Quotes about animals (3122 quotes, page 11)

“It's unmatched perfection. It's a taste, understanding of his strength, and weaknesses in a way. He was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Mikhail Baryshnikov in an interview http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/05/lklw.00.html on Larry King Live, CNN. 5 May 2002.

Way , Understanding , Perfection

“See how involved it gets? Clover, bees, nitrogen, escape speed, power, plant-animal balance, gas laws, compound interest laws, meteorology—a mathematical ecologist has to think of everything and think of it ahead of time. Ecology is explosive; what seems like a minor and harmless invasion can change the whole balance.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 12, “Bees and Zeroes” (p. 125)

Law , Mathematics , Thinking , Bee

“Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.”

Nalo Hopkinson (1960) Jamaican Canadian writer

Source: The New Moon's Arms (2007), Chapter 4 (p. 191)

Children

“Comparative anatomy, therefore, proves that man is naturally a frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and farinaceous vegetables.”

Sylvester Graham (1794–1851) United States reformer

Sylvester Graham's Lectures on the Science of Human Life https://books.google.it/books?id=nRwDAAAAQAAJ, condensed by T. Baker, Manchester: John Heywood, 1881, p. 76.

Nature

“Man lives, not directly or nakedly in nature like the animals, but within a mythological universe, a body of assumptions and beliefs developed from his existential concerns.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Introduction, p. xviii
"Quotes", The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (1982)

Nature , Universe

“Although we may not be able to mark the precise boundary beyond which organic beings do not appear, it is certain that in all geological epochs, subsequent, at least, to that of the primary rocks, animals and plants have existed in successive families; they have been created, have lived their day, and by the operation of physical causes, have perished; while new races have been called into being, and in their turn have ceased to be, in order to give room to other families, requiring, perhaps, a different climate, and a new order of things.”

Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) British scientist and obstetrician

Vol. 1
The Wonders of Geology (1839)

Family , Appearance , Success

“Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too.”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Preface
Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975)

“Supernatural agents are critical components of all religions but not of all ideologies. They are, in part, by-products of a naturally selected cognitive mechanism for detecting agents-such as predators, protectors, and prey-and for dealing rapidly and economically with stimulus situations involving people and animals. This innate releasing mechanism is trip-wired to attribute agency to virtually any action that mimics the stimulus conditions of natural agents: faces on clouds, voices in the wind, shadow figures, the intentions of cars or computers, and so on. Among natural agents, predators such as snakes are as likely to be candidates for deification as are protectors, such as parent-figures.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 15
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

People , Religion , Cars , Nature

“I don’t like animals. It’s a strange thing, I don’t like men and I don’t like animals. As for God, he is beginning to disgust me.”

Samuel Beckett book Molloy

Molloy (1951)

Men , God

“Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI

Parting

“Between animal and human medicine, there is no dividing line—nor should there be.”

Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) German doctor, anthropologist, public health activist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician

1856 (Quoted in: Klauder JV: Interrelations of human and veterinary medicine. N Engl J Med 1958, 258:170-177).

“We are as ugly as animals in our fashion, and unless we deal with the ugliness in ourselves, unless we deal with the violence in ourselves, the brutality in ourselves, and find some way to sublimate it, just to use Freud's term, into something slightly higher, we're never going to get anywhere with anything.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Interview for French TV (1998)

Way , Fashion

“His mind was destitute of that dread which has been erroneously decried as if it were nothing higher than a man’s animal care for his own skin: that awe of the Divine Nemesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it took a more positive form under Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind simply as a vague fear at anything which is called wrong-doing. Such terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it will annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought into obligations which can never be proved to have any sanctity in the absence of feeling.”

George Eliot book Romola

Volume I, Chapter XI
Romola (1863)

Fear , Law , Feeling

“Phenomena appear, in a word, to be explicable on the ground of development. We have already seen that various leading animal forms represent stages in the embryotic progress of the highest—the human being. Our brain goes through the various stages of a fish's, a reptile's, and a mammifer's brain, and finally becomes human.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 306

Fish , Appearance

“At a very young age I found I could irritate people with this born ability to mimic just about anything I hear. I listened to sparrows outside my bedroom window and then could talk to them and other birds, and squirrels, horses, cows and an occasional human. Some folks refer to this as a special talent to me it was a fortunate aberration that has been a great tool in this biz. I try to be authentic in reproduction of animals. When it comes to the creatures it was usually an open page and I really enjoyed creating sound for them usually to picture on screen in a sound studio…what fun!!! Also, this is sometimes punishing to the vocal cords thus the three days.”

Frank Welker (1946) American actor

Frank Welker Talks TRANSFORMERS PRIME, Voicing Megatron Throughout His Career, How the Voice-Acting Industry Has Changed and Working with Peter Cullen http://collider.com/frank-welker-transformers-prime-interview/ (November 1, 2012)

People , Age , Bird , Horse

“Behind the stream of my mind and body, behind the stream of my race and all mankind, behind the stream of plants and animals, I watch with trembling the Invisible, treading on all visible things and ascending.
Behind his heavy and blood-splattered feet I hear all living things being trampled on and crushed.
His face is without laughter, dark and silent, beyond joy and sorrow, beyond hope.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

Hope , Laughter , Joy

“I wanted to go away, in the midst of something entirely different,
I had been there, in the house of torture,
I have seen people being kicked, men’s bodies scorched,
nails pulled out with pliers.
Armed with flame and cudgels, grinning men in shirt sleeves.
Where I could hear my friends being thrown headlong
down the stairs.
Night was as day, and long shrieks wounded me.
In vain I tried to think of wooded lanes and flowers,
a serene life and human words.
The thought seized up, it was as if a wound were opened up
again and again and endlessly searched.
From the mouth struck, teeth and blood came out,
and lamenting moans from the deep throat.
Away, away from that house, from that street and town,
from anything similar to it.
I must save myself, keep up my mind,
that I should not be led to madness by these memories.
Oh, if we could go back to a void, from which a new order,
a maternal opening could come forth,
if I hear a certain tone of voice even in jest, I shudder.
My unhappiness is that I avoid the sight of suffering,
hospitals and prisons.
I have yearned for high solitudes, lands of still sunshine
and sweet shadows,
but I would always be pursued by the ghosts of human beings.
All of a sudden I feel the need of distraction and play,
to lose myself in the noise of the fairground.
I remain with you, but forgive me
if you see me sometimes act like a madman.
I try to heal myself by myself, as an animal,
trusting that the wounds will close.
I stop to listen to the simple conversations of the women
in the marketplace, with their dialectical lilt.
I rejoice at the footsteps of running children,
their overpowering calls.
Because you do not know the absurdity of my dreams,
the fixed expressions, the incomprehensible gestures.
There is turmoil inside me, which seems to ridicule me.
And I cannot cry out, not to be like them.
Tomorrow I will go towards some music, now I am getting ready.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Life , Women , Men , Children

