Many
years ago, I was in a Broadway show and I had to wear
a fox fur around my shoulders. One day my hand touched
one of the fox's legs. It seemed to be in two pieces.
Then it dawned on me.... her leg had probally been
snapped in two by the steel trap that had caught it.
-- Bea Arthur
Life
is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is
no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea
of difference is a human conception for man's own
advantage.
-- Sri Aurobindo
The
question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they
talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?"
~Jeremy Bentham
I
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 Brophy
May
all that have life be delivered from suffering.
-- Buddha
When
a man has pity on all living creatures then only is
he noble.
--Buddha (563? - 483? B.C.)
 |
Until
we have the courage to recognize cruelty for
what it is--whether its victim is human or animal--we
cannot expect things to be much better in this
world... We cannot have peace among men whose
hearts delight in killing any living creature.
By every act that glorifies or even tolerates
such moronic delight in killing we set back
the progress of humanity.
-- Rachel
Carson |
Killing
animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure,
and for hides and furs is a phenomena which
is at once disgusting and distressing. There
is no justification in indulging is such acts
of brutality.
- The
Dalai Lama |
|
The
love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute
of man.
-- Charles Darwin
There
is no fundamental difference between man and the higher
animals in their mental faculties... The lower animals,
like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness,
and misery.
-- Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Behind
every beautiful fur, there is a story. It is a bloody,
barbaric story. -Mary Tyler Moore Killing an animal
to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and
we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when
she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her
back. Then she's truly beautiful.
-- Doris Day
"Non-violence
leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of
all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living
beings, we are still savages."
-- Thomas Edison, inventor
"If a man aspires towards a righteous life,
his first act of abstinence is from injury to
animals."
-- Albert
Einstein |
|
A
human being is a part of the whole, called by us the
'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences
himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate
from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his
consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for
us, restricting us to our personal desires and to
affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task
must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able
to achieve this completely, but the striving for such
achievement is in itself a part of the liberation
and a foundation for inner security.
-- Albert
Einstein
It's
sad. That's a living creature. We don't have the right
to take their life away for fashion.
-- Carmen Electra
Zoos
are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures -
of how animals once were in their natural habitat.
If the right policies toward nature were pursued,
we would need no zoos at all.
~Michael Fox
 |
Not
to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is
our first duty to them, but to stop there is
not enough. We have a higher mission--to be
of service to them whenever they require it...
If you have men who will exclude any of God's
creatures from the shelter of compassion and
pity, you will have men who will deal likewise
with their fellow men.
-- Saint
Francis of Assisi |
Wild
animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one
to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures
is amusing in itself.
-- James A. Froude (1818-1894)
The
greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi |
|
It
ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the
blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn
will not practice elementary compassion towards our
fellow creatures.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
I
abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific
discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as
of no consequence.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
 |
As
custodians of the planet it is our responsibility
to deal with all species with kindness, love
and compassion. That these animals suffer through
human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please
help to stop this madness.
-- Richard
Gere |
People
get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous.
It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.
-- Richard
Gere
In
fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered
to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind
to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the
cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money
are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise
intelligent people.
-- Ruth Harrison, author of Animal Machines
Ever
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 Harvey
We
can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
-- Immanuel Kant
Humanity's
true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of
its attitude toward those who are at tis mercy: animals.
And in this respect, human kind has suffered a fundamental
debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others
stem from it.
-- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
|
"I
am in favor of animal rights as well as human
rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
-- Abraham
Lincoln
|
 |
Ask
the experimenters why they experiment on animals,
and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us."
Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment
on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals
are not like us." Animal experimentation rests on
a logical contradiction.
~Charles R. Magel
All
beings seek for happiness; so let your compassion
extend itself to all.
--Mahavamsa
I
abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better,
it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through
vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not
have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty.
The whole thing is evil.
-- Charles Mayo (founder of the Mayo Clinic)
The
medical argument for animal testing doesn't
stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should
kill other species. We think we're so much better;
I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten
into submission every animal on the face of
the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever
battle is going on between the species. Couldn't
we be generous? I really do think it's time
to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them.
I think we've got to show that we're kind.
-- Paul
McCartney |
|
Cruelty
is one fashion statement we can all do without.
~Rue McClanahan
"Teaching
a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable
to the child, as it is to the caterpillar."
-- Bradley Miller
 |
There
are viable (and usually better) alternatives
to the use of animals for food, sport, clothing,
& experimentation. I beg you to discontinue
any actions that might cause or condone animal
torture, abuse, or destruction.
-- Moby |
If
you look at the course of western history you'll see
that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone.
A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights
were extended to property-owning white men. Then all
men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally
retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of
basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to
finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving
of basic rights. I define basic rights as this --the
ability to pursue life without having someone else's
will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers
of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness". By what criteria
can you justify denying basic rights to any living
thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ
someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected
to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion,
ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force
a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner?
