image provider

Animal Rights Quotes


Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

Man, do not exalt yourself above the animals, they are without sin, while you defile the earth by your appearance on it.

~ Fëdor Dostoevsky (1821-11-11 1881-02-09 age:59)The Brothers Karamazov

Animal Testing

Many household products and cosmetics companies still pump their products into animals’ stomachs, rub them onto their skin, squirt them into their eyes, or force animals to inhale them as aerosol sprays. Charities such as the March of Dimes use donations from private citizens to fund experiments on animals and the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) requires all drugs to be tested on animals. However, animals differ from humans significantly, making animal drug tests unreliable and dangerous. New research methods, such as computer models, cell cultures and human studies are more accurate, less expensive and much more humane.

~ PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) PETA

100,000 Times the Extinction Rate

For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century.… We are now heaving more than a thousand different species of animals and plants off the planet every year.

~ Douglas Adams (1952-03-11 2001-05-11 age:49), author of Last Chance to See

Animal Testing

I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.

~ Anonymous

Slaughter OK By God

By the divine providence [animals] are intended for man’s use… Hence it is not wrong for man to make use of them, either by killing or in any other way whatsoever.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 1274-03-07 age:48)

Right to Exterminate

It’s a moral question about whether we have the right to exterminate species.

~ Sir David Attenborough (1926-05-08 age:91)

Devilfish

They used to call grey whales devilfish because would smash whaling boats to protect their young.

~ A Tour Boat Operator in Baja

This is so like the way the Americans deliberately erroneously refer to Afghans and Iraqis as terrorists when they fight back killing American soldiers to protect their young from the illegal American invasion.

Bob Barker Signoff

Bob Barker reminding you: help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered. Goodbye, everybody!

~ Bob Barker (1923-12-12 age:94)

Repeated at the end of every Price Is Right show.

Can They Suffer?

The question is not, Can they [animals] reason? nor, Can they talk? but rather, Can they suffer?

~ Jeremy Bentham (1748-02-05 1832-06-06 age:84)

Vivisection

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 pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.

~ Robert Browning (1812-05-07 1889-12-12 age:77)

Friendly to Food

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

~ Samuel Butler (1835-12-04 1902-06-18 age:66)

How Cruelty Spreads

One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the bystanders cruel.

~ Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786-04-07 1845-02-19 age:58)

Angling

The art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest and the stupidest of pretended sports.

~ Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-01-22 1824-04-19 age:36)

Recognising Cruelty

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 (1907-05-27 1964-04-14 age:56)

Takeover

Takeover consists in diverting some fraction of the earth’s life-supporting capacity from supporting other kinds of life to supporting our kind. Our pre-Sapiens ancestors, with their simple stone tools and fire, took over for human use, organic materials that would otherwise have been consumed by insects, carnivores or bacteria. From about 10,000 years ago, our earliest horticulturalist ancestors began take over land upon which to grow crops for human consumption. That land would otherwise have supported trees, shrubs or wild grasses and all the animals dependent thereon — but fewer humans. As the expanding generations replaced each other, Homo sapiens took over more and more of the surface of this planet, essentially at the expense of its other inhabitants.

~ William R. Catton Jr. (1926-01-15 age:92), Overshoot 1980

From the point of view of the other species on earth, we humans are as welcome as Viking invaders or pancreas cancer.

Man the Destroyer

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild lifes become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.

~ Anton Chekhov (1860-01-29 1904-07-15 age:44)

The Choice

You are either an activist or an inactivist.

~ The Cove 2009 A documentary about Japan’s secret atrocities against dolphins.

Never Touch Meat Again

If any kid realized what was involved in factory farming, they would never touch meat again. I was so moved by the intelligence, sense of fun and personality of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian.

~ James Cromwell (1940-01-27 age:78)

Animal Slaves

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.

~ Charles Darwin (1809-02-12 1882-04-19 age:73)

Man Not So Different

There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties… The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.

~ Charles Darwin (1809-02-12 1882-04-19 age:73)

Attractive Heads

I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.

~ Ellen DeGeneres (1958-01-26 age:60)

Stunning

Most animals [killed] in Britain are stunned. Stunned is defined as producing unconsciousness of the head with carbon dioxide, gas, electrical shock… all of them aiming to allow the animal to bleed out while it is still alive. An animal that is dead before it has bled out will be unsuitable for marketing.