“The emergence of this high-tech scientific medicine may be a prime example of what William Blake denounced as 'single vision', the kind of myopia which (literally and metaphorically) comes from looking doggedly down a microscope. Single vision has its limitations in explaining the human condition; this is why Coleridge called doctors 'shallow animals', who 'imagine that in the whole system of things there is nothing but Gut and Body'. Hence the ability of medicine to understand and counter pathology has always engendered paradox. Medicine has offered the promise of 'the greatest benefit to mankind', but not always on terms palatable to and compatible with cherished ideals. Nor has it always delivered the goods. The particular powers of medicine, and the paradoxes its rationales generate, are what this book is about.”

Roy Porter (1946–2002) British historian

Source: The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (1997), Chapter 1; as cited nytimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/porter-benefit.html 1998

Books , Imagination , Understanding

“Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things. Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent experience and reading have led me to examine for myself. This had brought me to other conclusions. When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child. But the question is not as to what were my opinions fourteen years ago, but what they are now. If I am right now, it really does not matter what I was fourteen years ago. My position now is one of reform, not of revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the Government — not over its ruins. If slaveholders have ruled the American Government for the last fifty years, let the anti-slavery men rule the nation for the next fifty years. If the South has made the Constitution bend to the purposes of slavery, let the North now make that instrument bend to the cause of freedom and justice. If 350,000 slaveholders have, by devoting their energies to that single end, been able to make slavery the vital and animating spirit of the American Confederacy for the last 72 years, now let the freemen of the North, who have the power in their own hands, and who can make the American Government just what they think fit, resolve to blot out for ever the foul and haggard crime, which is the blight and mildew, the curse and the disgrace of the whole United States.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

Men , Justice , Feeling , Question

“They that examine into the Nature of Man, abstract from Art and Education, may observe, that what renders him a Sociable Animal, consists not in his desire of Company, Good-nature, Pity, Affability, and other Graces of a fair Outside; but that his vilest and most hateful Qualities are the most necessary Accomplishments to fit him for the largest, and, according to the World, the happiest and most flourishing Societies.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Preface
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Hate , World , Education , Art

“The Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is a low frequency thanato-auric wave generator. Known for its use by the Nazis and for its animalizing effects on human subjects tested within measurable vibratory proximity, the machine electrically generates two subsonic sinewaves—one 3hz, the other 9hz. Together, these two frequencies (one acting as carrier, the other as program) generate a lower third,.56hz. In addition to these sinewave generators, the machine contains four tape loops of unduplicable lengths, each containing textual material. Two of these loops operate below the threshold of decipherability (one forward, the other backward), and two operate far beyond the opposite threshold (also one forward, the other backward). The effect of the subsonic sinewaves on the sound of these human voice recordings is one of organic ululation.”

David Woodard (1964) American writer, conductor and businessman

"Feraliminal Lycanthropizer" (San Francisco: Plecid Foundation, 1990)

“There is a reward for kindness to every living animal or human.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Muhammad narrated in Saheeh Muslim, #2244, and Saheeh Al-Bukhari, #2466.
Sunni Hadith

“The destruction of life is always a crime. There may be certain cases in which it is the lesser of two evils; but here it is needless and without a shadow of justification, for it happens only because of the selfish unscrupulous greed of those who coin money out of the agonies of the animal kingdom in order to pander to the perverted tastes of those who are sufficiently depraved to desire such loathsome aliment. Remember that it is not only those who do the obscene work, but those who by feeding upon this dead flesh encourage them and make their crime remunerative, who are guilty…of this awful thing. Every person who partakes of this unclean food has his share in the indescribable guilt and suffering by which it has been obtained.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Vegetarianism and Occultism (1913), p. 25

Life , Money , God , Food

“Throughout history, men learned that survival, respect and women’s love were all achieved by making a killing –whether killing animals, killing enemies, or making a killing on Wall Street. Women received the money that men produced by loving. Men came to feel themselves as unlovable without the money, property or the heroism it took to make them equal to a woman’s love. Women came to associate men spending money on them as a statement of how much they were valued—even loved-- by the man. Her ability to love became her source of security: a diamond is a girl’s best friend. Essentially this dynamic is true in almost all societies and all classes throughout history.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 135.

Love , Women , Men , Money

“What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape but the human figure. It is through it that I best succeed in expressing the nearly religious feeling that I have towards life. I do not insist upon the details of the face. I do not care to repeat them with anatomical exactness. Though I happen to have an Italian model whose appearance at first suggests nothing but a purely animal existence, yet I succeed in picking out among the lines of his face those which suggest that deep gravity which persists in every human being.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Source: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 413

Life , Feeling , Appearance

“PETA doesn't want stressed animals to be cruelly crowded into sheds, ankle-deep in their own crap, because they don't want any animals to die-ever-and basically think chickens should, in time, gain the right to vote. I don't want animals stressed or crowded or treated cruelly or inhumanely because that makes them probably less delicious.”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

Medium Raw (2010)

Thinking , Time

“I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front].”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

The New York Daily News, 1997 December 7.
1990s

Personality

“As the only black kid in my primary school playground, animals had become my friends. By 15 I was vegan, although I didn't give up honey until 16. For a while my mother thought it was just "a rasta phase". … I can honestly say I've not been tempted to give up veganism in 27 years. I sometimes smell a chip shop and like the smell but then feel guilty because fish might be part of it. But I'll go home and make vegan chips. After all these years, my favourite food is my mother's butter bean stew with whole potatoes, yam and dasheen. I don't think I've ever made a meal for her, to be honest. I think she would consider it a failing of her motherhood and say "Boy, get out the kitchen."”

