“My own life has convinced me that the limitations most of us encounter in our relations with other animals reflect not their shortcomings, as we so often assume, but our own narrow views about who they are and the kinds of relationships we can have with them. And so I conclude by urging anyone with an interest in animal rights to open your heart to the animals around you and find out for yourself what it's like to befriend a nonhuman person.”

— Barbara Smuts

Source: Reflections (1999), p. 120

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Barbara Smuts 5

American anthropologist 1950

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“Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own.”

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