~ Bailhere’s Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary

Suffering of Other Species

At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society.

~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-05-22 1930-07-07 age:71)

Non-Violence

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 Alva Edison (1847-02-11 1931-10-18 age:84)

A Righteous Life

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.

~ Albert Einstein (1879-03-14 1955-04-18 age:76)

Cancer of Nature

Humanity is the cancer of nature.

~ Dave Foreman (1947 age:70) founder of Earth First

Dolphins are Higher Order Animals

We see that dolphins exhibit sophisticated characteristics previously attributed only to humans and possibly to higher primates. We know that dolphins understand syntax, semantics and word order and are capable of mirror-self-recognition, comprehension of pointing gestures and understanding reference to body parts.

~ Dr. Kathleen M. Dudzinski and Dr. Toni Frohoff (1967 age:50) Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication

Killing for Sport

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 Anthony Froude (1818-04-23 1894-10-20 age:76) 1886.

This is not quite true. Orcas will sometimes play with a seal tossing it about like a football. Wolves will sometimes kill more than they can consume. Cats will sometimes play with a mouse letting it escape then catching it again.

Animals Deserve Equal Protection

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869-10-02 1948-01-30 age:78)

Hunting is Unsporting

Deer hunting would be fine sport, if only the deer had guns.

~ William S. Gilbert (1836-11-18 1911-05-29 age:74) of Gilbert and Sullivan

Blocks to Animal Rights

Anyone who tries to improve the lives of animals invariably comes in for criticism from those who believe such efforts are misplaced in a world of suffering humanity.

~ Jane Goodall (1934-04-03 age:84)

Killing for Sport

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 in such acts of brutality.

~ Tenzin Gyatso (1935-07-06 age:82) the fourteenth Dalai Lama

Alien Human Herders

Suppose that tomorrow 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 they have the right to treat you as you treat the animals you breed, keep and kill for food?

~ John Harris (1946 age:71)

Do Fish Have Dreams?

Do fish have dreams?

~ Werner Herzog (1942-09-05 age:75)

Not A Conservationist

I am not basically a conservationist. When the last great whale is slaughtered, as it surely will be, the whales’ suffering will be over. This is not the whales’ loss, but man’s. I am not concerned about the wiping out of a species — this is man’s folly — I have only one concern, the suffering which we deliberately inflict upon animals whilst they live.

~ Clive Hollands (1929 age:88)

Devil Religion

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

~ William Ralph Inge (1860-06-06 1954-02-26 age:93) Outspoken Essays

Religious Purpose Of Animals

Animals… are there merely as a means to an end. That end is man.

~ Immanuel Kant (1724-04-22 1804-02-12 age:79)

This is the attitude of the modern factory farmer or medical research scientist. Nothing matters but the convenience of man. Genesis encouraged this view.

Torture For Food

Like other Americans, I’ve reconciled myself to the idea that an animal’s life has been sacrificed to bring me a meal of pork or chicken. However, industrial meat production — which subjects animals to a life of torture — has escalated the karmic costs beyond reconciliation.

~ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (1954-01-17 age:64)

Fear Men

Men! The only animal in the world to fear.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

Whales Weep Not

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!
And they rock and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages
on the depths of the seven seas,
and through the salt they reel with drunk delight
and in the tropics tremble they with love
and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods.
Then the great bull lies up against his bride
in the blue deep bed of the sea,
as mountain pressing on mountain, in the zest of life:
and out of the inward roaring of the inner red ocean of whale-blood
the long tip reaches strong, intense, like the maelstrom-tip and comes to rest
in the clasp and the soft, wild clutch of a she-whale’s fathomless body.

And over the bridge of the whale’s strong phallus, linking the wonder of whales
the burning archangels under the sea keep passing, back and forth,
keep passing, archangels of bliss
from him to her, from her to him, great Cherubim
that wait on whales in mid-ocean, suspended in the waves of the sea
great heaven of whales in the waters, old hierarchies.

And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-tender young
and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of the beginning and the end.
And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring
when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood
and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat
encircling their huddled monsters of love.
And all this happens in the sea, in the salt
where God is also love, but without words:
and Aphrodite is the wife of whales
most happy, happy she!

and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin
she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea
she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males
and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.