Benjamin Zephaniah (1958) English poet and author

"Interview: Benjamin Zephaniah" by John Hind, TheGuardian.com (18 July 2010) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/benjamin-zephaniah-life-on-a-plate.

School , Food , Feeling , Home

“Since none of the creatures of the sea were taken on Noah's ark, there would be a strong possibility that some plesiosaurs and maybe even some ichtyosaurs survived the Flood. The violent and turbulent waters of the Flood would surely have killed and buried many of the sea creatures (over 90 percent of fossils found are of marine animals). However, if some had survived the Flood and lived on in the seas for years after, they could help account for many of the legends of sea monsters that have been gathered from all over the world. Remote as it may seem, there could even be the possibility that a few have survived till modern times. After all, it's much easier to believe that they could have survived for several thousand years rather than for nearly a hundred-million years.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! (2000)

World , Strong , Water , Time

“There are so many good reasons not to eat meat, but for me, the well-being of my children is the most important. … I want them to be healthy and also to understand that when they say ‘No!’ to meat, they’re saying ‘No!’ to animal cruelty. We talk about our pets, and I say, ‘You wouldn’t eat Biscuit, would you? Well, then let’s not eat any animal, O. K.? … I don’t think I really realized what I was putting into my body and the actual effects that it was having on me, so now I feel so much healthier, and I have so much more energy, and foods taste better!”

Shanna Moakler (1975) American actress and model

Ad for PETA, as quoted in "Shanna Moakler Makes PETA Ad", LookToTheStars.org (October 10, 2008) https://web.archive.org/web/20081201113815/https://www.looktothestars.org/news/1361-shanna-moakler-makes-peta-ad.

Children , Food , Feeling , Understanding

“It appears that in the lapse of ages, the sea alternately encroaches on and retreats from the land, and the districts it formerly occupied become the habitation of terrestrial animals and vegetables;—but other revolutions succeed, the sea returns to its ancient bed, and the countries from which it retires, are again fitted for the reception of their former inhabitants.”

Gideon Mantell (1790–1852) British scientist and obstetrician

The Fossils of the South Downs; or Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex (1822)

Age , Appearance , Sea , Country

“I think that if men treat animals badly, they will almost certainly treat human beings badly in due course.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Interview with Rynn Berry

Men , Thinking

“Let's just ruin all the movies about pterosaurs: they could soar like airplanes, but they couldn't hover like hummingbirds. They couldn't carry things in their feet either, they couldn't perch on tree branches like birds, they didn't look like "bird-monsters", and they didn't look like "lizard-bats". They didn't have four-fingered wings like bats; their wings were based on an elongated pinky finger. The only thing bat-like about them was the way they walked; on all fours. So what are the possibilities for fluffy pterosaurs? We know they were a very diverse and almost certainly colorful group. They looked like a wide range of things, from fluttering bats to darting falcons. Some had powerful shell-crushing jaws and some had ridiculous crests, and some were quite huge. For decades, we were told that Pteranodon was the biggest animal that ever flew, then they discovered Ornithocheirus, then Quetzalcoatlus, then Hatzegopteryx (an apex predator)… These were capable killers of even human-sized prey, with a skull larger than that of even the biggest carnosaurs.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Pterosaurs are Terrible Lizards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_htQ8HJ1cA (December 3, 2013)

Color , Way , Bird , Tree

“If one behaved as a good citizen or a charitable person simply because one was dreadfully scared of the state placing one in jail, one would not be a good citizen or person but barely more than a circus animal.”

Tibor R. Machan (1939–2016) Hungarian-American philosopher

Source: Classical Individualism: The Supreme Importance of Each Human Being (1998), p. 11

Personality

“Life cannot be reconciled with the idea that back of the universe is a Supreme Being, all merciful and kind, and that he takes any account of the human beings and other forms of life that exist upon the earth. Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crushes it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures are best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Source: The Story of My Life (1932), p. 383

Life , Death , Pain , Family

“I actually tried to find some other analogy around the world in modern history that provided an example of any country that had killed this many animals in a short period of time of only a hundred years, and came to the conclusion that in American history between 1800 and about 1920 we engaged in the largest destruction of animal life discoverable anywhere in world history. We take out 30 million off the plains into the mountains, wiped out all the bighorn sheep that were in the bad lands and canyons of the great plains, all gone by 1906. And so it's this slaughterhouse that takes place. And it takes place, interestingly enough, at the same time that the conservation movement is creating these big game parks in Africa, in Kenya, in what becomes Tanzania, in South Africa. And yet, on our own great plains we don't do it… because the great plains becomes the part of the west that we privatize with homesteads and with ranches, and everyone who settles on the great plains basically regards all these animals as an annoyance that we need to get rid of…”

Dan Flores (1948) American historian

"Dan Flores, Historian and Author" Part 2 (aired Oct. 14, 2017) Report from Santa Fe produced by KENW, 13:03.

Life , World , History , Mountain

“Sure, the sheer animal aspect of our physicality is an intrinsic component of what we are.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

“We arrest our inner creativity with external compulsions and irrelevant anxieties, at the mercy of constant interruptions by telephone and radio and insistent print, timing our lives to the movement of a production belt we do not control. At the same time, we give authority to the stomach, the muscles, the genitals--to animal reflexes that produce obedient consumers, whip-wielding man-trainers, slavish political subjects, push-button automatons.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

CHALLENGE: Diagnosis of Our Times
The Conduct Of Life (1951)

Time

“All mammals nurse their young, and breast milk benefits a newborn infant in ways above and beyond nutrition. In fact, until 1 to 2 years of age, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine and more promote breast-feeding as optimal. Unfortunately, breast-feeding until that age is often difficult, if not impossible, because mothers have to return to work, and children go off to preschool or day care. So we often replace human milk with the milk of cows or other animals. But at a certain point, we have to acknowledge that we are the only mammals on the planet that continue to consume milk after childhood, often in great amounts. More and more evidence is surfacing, however, that milk consumption may not only be unhelpful, it might also be detrimental. … there’s very little evidence that most adults need it. There’s also very little evidence that it’s doing them much good.”

