures. Pet owners should make an extra effort to keep their domestic animals free of fleas and avoid leaving out pet food where it can attract wild animals.
Frank HallThe way animals are carted around reminds me of the slavery of my people... The slavery of animals has to be ended too.
Benjamin ZephaniahI'm stoned on my music. I'm intoxicated by my joyful calendar between the tours, and the hunting, and the charity work, and the family time, and just my lifestyle living on a ranch in Texas and back when I lived on my ranch in Michigan. It's the epitome of individual independence, self-sufficiency, hands-on, earthly celebration and we tour every summer like complete animals.
Ted Nugent