~ David Herbert Lawrence (1885-09-11 1930-03-02 age:44)

Pain vs Extinction

An individual animal doesn’t care if its species is facing extinction — it cares if it is feeling pain.

~ Ronnie Lee (1951 age:66)

Fun To Kill

When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning?

~ Marv Levy

Cutting Up Criminals

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

~ C.S. Lewis (1898-11-29 1963-11-22 age:64)

Judge By Treatment of Animals

I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-02-12 1865-04-15 age:56)

Amputating Healthy Babies

The idea that we would operate and amputate healthy tissue from a baby, from an unconsenting minor, to supposedly prevent some hypothetical disease, goes against the Hippocratic oath.

~ James Loewen (1954-03-26 age:64) photographer National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource

Amputation Without Consent

Nature provides an infant with a foreskin for protection and pleasure. The tiny foreskin of a baby boy becomes a significant mobile sheath of highly erogenous skin on an adult man. Nowhere else on his body is the skin so mobile and sensate. Infant circumcision removes this, without consent from the patient and in its place leaves a scar.

~ James Loewen (1954-03-26 age:64) photographer National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource

Purpose of Animal Testing

Results from animal tests are not transferable between species and therefore cannot guarantee product safety for humans… In reality these tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather they are used to protect corporations from legal liability.

~ Herbert Gundersheimer, M.D.

Beef Have Killed More Than Wars

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of real food for real people, you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.

~ Neal D. Barnard, M.D. (1946 age:71)

How Criminals Start Out

Out of 135 criminals, including robbers and rapists, 118 admitted that when they were children they burned, hanged and stabbed domestic animals.

~ Ogonyok Magazine 1979.

Consider George W. Bush and his childhood tortures of frogs.

Catch 22 of Animal Experimentation

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 OK to experiment on animals and the answer is: Because the animals are not like us. Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.

~ Professor Charles R. Magel (1920 age:97)

Cruelty

Cruelty has cursed the human family for countless ages. It is almost impossible for one to be cruel to animals and kind to humans. If children are permitted to be cruel to their pets and other animals, they easily learn to get the same pleasure from the misery of fellow-humans. Such tendencies can easily lead to crime.

~ Frederic A. McGrand (1895-07-05 1988-09-03 age:93)

Protect Children ⇒ Protect Animals

The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind — the lower animals.

~ John Stuart Mill (1806-05-20 1873-05-08 age:66)

Universality of Pain

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 (1949-06-11 age:68)

Man in the Enemy

Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving and the rest he keeps for himself.

~ George Orwell (1903-06-25 1950-01-21 age:46) Animal Farm

Caring for Domestic Animals

In a perfect world, animals would be free to live their lives to the fullest: raising their young, enjoying their native environments and following their natural instincts. However, domesticated dogs and cats cannot survive free in our concrete jungles, so we must take as good care of them as possible. People with the time, money, love and patience to make a lifetime commitment to an animal can make an enormous difference by adopting from shelters or rescuing animals from a perilous life on the street. But it is also important to stop manufacturing pets, thereby perpetuating a class of animals forced to rely on humans to survive.

~ PETA Companion Animals: Pets or Prisoners?

Land ’O Lakes

Land ’O Lakes mistreats cows. Cows were electro-shocked, kicked and left to die slowly and painfully for days without veterinary care.

~ PETA click to watch

Urban Wildlife

Because of the urban sprawl crisis in the United States, wild animals are forced to live in closer proximity with humans. With few alternatives available, they have no choice but to enter our homes, parks and even downtown areas in search of food and shelter. When they do, homeowners, communities, municipalities and state agencies often hire nuisance wildlife control operators or U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services to use cruel, archaic methods, such as injurious traps and poisons, to resolve perceived conflicts with these animals. Ducks and geese are secretly shot, gassed and even bludgeoned to death with baseball bats. Beavers are caught and drowned in body-gripping traps or are sealed up alive in their own homes. Animals of all kinds are simply left to die from injuries or starvation.

~ PETA

We humans don’t even give token acknowledgement to the fact that we pushed these animals off their lands. We are the thieves and trespassers, not they.

Animal Experiments

The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefited from the treatment.