Aaron Carroll American pediatrician

"Got Milk? Might Not Be Doing You Much Good", in The New York Times (17 November 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/upshot/got-milk-might-not-be-doing-you-much-good.html?_r=0

Children , Health , Age , World

“As long as I'm the director of Miss Nevada, we will never award fur coats as prizes, and I urge my fellow pageant directors to make the same pledge. Kind people today are taking a stand against cruelty to animals—so a fur coat is no prize for a compassionate, socially-aware woman.”

Shanna Moakler (1975) American actress and model

Statement to PETA, as quoted in "Miss USA Winners Pose Naked in Sexy New PETA Ad", E! Online (June 13, 2013) https://www.eonline.com/uk/news/429232/miss-usa-winners-pose-naked-in-sexy-new-peta-ad-check-it-out.

People

“[About the trauma of the cows when they are separated from their calves] By proceeding in this manner, you empty the world of both the mother and the very young animal; you provoke extremely intense suffering, true despair. These are not nociceptive pathways that are stimulated here, but mental representations that are affected. Both cow and calf have been deprived of what made sense for them.”

Boris Cyrulnik (1937) French psychiatrist

Les animaux aussi ont des droits (2013); as quoted in A Plea for the Animals by Matthieu Ricard, trans. Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Shambhala Publications, 2016), p. 106.

World , Sense , Suffering , Despair

“I have been a passionate animal activist for many years now. It's something I believe in and I feel strongly that people with a modicum of success should try and bring a voice to help bring more awareness to causes they believe in, and animals have no voice! So it's vitally important that we raise awareness for them. … I think most people love animals and if there was more awareness and less ignorance about what goes into making a fur coat, for example, people wouldn't even consider buying it.”

Charlotte Ross (1968) American actress

"Charlotte Ross Chats About New Role", interview with Female First (8 November 2012) http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/Charlotte+Ross+Interview-265421.html.

Love , People , Feeling , Thinking

“One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 239
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Men , Dogs , Nature , Learning

“I do not find it surprising that the Jains, the Buddhists, and the Hindus have all taken seriously the lives of others. The ability to imagine ourselves into the minds and bodies of “others”—whether humans we term different from us (Down syndrome children; Alzheimer sufferers; the so-called mentally ill) or the animals we use for our food—is of central importance because the failure to do so is precisely what led to the horrors of Auschwitz. So, when people ask, Have you nothing more important to think about? the answer is: There is nothing more important to think about than the heart of empathy, which in the final analysis is nothing other than the ability to love. Becoming a vegan is simply one manifestation of that love.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Introduction, pp. 27-28
The Face on Your Plate (2009)

Love , Children , People , Food

“Not the least among the arguments whose consideration should dispose us to welcome among us the peoples of all countries, nationalities and colors, is the fact that all races and varieties of men are improvable. This is the grand distinguishing attribute of humanity, and separates man from all other animals. If it could be shown that any particular race of men are literally incapable of improvement, we might hesitate to welcome them here. But no such men are anywhere to be found, and if they were, it is not likely that they would ever trouble us with their presence. The fact that the Chinese and other nations desire to come and do come is a proof of their capacity for improvement and of their fitness to come.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men , People , Color , Country

“Ethologists and comparative psychologists have discovered a host of refined adaptations in animal behavior during the past few decades. Food-finding, avoidance of predators, and behavioral adaptations to environmental stresses, including constructing shelters, nests, and burrows, all involve impressively versatile tactics on the animal's part, rather than rigid, stereotyped reflexes. Social behavior, especially courtship and care of developing young, call forth an efficiently tuned and controlled matrix of interactions among many different and potentially conflicting behavior patterns. Animal orientation and navigation have provided several striking examples of previously unsuspected modes of perception. Finally, the versatility of animal communication used to coordinate group activities has implications that can only be described as revolutionary. The flexibility and appropriateness of animal behavior suggest both that complex processes occur within their brains, and that these events may have much in common with our own conscious mental experiences.”

Donald Griffin (1915–2003) American zoologist

The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience https://books.google.it/books?id=2iTTlLpYaNsC&pg=PA0 (Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 1981), chapter 1.

Food , Behavior , Communication , Past

“Animals are born, are sentient and are mortal. In these things they resemble man. In their superficial anatomy — less in their deep anatomy — in their habits, in their time, in their physical capacities, they differ from man. They are both like and unlike.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Source: About Looking (1980), Chapter "Why Look at Animals?"

Time

“I work in evolutionary biology, but with cells and microorganisms. Richard Dawkins, John Maynard Smith, George Williams, Richard Lewontin, Niles Eldredge, and Stephen Jay Gould all come out of the zoological tradition, which suggests to me that, in the words of our colleague Simon Robson, they deal with a data set some three billion years out of date. Eldredge and Gould and their many colleagues tend to codify an incredible ignorance of where the real action is in evolution, as they limit the domain of interest to animals… very tardy on the evolutionary scene, and they give us little real insight into the major sources of evolution's creativity. By "codifying ignorance" I refer in part to the fact that they miss four of the five kingdoms of life… bacteria, protoctista, fungi, and plants.”

Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist

"Gaia is a Tough Bitch," The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution ed., John Brockman (1995).

Life , Parting

“It is true that God is even in the tiger, but we must not go and face the animal. So it is true that God dwells even in the most wicked, but it is not meet that we should associate with the wicked.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Saying 13
Râmakrishna : His Life and Sayings (1898)

God

“Verily Allah has enjoined goodness to everything; so when you kill, kill in a good way and when you slaughter, slaughter in a good way. So every one of you should sharpen his knife, and let the slaughtered animal die comfortably.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated in Saheeh Muslim, Book 021, Number 4810
Sunni Hadith

Way

“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem, — a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Music

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), The Poet

Nature , Passion

“In order to give the better effect to this diversion, a hole is dug in the ground for the retreat of the animal; and the dogs run at him singly in succession; for it is not usual, I believe, to permit any more than one of them to attack him at once; and the dog which approaches him with the least timidity, fastens upon him the most firmly, and brings him the soonest from his hole, is accounted the best. The badger was formerly called the "grey," hence the denomination of grey-hounds applied to a well known species of dogs, on account of their having been generally used in the pursuit of this animal.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 280
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Public entertainment

Dogs , Success

“Abu Hurayra said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah say, "Allah divided mercy into a hundred parts and He kept back ninety-nine parts with Himself and left one part on the earth. It is from this part that creatures show mercy to one another so that an animal lifts its hoof from its young fearing to hurt them."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

Fear , Parting , Hurt

“The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 39 Full text at Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers/No._39
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

People , Question , Freedom

“The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whip-cracking trainer, is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them.”

