“In fact if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to a lot of animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.”

—  Ruth Harrison

Animal Machines (1964; rev. ed. Boston: CABI, 2013), ch. IX, p. 175 https://books.google.it/books?id=7_3-ko8zyZYC&pg=PA175.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In fact if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to a …" by Ruth Harrison?
Ruth Harrison photo
Ruth Harrison1
British activist 1920–2000

Related quotes

“Having the chance to watch … Meet Your Meat, it was probably one of the first punches. Once I made that connection between loving an animal and eating an animal is when things clicked in my brain. Latinos have this obsession with everything fried, with a lot of animal protein, and, yeah, it’s true—we have a lot of problems with obesity, we have a lot of problems with diabetes, we have a lot of problems with asthma. We have a lot of problems with a lot of things that come from it. And I couldn't believe that to create a toothpaste, or to create a shampoo, there are a lot of animals that have to suffer for that. As you become a vegan, you start learning that everything in your life has to become cruelty free.”

Natalia Villaveces (1979) Colombian television host

"Natalia Villaveces' Exclusive PETA Interview", video on PETA's YouTube channel (12 July 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX2alBCT70s.

Morarji Desai photo

“As long as man eats animals how can cruelty to animals be removed.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

Peter Singer photo

“[One thing] underpins, makes consistent, and gives meaning to all our other activities on behalf of animals. This one thing is that we take responsibility for our own lives, and make them as free of cruelty as we can. The first step is that we cease to eat animals. Many people who are opposed to cruelty to animals draw the line at becoming a vegetarian. It was of such people that Oliver Goldsmith, the eighteenth-century humanitarian essayist, wrote: "They pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion."”

Peter Singer book Animal Liberation

Source: Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975), Ch. 4: Becoming a Vegetarian

Ashleigh Brilliant photo

“Be kind to unkind people. They need it the most.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Immanuel Kant photo

“A person who already displays … cruelty to animals is also no less hardened towards men. We can already know the human heart, even in regard to animals.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Part II, p. 212
Lectures on Ethics (1924)

“Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen though… that's the problem.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Ingrid Newkirk photo

“We have to be aggressive when those we stick up for have no voice. I don't consider it radical to say cruelty is wrong and that animals should be respected. I consider it radical to eat corpses, put electrodes in animals' heads, make elephants live in chains in the circus, and poison animals we consider a nuisance.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Veg Family, March, 2003 http://www.vegfamily.com/interviews/ingrid-newkirk.htm

David Hartley (philosopher) photo

“With respect to animal diet, let it be considered, that taking away the lives of animals, in order to convert them into food, does great violence to the principles of benevolence and compassion. This appears from the frequent hard-heartedness and cruelty found amongst those persons whose occupations engage them in destroying animal life, as well as from the uneasiness which others feel in beholding the butchery of animals.”

David Hartley (philosopher) book Observations on Man

Observations on Man (1749; 6th edition, 1834), Part II, Chapter III, Section II.

Ingrid Newkirk photo

“More power to [Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty] if they can get someone’s attention.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

The Boston Herald, 2002 August 25.
2002

Cloris Leachman photo

“Citizens’ right to document cruelty to animals — wherever it occurs — is crucial in helping local, state and federal officials enforce anti-cruelty laws. Authorities can’t be everywhere at once, and funding for enforcement of anti-cruelty laws is sorely lacking in most places. What we need are more cameras on factory farms, not fewer.”

Cloris Leachman (1926) American actress

"Don’t Cover Up Animal Cruelty" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/cloris-leachman/post_1981_b_854721.html, in the HuffPost (27 April 2011).

Related topics