~ James Randi (1928-08-07 age:89)

Chickens are not Animals?

Cockfighting was illegal in Oklahoma until 1963, when a judge ruled that chickens are not animals and therefore unprotected by anticruelty laws.

~ U.S. News & World Report 1999-12-06

A judge should realise he is incompetent in this matter and consult a zoologist.

Hunting ≠ Sport

Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.

~ Paul Rodriguez (1955-01-19 age:63)

Cruelty To Animals

He’s a psychopath. Cruelty to animals is part of that.

~ David Rossi played by Joe Mantegna (1947-11-13 age:70) on Criminal Minds

Dogs are Getting Bigger

Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.

~ Leo Rosten (1908-04-11 1997-02-19 age:88)

Pretending Animals Feel No Pain

Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and animals is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.

~ Carl Sagan (1934-11-09 1996-12-20 age:62) Carl Sagan click to watch

Extinction

The extinction of an animal is an insult to God.

~ Jewish saying

Presumption of No Right

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

~ Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-02-22 1860-09-21 age:72)

Avoiding Looking at Suffering

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

~ Albert Schweitzer (1875-01-14 1965-09-04 age:90)

Thoughtless Cruelty

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come.

~ Albert Schweitzer (1875-01-14 1965-09-04 age:90)

Unconscious Cruelty

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 recognise it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.

~ Albert Schweitzer (1875-01-14 1965-09-04 age:90) The Philosophy of Civilization

We Belong to the Earth

The earth does not belong to us.
We belong to the earth.

~ Chief Seattle (1786 1866-06-07 age:79) 1834

Obligation to Stop Cruelty

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

~ Anna Sewell (1820-03-30 1878-04-25 age:58)

Eating Friends

Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Medical Atrocities

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Pretence Of Reluctance

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse and pretence of reluctance.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Transitivity

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

~ George Bernard Shaw (1856-07-26 1950-11-02 age:94)

Men Are Nazis When It Comes To Animals

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.

~ Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-11-21 1991-07-24 age:86)

With Violence There Is No Justice

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

~ Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-11-21 1991-07-24 age:86)

Bible Approves Animal Cruelty

Paul scornfully rejected the thought that God might care about the welfare of oxen and the incident of the Gadarene swine, in which Jesus is described as sending devils into a herd of pigs and making them drown themselves in the sea, is explained by Augustine as intended to teach us that we have no duties toward animals. This interpretation was accepted by Thomas Aquinas, who stated that the only possible objection to cruelty to animals was that it might lead to cruelty to humans — according to Aquinas there was nothing wrong in itself with making animals suffer. This became the official view of the Roman Catholic Church to such good — or bad — effect that as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, Pope Pius IX refused permission for the founding of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Rome, on the ground that to grant permission would imply that human beings have duties to the lower creatures.

~ Peter Singer (1946-07-06 age:71)

Circle of Protection

In an earlier stage of our development, most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics.

~ Peter Singer (1946-07-06 age:71)

Equality

Fortunately the case for upholding the equality of human beings does not depend on equality of intelligence, moral capacity, physical strength, or any other matters of fact of this kind. Equality is a moral ideal, not a simple assertion of fact. There is no logically compelling reason for assuming that a factual difference in ability between two people justifies any difference in the amount of consideration we give to satisfying their needs and interests. The principle of equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.

~ Peter Singer (1946-07-06 age:71)

So the fact that antelope cannot do calculus is no excuse to mistreat them or steal their habitat.

In Suffering We Are Equals

All the arguments to prove man’s superiority can not shatter this hard fact: In suffering, the animals are our equals.

~ Peter Singer (1946-07-06 age:71)

Suffering

All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.

~ Peter Singer (1946-07-06 age:71)

People Treat Fellows As They Treat Animals

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.

~ St Francis of Assisi (1181 1226-10-03 age:45)

Golden Rule

The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position.

~ Christine Stevens founder of the Animal Welfare Institute

Feeding on Babies

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-11-13 1894-12-03 age:44)

Screams

We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of fear and pain.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-11-13 1894-12-03 age:44)

The Bottom Line

The fact of the matter is that today, stuff-selling mega-corporations have a huge influence on our daily lives. And because of the competitive nature of our global economy, these corporations are generally only concerned with one thing — the bottom line. That is, maximising profit, regardless of the social or environmental costs.