Desmond Morris (1928) English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter

Source: William Johnson (1990), Rose-Tinted Menagerie, p. 10

Idea

“They've found this spider, in the jungle. Three foot long, it eats chicken. Bit weird, innit. People moan saying that you shouldn't lock animals up and all the rest of it, but to be honest I wish it was locked up. The idea that it's roaming in a jungle… get it locked up.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

3 Minute Wonder, Episode 4
On Nature

People , Idea

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a whole flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilization. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost —- he becomes a unit in unreason.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

Men , World , Fools , Time

“The distinction between central and peripheral claims is applicable to many aspects of human sexuality. Consider, for instance, the emotion of jealousy. Evolutionary psychologists place a strong emphasis on sex differences in this domain. The standard claim is that men are more worried by a partner’s sexual infidelity than emotional infidelity, whereas women are more worried by a partner’s emotional infidelity… [However] the overwhelming trend is that most men and most women are extremely upset by both sexual and emotional infidelity. This suggests that the central EP claim regarding jealousy should be “Human beings evolved to experience jealousy in romantic relationships” rather than “Men and women evolved different patterns of jealousy.” The latter statement is true but should be considered a qualification to the former: a peripheral rather than a central claim. To stress the sex difference alone would be like observing that male elephants are bigger than females while steadfastly neglecting to mention that all adult elephants are large compared to most terrestrial animals. It would almost certainly foster an inaccurate view.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

(pp. 266-267)
The Ape that Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2013)

Women , Men , Jealousy , Sex

“I’m vegan in my fashion and vegetarian in my food. I don’t buy any leather goods or anything made from animal products – no down, nothing. It’s something people should be mindful of. … I think because I came to live in L. A. the transition was simple because vegetarianism is so common there. And I didn’t feel like I was missing that much by being a vegetarian. … I had a moment about 9 years ago. It was so odd. I was talking to my then-boyfriend and he was talking about a fishing trip and how he’d never had the experience of ‘killing’ his food. Even though I had fished my whole life, something just snapped in me and I said, I’m not eating this anymore. … Being vegan is more challenging, especially when it comes to going out to eat. But I found Chicago has great vegetarian and vegan restaurants. … Healthwise, I notice when I wasn’t eating meat anymore I felt so much lighter.”

Torrey DeVitto (1984) actress, model, violinist

"‘Chicago Med’ star Torrey DeVitto takes holistic approach to health, life" https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/chicago-med-star-torrey-devitto-takes-holistic-approach-to-health-life/, interview with Chicago Sun-Times (24 January 2018).

Life , People , Food , Feeling

“Present-day life is polluted at the roots. Man has put himself in the place of trees and animals and has polluted the air, has blocked free space. Worse can happen. The sad and active animal could discover other forces and press them into his service. There is a threat of this kind in the air. It will be followed by a great gain…in the number of humans. Every square meter will be occupied by a man. Who will cure us of the lack of air and of space?”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

La vita attuale è inquinata alle radici. L'uomo s'è messo al posto degli alberi e delle bestie ed ha inquinata l'aria, ha impedito il libero spazio. Può avvenire di peggio. Il triste e attivo animale potrebbe scoprire e mettere al proprio servizio delle altre forze. V'è una minaccia di questo genere in aria. Ne seguirà una grande chiarezza... nel numero degli uomini. Ogni metro quadrato sarà occupato da un uomo. Chi ci guarirà dalla mancanza di aria e di spazio?
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 364; p. 436.

Life , Sadness , Tree

“I was raised Vegan since birth. … I remember watching undercover investigation videos and reading the pamphlets that were mailed to the house when we were kids—I felt deeply for the animals at an early age. I remember how the other parents of my childhood friends would either get upset or interested when their kids would come home after sleepovers at my house—I felt it was my duty to show my friends what was happening to animals. … Veganism is the ultimate form of compassion. … I never considered my being Vegan was for health reasons—it was always for the love and respect I had for animals. And because of that love and respect I have for non-human animals my compassion flows over to all living beings, of all types. … I am encouraged by compassionate souls and the love I see in the eyes of those I've committed my life to stand up for.”

Seba Johnson (1973) Olympic skier

"Interview with Seba Johnson: Vegan Olympic Ski Racer" http://www.vivalavegan.net/articles/561-interview-with-seba-johnson-vegan-olympic-ski-racer.html, Viva La Vegan! (August 2013).

Love , Life , Health , Age

“We believe it's the biggest advance in animation since Walt Disney started it all with the release of Snow White 50 years ago.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

On Toy Story as quoted in Fortune (18 September 1995)
1990s

“God gives every animal the means of saving its life—why object if he gives astrology to the astronomer?”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Vol. VIII, p. 705
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

Life , God

“While I respect culture, this bull-killing ritual causes extreme suffering to an innocent creature and has no place in the modern world. Tradition is not an excuse for cruelty, and many societies have ended or are working to end ‘traditional’ practices—such as slavery, cannibalism, infanticide, female circumcision, foot-binding, bullfighting, and fox hunting—that cause animals or humans to suffer.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Letter on behalf of PETA Asia to Jacob Zuma, as quoted in "‘Tradition Is Not an Excuse for Cruelty’" https://www.peta.org/blog/tradition-excuse-cruelty/, PETA (6 November 2009)
2001-2010

World , Suffering

“The thing that I enjoy about animation is the fact that it is unbridled and there are no boundaries; when are in the room you don’t have to focus on your clothing, make-up, hair, your choreography or your blocking, you really do have total freedom. It is that total freedom that I really enjoy as there is no judgement and there are no critics there watching to see what you are going to do. It is just a free-for-all, and I really enjoy that process. When you are working with incredible directors then the responsibility lies on them to do the product and get the story told; it takes a lot of pressure of me, and I just get to go in and have a play session.”