If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products
on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit
actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible
in the extreme.I call upon you to be compassionate
and treat others as you want to be treated. If you
don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed
or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behavior
towards anyone, be they human or not.
-- Moby
A
good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a
good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty
to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human
being."
-- Prophet Mohammed
"When
it comes to having a central nervous system, and the
ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is
a pig is a dog is a boy."
-- Ingrid Newkirk
"To
a man whose mind is free there is something even more
intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the
sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least
admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who
causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals
are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow
of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would
be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable
crime."
-- Romain Rolland, author, Nobel Prize 1915
You
know, we all oppose animal cruelty. But sometimes
we forget that animals on farms suffer and feel pain
like all other animals. They, too, deserve to be protected
from harm and cruelty.
-- Charlotte Ross
Compassion
for animals is intimately connected with goodness
of character; and it may be confidently asserted that
he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
--Arthur Schopenhauer
 |
We
must fight against the spirit of unconscious
cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals
suffer as much as we do. True humanity does
not allow us to impose such sufferings on them.
It is our duty to make the whole world recognize
it. Until we extend our circle of compassion
to all living things, humanity will not find
peace.
-- Albert
Schweitzer |
The
thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter
how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a
halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing
torment and injury into the life of another, even
the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our
manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.
-- Albert
Schweitzer
It
is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule
when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered
foolish to suppose that black men were really human
beings and ought to be treated as such. What was once
foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it
is considered as exaggeration to proclaim constant
respect for every form of life as being the serious
demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming
when people will be amazed that the human race existed
so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury
to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is
in its unqualified form extended responsibility to
everything that has life.
-- Albert
Schweitzer
|
|
What
is man without the beasts? If all the beasts
were gone, man would die from a great loneliness
of the spirit. For whatever happens to the
beasts, soon happens to man. All things are
connected.
~ Chief
Seattle
|
|
"If
a group of beings from another planet were
to land on Earth -- beings who considered
themselves as superior to you as you feel
yourself to be to other animals -- would you
concede them the rights over you that you
assume over other animals?"
-- George
Bernard Shaw
"Atrocities
are not less atrocities when they occur in
laboratories and are called medical research."
-- George
Bernard Shaw
|
|
Animals
are being exploited in such an unbelievable way; it's
not acceptable. PETA is trying to get your attention,
and they're successful at it. ... If you talk to people
who grew up on a farm, they'll tell you that they
had an experience where they were taking care of a
cow, and one day their parents took it away and killed
it. It's a torturous experience for them, and that's
when they became hard. People are taught to be grown-up
or whatever, and that's dumb. That bond they had with
that cow or chicken was real.
-- Alicia Silverstone
I
know what it feels like to be hurt,and I don't want
to cause that pain to any other person or creature.
But somehow, in society, we numb ourselves in order
to make money or to feel better about ourselves, such
as with cosmetics or food. We say to ourselves, I'm
going to use this animal. I'm going to say it doesn't
have much worth so that I can allow myself to do these
cruel things. And that just isn't fair.
-- Alicia Silverstone
I
don't have any understanding of a human being who
doesn't respect the beauty of life and that goes for
all creatures that have thoughts,feelings and needs.
-- Alicia Silverstone
As
long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures
there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between
people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
-- Isaac Bashevis Singer
...it
is difficult to picture the great Creator conceiving
of a program of one creature (which He has made) using
another living creature for purposes of experimentation.
There must be other, less cruel ways of obtaining
knowledge.
--Adlai Stevenson
Animals
give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a
camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight.
And after I've finished "shooting," my unharmed victims
are still around for others to enjoy. I have developed
a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow
living creatures with certain rights that should not
be violated any more than those of humans.
~Jimmy Stewart
We
should remember in our dealings with animals
that they are a sacred trust to us from our
heavenly Father. They are dumb and cannot speak
for themselves.
-- Harriet
Beecher Stowe |
|
We
don't live the lives of Eskimos. We don't need to
kill animals for fashion.
-- Charlize Theron
 |
"As
long as there are slaughterhouses, there will
be battlefields."
-- Leo
Tolstoy
"What
I think about vivisection is that if people
admit that they have the right to take or
endanger the life of living beings for the
benefit of many, there will be no limit to
their cruelty."
-- Leo
Tolstoy
|
According
to the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,
fish have feelings too. Whenever my sons go fishing
they always tell me, "Dad it doesn't hurt a fish to
get hooked." Well I watch and I see and I believe
it's painful for the fish.
-- Donald Trump
I
am not interested to know whether vivisection
produces results that are profitable to the
human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts
upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my
enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient
justification of the enmity without looking
further.
-- Mark
Twain |
|
I
became very critical of zoos and circuses and keeping
animals in captivity. I wish it was against the law.
-- Christopher Walken
The
animals of the world exist for their own reasons.
They were not made for humans any more than
black people were made for white, or women created
for men.
~Alice
Walker |
|
There
can be no justification for causing suffering to animals
simply to serve man's pleasure or simply to enhance
man's lifestyle."
-- The Dean of York
