“Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”

Source: Mr Gilfil's Love Story

Last update Sept. 4, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms." by George Eliot?

George Eliot300

English novelist, journalist and translator 1819–1880

Related quotes

“What I had learned about human rights proved to be directly relevant to my thinking about animal rights. Whether any animals have rights depends on the true answer to one question: Are any animals subjects-of-a-life? This is the question that needs to be asked about animals because this is the question we need to ask about us.”

Tom Regan book Empty Cages

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 4

“By and large, by asking the question "what use is it?" you are asking the animal to justify its existence without having justified your own.”

Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter

Two in the Bush (1966)
Context: The attitude of the average person to the world they live in is completely selfish. When I take people round to see my animals, one of the first questions they ask (unless the animal is cute and appealing) is, "what use is it?" by which they mean, "what use is it to them?" To this one can reply "What use is the Acropolis?" Does a creature have to be of direct material use to mankind in order to exist? By and large, by asking the question "what use is it?" you are asking the animal to justify its existence without having justified your own.

“The error in depicting critics of animal experiments as anti-science becomes clear when one begins to question the extent to which the purported scientific aims of these experiments are actually accomplished. For then it turns out that the experiments and not their critics are unscientific.”

Deborah Mayo American philosopher

Source: Against a Scientific Justification of Animal Experiments, p. 340

“A woman can only become a man’s friend in three stages: first, she’s an agreeable acquaintance, then a mistress, and only after that a friend.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Act II
Uncle Vanya (1897)

“To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Kevin Strom, "All America Must Know the Terror That is Upon Us" http://www.amfirstbooks.com/IntroPages/ToolBarTopics/Articles/Featured_Authors/strom,_kevin/kevin_strom_works/Kevin_Strom_1991-1994/Kevin_A._Strom_19930814-ADV_All_America_Must_Know_the_Terror_That_Is_Upon_Us.html (1993) <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."