Jodi Benson (1961) American voice actress, actress and singer

Jodi Benson Exclusive Interview http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/jodi-benson-exclusive-interview-330687.html (August 30, 2013)

Freedom , Clothes

“Well, it’s not like this is anything we are trying to hide. About three times in our 21-year history we have thought it was a good idea — and still do — to defend some very good activists who have done some decent things for animals and who have happened to get into trouble. One of those people is Rodney Coronado, who is a very committed Native American animal rights activist and a decent person. He did something [firebombed a research facility at Michigan State University] that put him in prison for three-and-a-half years and I think that if we hadn’t provided him with a good legal defence he wouldn’t be back out doing productive things in the community again — like the good person that he is. We are very happy to have done that.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Montreal Mirror http://web.archive.org/20020703023107/www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2002/032102/news3.html.
On animal research and activism against it

People , History , Communication , Idea

“But even if it is true, even if we are governed by the legacy of an animal past, then it is up to us to behave as if it were not so.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Source: Evolution (2002), Chapter 15 “The Dying Light” section III (p. 501)

Past

“It is in the world of words, amid the dull but perhaps necessary detail of every-day events—that quotations come with a warmth and a welcome upon memory, and like Milton's fish, "Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold." …In the dry and laboring essay, amid the windings of many words and the accumulation of antecedents, we hail their sudden and familiar appearances as patches of Nature's green to repose on by the way; their "dulcet and harmonious breath" animates a train of associations that dwell in the most sylvan haunts of emotion and sentiment; to their fountains of "loosened silver" we turn for a refreshing and a pleasant abstraction.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Quotations".
Sketches from Life (1846)

World , Way , Nature , Fish

“a) The definition of history? Every historian would agree, I think, that history is a kind of research or inquiry. What kind of inquiry it is I do not yet ask. The point is that generically it belongs to what we call the sciences: that is, the forms of thought whereby we ask questions and try to answer them. Science in general, it is important to realize, does not consist in collecting what we already know and arranging it in this or that kind of pattern. It consists in fastening upon something we do not know, and trying to discover it. Playing patience with things we already know may be a useful means towards this end, but it is not the end itself. It is at best only the means. It is scientifically valuable only in so far as the new arrangement gives us the answer to a question we have already decided to ask. That is why all science begins from the knowledge of our own ignorance: not our ignorance of everything, but our ignorance of some definite thing-the origin of parliament, the cause of cancer, the chemical composition of the sun, the way to make a pump work without muscular exertion on the part of a man or a horse or some other docile animal. Science is finding things out: and in that sense history is a science.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 9

Way , History , Question , Knowledge

“… The past and the present call on you to advance. Let what you have gained be an impulse to something higher. Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink, and sleep, like the inferior animals. If you will, you can rise. No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. Do not be lulled to sleep by the flatteries which you hear, as if your participation in the national sovereignty made you equal to the noblest of your race. You have many and great deficiencies to be remedied; and the remedy lies, not in the ballot-box, not in the exercise of your political powers, but in the faithful education of yourselves and your children...”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Self-Culture (1838)

Children , Education , Faith , Exercises

“I think my experience as an adoptee who was given beautiful, loving parents, makes me sympathetic to the plight of the voiceless and those who are disregarded or tossed away or thought to not have value in a society. I feel like no one is expendable because it’s convenient. So many animals out there without homes have so much love to give, and I want to do all I can to get them in forever homes so they can give that love. … Fostering a little life is so humbling and sacred. It reminds you we’re all here to help each other and that you’re not the central character in the story of life. You’re a supporting role and your hands are meant to help get someone or something where they should be. Helping and loving an animal is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Every time you save them, you save yourself a little bit, too.”

Bellamy Young (1970) American artist

"Scandal's Bellamy Young has a soft spot for rescue pets", interview with USA Today (13 May 2017) https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2017/05/13/scandals-bellamy-young-has-soft-spot-rescue-pets/101588612/.

Love , Life , Beauty , Feeling

“To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

G 30
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook G (1779-1783)

“If Darwin's discovery had been made in a Taoist or Shinto, Hindu or animist culture it would very likely have become just one more strand in its intertwining mythologies. In these faiths humans and other animals are kin. By contrast, arising among Christians who set humans beyond all other living things, it triggered a bitter controversy that rages on to this day.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Human: Science versus Humanism (p. 3-4)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Faith , Rage

“In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess — we connect with her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)

Star , Tree

“I've been vegan for about a year now … It’s more than just food, it’s a lifestyle, and so my whole life has changed, I get up earlier, I wanna exercise, I feel better, my skin feels better. And these are things I didn’t even know coming from the South, coming from New Orleans — a girl who needs crawfish and gumbo, you know, you never would think that you would need avocados instead, and now I'm kind of an avocado junkie. … People are forgetting that it starts with the animals and we have misused them as if they are not like us.”

Dawn Richard (1983) American musician

“Body by Vegan—The Stunning D△wn,” video interview with PETA (22 July 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVDOSq6w1aM.

Life , People , Food , Feeling

“Innumerable men had passed by, across this Universe, with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very animals may feel; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such as men only feel;—till the great Thinker came, the original man, the Seer; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the slumbering capability of all into Thought. It is ever the way with the Thinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says, all men were not far from saying, were longing to say. The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted sleep, round his Thought; answering to it, Yes, even so! Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night;—is it not, indeed, the awakening for them from no-being into being, from death into life? We still honor such a man; call him Poet, Genius, and so forth: but to these wild men he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected blessing for them; a Prophet, a God!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Life , Death , Men , God

“People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors. Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct. You have to understand. It is a pervasive (belief) that I'm an animal — undomesticated as well. But regardless of the bizarre (stuff) I've done, I'm a very rational individual. But everybody still thinks I'm crazy and stupid because that's what they want to believe.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm
On himself

Women , People , Stupidity , Understanding

“One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? … Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. … amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 3 : Application of the Argument.

