Quotes about animals

„Instinct reveals itself as self-concentrating, self-edifying it is limitation. Intuition produces self-denial, self-destruction； it is expansion. Culture can develop both. If it develops instinct, animal nature appears. Then culture destroys the intuitive capacity which men have even found in a primitive state.“

—  Piet Mondrian Peintre Néerlandais 1872 - 1944

Source: 1940's, A New Realism', 1943-1945, p. 17

„.. When an individual, e. g. higher forms of animals, thinks, it is always for his own advantage whether the resulting action or expression is favorable or not to the onlookers or observers.“

—  Isidro A. T. Savillo Filipino biologist 1959

The Overpowering Influence of the Environment to Gene Expression, Biologybrowser.org, 2002 http://biologybrowser.org/node/1154589,

„The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.“

—  Glen Duncan, book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

„From my reading of Gandhi I had learned how some people in India regard eating cow as unspeakably repulsive. I realized I felt the same way about cats and dogs: I could never eat them. Were cows so different from cats and dogs that there were two moral standards, one that applies to cows, another that applies to cats and dogs? Were pigs so different? Were any of the animals I ate so different?“

—  Tom Regan, book Empty Cages

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 2

„If exposure of body is modernism, then animals are more modern than humans.“

—  Zakir Naik Islamic televangelist 1965

Zakir Naik https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7133146.Zakir_Naik

„I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.“

—  Brigitte Bardot French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist 1934

„Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death.“

—  Milan Kundera, book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

„I'm very proud [to be part Italian] … Although I don't eat a lot of Italian things, because I'm vegan. … I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding. But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-round happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know – veggies, fruit and salad – then when I get home I'll have something else.“

—  Ariana Grande American singer-songwriter 1993

"Ariana Grande: "I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding"" https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/ariana-grande-i-love-animals-4754625, interview with the Mirror (5 December 2014)

„Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings.“

—  Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

" An Interview with Jane Goodall https://web.archive.org/web/20100920074838/http://www.idausa.org:80/essays/goodallinterview.html", In Defense of Animals (date unknown)
Context: Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings. They don't want to admit that they might have minds and personalities because that would make it quite difficult for them to do what they do; so we find that within the lab communities there is a very strong resistance among the researchers to admitting that animals have minds, personalities and feelings.

„Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs— and the journey to get there— before finally leaving their miserable world, only too often after a painful death.“

—  Jane Goodall British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist 1934

The Ten Trusts (2003), p. xv

„No domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it.“

—  Karen Blixen, book Out of Africa

Source: Out of Africa

„We all share the guilt. We went along with everything, and we half-took the Nazis seriously instead of saying "to hell with you and your stupid nonsense". I misled my soldiers into believing this rubbish. I feel utterly ashamed of myself. Perhaps we bear even more guilt than these uneducated animals.“

—  Dietrich von Choltitz German general 1894 - 1966

Quoted in History Channel 5-part series "The Wehrmacht" in the episode "The Crimes".

„I became a vegetarian because I felt really bad for the animals and I love them a lot. Animals are very sweet, and I don't think that they deserve to be tortured.“

—  Mckenna Grace American child actress 2006

“Young Actors Visit a Rescued Animal Sanctuary,” video interview with PETA Kids (14 November 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jq4n3Pnku0.

„“What were they saying?” Daly asked.
“They disapprove of your profession,” Doro told him.
“Heathen savages,” Daly muttered. “They’re like animals. They’re all cannibals.”
“These aren’t,” Doro said, “though some of the their neighbors are.”
“All of them,” Daly insisted. “Just give them the chance.”
Doro smiled. “Well, no doubt the missionaries will reach them eventually and teach them to practice only symbolic cannibalism.”
Daly jumped. He considered himself a pious man in spite of his work. “You shouldn’t say such things,” he whispered. “Not even you are beyond the reach of God.”
“Spare me your mythology,” Doro said, “and your righteous indignation.” Daly had been Doro’s man too long to be pampered in such matters. “At least we cannibals are honest about what we do,” Doro continued. “We don’t pretend as your slavers do to be acting for the benefit of our victims’ souls. We don’t tell ourselves we’ve caught them to teach them civilized religion.”“

—  Octavia E. Butler, Wild Seed

Source: Wild Seed (1980), Chapter 3 (p. 42)

„I've had an animal all my life, I wouldnt know myself without one!)“

—  Ben Kowalewicz musician 1975

From "The Diary of Billy Talent":

„The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can't have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I'd rather not be in a cage. I'd rather be dead. And it's real simple. And I think it's not that uncommon.“

—  Angelina Jolie American actress, film director, and screenwriter 1975

„Oh! Women can never forgive me. They hate me, they can feel that I ‘m disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the states of animals cleaning themselves… …I'm sure of it; they see me as the enemy. Fortunately, since if they did like me, that would be the end of me.“

—  Edgar Degas French artist 1834 - 1917

In Degas by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, ed. Richard Kendall 2000, p. 299
quotes, undated

„Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind“

—  Charles Manson American criminal and musician 1934 - 2017

„If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.“

—  James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small

Source: All Creatures Great and Small