~ Dr. David Suzuki (1936-03-24 age:82)

Tolerating Vivisection

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 (1828-09-09 1910-11-07 age:82)

Trump on Fishing

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 J. Trump (1946-06-14 age:71)

Dumb Animals

It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74)

Pleasure of Inflicting Pain

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.

~ Mark Twain (1835-11-30 1910-04-21 age:74) The Lowest Animal

Leonardo: Vegetarian

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.

~ Leonardo da Vinci (1452-04-15 1519-05-02 age:67)

Animal Machines Nutty

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines… It appears to me, besides, that [such people] can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.

~ Voltaire (1694-11-21 1778-05-30 age:83) [François Marie d’Arouet Voltaire] Traité sur la tolerance

Animals Exist For Themselves

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 (1944-02-09 age:74)

Blaming the Seals

North American cats eat more fish than all the world’s seals put together, yet we lay the blame on the seals for the declining fish stocks.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Conceited Naked Ape

We’re just a conceited naked ape, but in our minds we’re some divine legend and we see ourselves as some sort of god, seeing we can decide what will live and what will die, what will be saved and what will be destroyed, but honestly we’re just a bunch of primates out of control.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Economics of Whale Watching

Back in 1980, whale watching surpassed whaling as an industry. Now it’s worth about four times as much. Whale watching provides far, far more jobs to people than whaling ever did. Whale watching has become an ally in the fight to end whaling.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

For the Whales

We don’t give a damn what you or anybody else on this planet thinks. We didn’t sink those ships for you. We did it for the whales.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

I Believe in Trees

As for myself, I do not believe in loggers, I believe in trees. I do not believe in fishermen, I believe in fish. I do not believe in miners, I believe in the rocks beneath my feet. I do not believe in pie in the sky spirituality, I believe in rainbows, rivers, mountains and moss. I do not believe in environmentalists, I believe in the environment. I am a proud traitor to my species in alliance with my mother the Earth in opposition to those who would destroy her, those parasites who believe the Earth is here to serve human interests.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Mass Whale Hunt

This isn’t a hunt that’s going to kill just four or five gray whales. The repercussions of this will have an effect on tens of thousands of whales that will be killed by the Japanese and Norwegians.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

No Whales Will Be Killed

I can assure you no whales are going to be killed today.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Rotting Carcasses

Unlike aboriginal hunters, commercial seal hunters leave the carcasses on the ice to rot.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Starving Puffins

Atlantic puffins starve to death so that Danish chickens can feast on their fish.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Under 1 Billion

We need to radically and intelligently reduce human population to fewer than one billion. We need to eliminate nationalism and tribalism and become Earthlings. And as Earthlings, we need to recognise that all the other species that live on this planet are also fellow citizens and also Earthlings. This is a planet of incredible diversity of life-forms; it is not a planet of one species as many of us believe.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Whale Murder

They harpooned a female in the head. She screamed and it’s a sound like a woman screaming and then this huge male slapped his tail on the water and hurled himself at the Soviet ship. They harpooned him and he fell back and swam right at us and reared up out of the water. We thought, This is it, he’s going to slam down on us, it’s all over. But he didn’t. He pulled back at the last moment and spared our lives and as he slid back into the water we saw his eye, which was the size of a dinner plate and in that whale’s eye I saw recognition, compassion, empathy, an understanding. Something passed between us and it changed my life for ever.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Where the Tuna Goes

Pigs eat more tuna than all the planet’s sharks combined.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

Wimpy Greenpeace

They [Greenpeace] forgot their original purpose and turned into a big, rich bureaucracy, more interested in fund-raising than in saving lives, so I got fed up and quit… they’re a bunch of wimps.

~ Captain Paul Watson (1950-12-02 age:67)

This page is posted
on the web at:

http://mindprod.com/quote/animalrights.html

Optional Replicator mirror
of mindprod.com
on local hard disk J:

J:\mindprod\quote\animalrights.html
Canadian Mind Products
Please the feedback from other visitors, or your own feedback about the site.
Contact Roedy. Please feel free to link to this page without explicit permission.

IP:[65.110.21.43]
Your face IP:[18.208.203.36]
You are visitor number