Wisdom , Question , Nature

“The totem pole, for example, is a remnant from an era where there was much greater communication between man and the animals -- when, in fact, men went to the animals to learn, and from them first acquired knowledge of herbs and corrective medicinal behavior.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The “Unknown” Reality: Volume One, (1977), p. 689; Session 689

Men , Behavior , Communication , Knowledge

“Here are six popular theses in the philosophical and psychological literature on motivation:1. Motivation is present in the animal kingdom but does not extend throughout it.
2. Motivated beings have a capacity to represent goals and means to goals.
3. A motivation-encompassing attitude may have either a goal or a means as its object.
4. Motivation varies in strength.
5. The stronger an agent’s motivation to A is, in comparison to the agent’s motivation for alternative courses of action, the more likely the agent is to A, other things being equal.
6. Whenever agents act intentionally, there is something they are effectively motivated to do.Divergent conceptions of motivation may be at work in philosophical thought about motivational matters. My concern in this book is a notion of motivation consistent with (among other things) these six claims. Readers who accept all six claims are likely to be more interested in the result than those who do not, but I conjecture that most readers do accept all of these claims, on some reading or other. Also, readers who reject one or more of these theses or who believe that no acceptable conception of motivation is consistent with all of them will be offered good reason to change their minds!”

Alfred Mele (1951) American philosopher

Introduction
Motivation and Agency (2003)

Books , Literature , Motivation , Change

“"I'll be going now," she said.
Shinji made no answer and a surprised look came over his face. He had caught sight of a black streak that ran straight across the front of her red sweater.
Hatsue followed his gaze and saw the dirty smudge, just in the spot where she had been leaning her breast against the concrete parapet. Bending her head, she started slapping her breast with her open hands. Beneath her sweater, which all but seemed to be concealing some firm supports, two gently swelling mounds were set to trembling ever so slightly by the brisk brushing of her hands.
Shinji stared in wonder. Struck by her hands, the breasts seemed more like two small, playful animals. The boy was deeply stirred by the resilient softness of their movement.
The streak of dirt was finally brushed out.”

Yukio Mishima book The Sound of Waves

Source: The Sound of Waves (1956), p. 31, ch. 4.

Boy , Support

“Mickey is a hard worker. He takes care of the house, looks after my animals, and satisfies me. What else can one expect of a man?”

Jayne Mansfield (1933–1967) American actress, singer, model

On her second husband, Mickey Hargitay
Here They Are Jayne Mansfield (1992)

Housing

“After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Four, Chapter VI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Four

Men , People , Communication , Fashion

“The temperature was six below zero and it kept me dying on the spot because the blood coagulated and clotted in ugly smears of cloth and skin and the pain hadn't started yet, so when the little fat guy who saw my eyes open and still bright pulled me away from the carnage he was almost in the shock I was going into. Nobody would listen to him. He was a drunk. I was nearly dead.
Sometimes the body responds to a stimulus that can't be explained. He got me upright. I walked woodenly, dyingly. I was sat in an old car. The fat man rolled down the windows. The blood stayed frozen. My hands were numb and I couldn't feel my feet. Idly, I wondered what frostbite was like. Breathing was a thing that was happening, but at a pace that said it could slow, then stop at any time. A dull, squeezing sensation of pain was beginning to gnaw on my insides and I knew that eventually, and very soon, it would grow into a terrible, devastating animal with an awful hunger and I would be eaten alive by it.
I wanted to scream but nothing would come out.”

Mickey Spillane book Black Alley

Black Alley (1996)

Hunger , Pain , Cars , Guy

“Many of the animal rights vegans not only demand others adopted a vegan diet, they also want you to be vegan for their own personal reasons. These are “One of those” vegans. … There is a large vegan movement (that I hope isn’t a fad), and many have adopted the term “plant-based” for rebranding purposes. Maybe veganism will never be universally cool, but I don’t intend on stopping. I see nothing wrong with being compassionate towards animals. But not one of those. I’m not the stereotypical vegan. I’m not what people think about when they hear “Vegan”. I’m not white, I don’t do yoga, I’m not frail, and unlike the peaceful people you think of when you think vegan, I get road rage from time to time. … My reason for rebranding? I love being vegan so I hate that something I love is so culturally disliked.”

Cam F. Awesome (1988) American boxer

"Vegan…but not “one of those”" http://www.celebritysportsspeaker.com/vegan/noot/, in his website CelebritySportsSpeaker.com (May 28, 2018).

Love , Hate , People , Peace

“Several years ago, the Foundation for Biomedical Research ran an ad campaign in support of medical experimentation on nonhuman animals. The ad featured a photograph of a group of animal rights protestors under the caption: ‘Thanks to animal research, they’ll be able to protest 20.8 years longer.’ But imagine a parallel universe in which medical research is conducted on black people, and in which an equivalent foundation employs an equivalent argument: ‘Thanks to research on black people, these white protesters will be able to protest against experimentation on black people 20.8 years longer’! Would this justify experimentation on black people? Obviously not! We would immediately reject the argument as founded on a deeply racist assumption, namely, that the costs inflicted on ‘mere’ black people are justified by the benefits produced for whites. But the original argument is founded on an equivalently speciesist assumption: that the costs inflicted on ‘mere’ animals are justified by the benefits produced for us.”

Steve Stewart-Williams (1971)

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 278

People , Imagination , Support , Universe

“Or he may study the hidden mind of the animal. A mixture of feelings and of thoughts, of dumb intelligences and of rudimentary affections, he reads the whole humble moral life of the beast in its eyes and in its movements.
He is even the confidant of nature. The trees, the plants talk to him like friends. The old gnarled oaks speak to him of their kindliness for the human race whom they protect beneath their sheltering branches. The flowers commune with him by the gracious swaying of their stalks, by the singing tones of their petals — each blossom amidst the grass is a friendly word addressed to him by nature.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Art, 1912, Ch. II. To the artist, all in nature is beautiful, p. 48

