Favourite Quotes From Famous Individuals
Look deep into the eyes of any animal, and then for a moment, trade places, their life becomes as precious as yours and you become as vulnerable as them. Now smile if you believe all animals deserve our respect and our protection, for in a way, they are us, and we are them. Philip Ochoa, Board Member, ALL FOR ANIMALS
I have reached zero tolerance for the cruelty against our animal brothers. If we are to nurture our culture, let's begin with the animals who have been nothing but our beasts of burden for so long.-- Riki Rockett
- Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid. George Bernard Shaw
- 'We are all victims of the violence that animals suffer... their liberation is also our liberation.' George Bernard Shaw
- Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research. George Bernard Shaw (playwright, Nobel 1925)
'The more helpless the victim, the greater the crime!' Dr. Gerald Curtler
'Humans are the one species the world could do very well without.' George Schaller (Zoologist/Director for Science)
'Animals don't wear makeup, don't drink alcohol, don't drop bombs, don't smoke... because you do, why should they suffer???' Unknown
'To the truly ethical man, all of life is sacred, including forms of life that from the human point of view may seem lower than ours.' Albert Schweitzer
'But if by some miracle and all our struggle, the earth is spared, only justice to every living being will save humankind.' Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winner (Author The Color Purple)
'I am not willing to let the market-place determine the future of the animal kingdom.' Charlie Rose (Former Representative)
'I think I could always live with animals. The more you're around people, the more you love animals.' Walt Whitman
The wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. He is in front of it. Axel Munthe
- "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, author
- "I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection... I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretense of sparing me a twinge or two." Robert Browning (poet)
"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
"All the arguments to prove man's superiority can not shatter this hard fact: In suffering, the animals are our equals." Peter Singer - Animal Liberation
Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent. I can never accept inconsistency or injustice. Isaac Bashevis Singer
[Animals are] those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind. John Stuart Mill. 1868.
First it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. Now it is necessary to civilize man in relation to nature and the animals. Victor Hugo (1802-1885).
The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 BCE).
Compassion is a necessary outcome of social life. But compassion also means a considerable step in general intelligence and sensibility. It is the first step towards the development of higher moral sentiments. It is, in turn, a powerful factor of further evolution. P. Kropotkin (1842-1921).
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, Nobel Prize 1915
Mark Twain http://www.twainquotes.com/quotesatoz.html
"Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one--the solitary one--that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices--the most hateful. He is the only creature that has pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. Also--in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind." Mark Twain's Autobiography
"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the
only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is
not known to the higher animals."
"The Lowest Animal"
'A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.'
- 'If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man, but it would degrade the cat!'
- 'Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat. Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit, your dog would go to heaven and you would stay out!'
"I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every morning--knowing well that I shall find in it the usual depravities and basenesses and hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization, and cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do not despair." Letter to W. D. Howells, 4/2/1899
"Damn these human beings; if I had invented them I would go hide my head in a bag." Letter to W. D. Howells, 1899
In a book by Charles Darwin, Twain had written: "Can any
plausible excuse be furnished for the crime of creating the human race?"
The New York Times, "Hartford
Museum Purchases Barrels Full of Twain's Old Books," July 31, 1997
"It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating
itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions
impossible."
Mark Twain in "Eruption"
Letters from the Earth includes a selection titled Damned Human Race http://skeptically.org/logicalthreads/id14.html
'This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!' John Adams
Justice for animals is the social movement of our times and we must all participate to make it a reality. It’s long overdue. Carmina Gooch
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