Life , Feeling , Confidence , Intelligence

“If it came on the evening news tonight that there were five grizzly bears roaming around Cobb County, do you know what would happen by six o'clock in the morning? They would all be dead. Because every redneck in four states would be out there with a rifle, trying to shoot one, right? And whoever could shoot the biggest one would be a hero. They would have his picture on the front page, "Bubba shot the Grizzly Bear" and saved the village. That is exactly what happened to the dragons. If you could figure out a way to kill a dragon, they would be telling stories about you around the campfire. People killed dragons for meat, because they were a menace, to prove that you were a hero, or to prove that you are superior, in competition for land, or for medicinal purposes. Many ancient recipes call for dragon blood, dragon bones, dragon saliva, why? Gilgamesh is famous for slaying a dragon. A Chinese legend tells about a guy named Yu that surveyed the land of China. It says, that after the Flood he surveyed the land, he divided it off into sections. He built channels to drain water off to sea and make the land livable again. Many snakes and dragons were driven from the marshlands. You know that's normal that if you want to build a city. You have to drive off the dragons, then build your city. It was expected that you have got to drive the dragons away or kill them. Why would the Chinese calendar have eleven real animals: the pig, the duck, the dog, and … the dragon? Why would they put just one "mythical" animal in there? Could it be at the time they that they came up with these animals there were 12 real animals? There is one of the oldest pieces of pottery on Planet Earth. It's a piece of slate from Egypt; the first dynasty of United Egypt. It shows long necked dragons […] Why would they put long necked dinosaurs on pottery 3,800 years ago? Here are two long necked dinosaurs with a sheep in between them in their mouths. Here is a hippo tusk from the twelve century B. C., showing an animal with a long neck, and a long tail. Here's a cylinder seal, showing what appears quite obviously to be a long neck dinosaur. The Bible talks about a fiery flying serpent, in Isaiah 14.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), Dinosaurs and the Bible

People , Dogs , Way , Guy

“Man is an imperfect animal and never quite trustworthy in the dark.”

H. G. Wells book The Open Conspiracy

The Open Conspiracy (1928)

“Life to each individual is a scene of continued feasting in a region of plenty; and when unexpected death arrests its course, it repays with small interest the large debt which it has contracted to the common fund of animal nutrition, from whence the materials of its body have been derived. Thus the great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are filled by another and another generation; renewing the face of the earth and the bosom of the deep with endless successions of life and happiness.”

William Buckland (1784–1856) English clergyman, geologist and palaeontologist

Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1841), p. 109

Life , Death , Universe , Change

“A growing revulsion against the atrocities (committed against farm animals) might well have a positive effect on reducing those practiced regularly on these shores against the aged, African-Americans, poor whites, Latinos, women, lesbians and gays, social activists, Native Americans and Asians, to name but a few of our perennial pariahs.”

William Kunstler (1919–1995) American lawyer and civil rights activist

Speech at the American Bar Association (August 1992); as quoted in Henry Spira, "Animal Rights: The Frontiers of Compassion" https://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=hensart, Peace & Democracy News (Summer 1993).

Women , Age

“If by this superhuman concentration one succeeded in converting or resolving the two cosmoses with all their complexities into sheer ideas, he would then reach the causal world and stand on the borderline of fusion between mind and matter. There one perceives all created things — solids, liquids, gases, electricity, energy, all beings, gods, men, animals, plants, bacteria — as forms of consciousness, just as a man can close his eyes and realize that he exists, even though his body is invisible to his physical eyes and is present only as an idea.”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 43 - "The Resurrection Of Sri Yukteswar"

Men , God , World , Idea

“The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 20

Art , Optimism , Painting

“To keep a man (slave or servant) for your own advantage merely, to keep an animal that you may eat it, is a lie. You cannot look that man or animal in the face.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

England's Ideal and Other Papers on Social Subjects (1887), Routledge, 2016, p. https://books.google.it/books?id=53uPCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT71

Lie

“Such close observations of apes and birds and dolphins remind us that humanity is part of a great animal kingdom. All species within this kingdom differ from one another in significant ways, to be sure, but the kingdom does not seem to be organized on the superior/inferior hierarchy. Species are merely different from one another; they are not better than, nor more or less advanced than, each other. The core experience of all animal life is strikingly similar.”

Hugh Downs (1921) American broadcaster

"ABC Radio Perspective on ABC News 20/20 on May 29, 1994"

Life , Way , Bird , Parting

“One of the issues with animals that I'm really concerned about is people who get animals as pets and maybe aren't prepared to take care of them and haven't really thought it through. I've seen a lot of people I know who get dogs and they can't handle them two days later … [Fur] is a really easy thing to avoid, you don't need fur and if you want the look of fur, I mean, there’s faux fur. There's just no reason for it. I just make a point of telling people that I don't buy products that are fur … I have a fragrance line and one of the things I really love about is the manufacturer assured me that nothing's tested on animals … I mean, how many years have we been selling cosmetics in this country? We should be able to figure out what we can use on humans safely and what no.”

Holly Madison (1979) American author, model, showgirl, and television personality

“Holly Madison Naked Video,” video interview with PETA (8 February 2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDBAPh_28O4.

Love , People , Dogs , Country

“In order to be able to deceive intentionally, an animal must have a sense of how its actions appear to another individual. Such an ability requires self-awareness.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

The Origin of Humankind (1994)

Sense , Appearance

“For it is only in accepting death that one can truly live, and for the human animal, death has always been the great black beast from the abyss to be dreaded or defeated or avoided or hated - but never looked upon clearly face to face.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: The Wild (1995), p. 91

Death , Hate

“[T]he young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.”

Charles Darwin book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

Source: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), chapter XIV: "Concluding Remarks and Summary", page 352 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=380&itemID=F1142&viewtype=image

“What they had going certainly came as near as anyone ever has in this imperfect world to a sane, rational way for people to exist without warfare and with a minimum of politics. In the end, those two old dinosaurs are the only ways humans have yet discovered to be social animals. Yes, I do see war as a way of living with one another; by imposing your will on another in terms so unmistakable that the opponent has to either knuckle under to you, die, or beat your brains out. And if that’s a solution to anything, I'd rather live without solutions. Politics is not much better. The only thing going for it is that it occasionally succeeds in substituting talk for fists.”

John Varley (1947) American science fiction author

"The Persistence of Vision"

War , People , World , Way

Quotes about animals page 11

Quotes about animals
page 11