Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Animal Rights Quotes

Thomas Alva Edison 'The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his/her patients in the care of human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.'

Immanuel Kant 'We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.'

Unknown: 'When good and evil are placed in opposition to one another, good usually triumphs over evil. However, when good and evil make pacts with one another, it is usually evil which triumphs.'

Henry Beston
'In a world older and more complete than ours, animals move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.' (A New Concept of Animals)

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832, Philosopher, Oxford University) 'The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer???'

Abraham Lincoln 'I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights - that is the way of the whole human being!' (Complete Works)

Lao Tze (2600 years ago!) 'Those who have hardened, have a covenant with Death. Those who remain gentle are conjoined with Life.'

Mahatma Gandhi 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it. It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.'

Mark Twain: 'The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.'

Benjamin Zephaniah, rap artist/poet/playwrite 'The way animals are carted around reminds me of the slavery of my people... The slavery of animals has to be ended too.' (PETANEWS)

Alexander von Humboldt 'Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sure sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury. Cruelty to animals cannot exist together with true education and true learning.'

Lamartine 'We have not two hearts - one for the animals, and the other for man... In the cruelty toward the former and the cruelty toward the latter, there is no other difference than in the victim.'

Ingrid Newkirk, President PETA 'When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst; a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.'

Albert Schweitzer 'No one may shut his eyes to think the pain, which is therefore not visible to him, is non-existent.'

Arthur Goldberg
'In the bad old days reference to Blacks/women/Jews/others were in negative language which perpetuated poor treatment/ abuse/ exploitation of these people. Animals have suffered more from negative language stereotyping than all the others, and demeans them so constantly that they created an environment that allows all sorts of cruelties, many too horrendous to describe! An animal is 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she', this perpetuates our view of them as 'things' rather than individuals and is a major first step towards cutting them up for meat and leather, testing drugs/cosmetics/ household products on their bodies, and tearing off their coats for furs!!! Those who have pets are referred to as 'owners' rather than guardians/care givers/companions, reinforcing the idea that they are property much as slaves were considered property. Let's avoid these references: Dirty rat; filthy pig; acting like an ass; dirty dog; she's a bitch; ugly duckling; there's more than one way to skin a cat; behaving like an animal; making a monkey out of someone; killing 2 birds with one stone; working like a horse, you're chicken ... There are many more! Please think before uttering them and tell others. Thank you!' (Veggie Singles News)

Michael Klaper, M.D. 'Over a hundred years ago, John Stuart Mill said, 'It often happens that the universal belief of one age a belief from which no one was free or could be free without an extraordinary effort of genius or courage, becomes to a subsequent age, so palpable an absurdity that the only difficulty is to imagine how such an idea could ever have appeared credible.''

Count Leon Tolstoi 'Between the murder of an animal and the murder of a man, there's no more than ONE step!'

Albert Schweitzer 'The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also. My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to it. If I want others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see however strange it may be to mine. Ethics in our western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relation of man to man... but that is a limited ethics.'  

Ashley Montagu (Anthropologist/Social Biologist)
'The bond and kinship which indissolubly exists between all living beings requires especially on our part a deep involvement in their welfare. The indifference, callousness, and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil, first, because it results in great suffering in animals and, second, because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit.'

Thomas Alva Edison 'Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages!'

Jane Goodall 'It's not that humans and non-humans are identical... but the lack of understanding that led to the slave trade is the same lack of understanding many people have about animals today. When slaves were brought over from Africa, many people believed they were not humans, that they didn't have feelings. Many people believe that primates and other animals don't have feelings, too, but they do.' (Miami Herald)

Unknown 'Power is not sufficient evidence of truth!'

Bertha Williams 'Conundrum: Coat with fur, hat with feathers, Lobster boiled alive, Shoes occur in sundry leathers. How many animals have died, Hunted, trapped and crucified, That I may dwell at ease? Fish and fowl and beast... Slaughtered that I may feast. And what my caste, and who am I That I may live and they must die???'

Leonardo da Vinci 'Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.'

Dr. Humphrey Primatt 'Pain is pain, whether it be inflicted on man or on beast; and the creature who suffers it, whether man or beast, being sensible to the misery of it, whilst it lasts, suffers evil... [T]he white man... can have no right, by virtue of his color, to enslave and tyrannize over a black man... for the same reason, a man can have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast.'

Jewish Proverb 'You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal.'

William Kunstler (Trial lawyer) 'A society remotely worth its salt eventually has to come to grips with the barbarism practiced upon helpless creatures in the name of scientific experimentation, tastier/tenderer meat, or more and larger eggs!'

Neil Ehmke 'Those who refuse to kill animals would certainly refuse to take the lives of their fellow humans.'

Hippocrates 'The soul is the something in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.' (Regimen Bk. I, 28)

Romain Rolland (Nobel Laureate)
'To a man whose mind is free, there is something more intolerable in the suffering of animals than in the suffering of men. For with the latter, it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But billions of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. That alone is the justification of all that men may suffer.'

John Galsworthy
'Nothing so endangers the fineness of the human heart as the possession of power over others: nothing so corrodes it as the callous or cruel exercise of that power: and the more helpless the creature over whom power is cruelly or callously exercised, the more the human heart is corroded. It is the recognition of this truth which has brought the conscience of our age, and with it the law, to say that we cannot any longer with impunity regard ourselves as licensed torturers of the rest of creation; that we cannot, for our own sake, afford it.' (The Sheaf)

Syrian Proverb 'It is cruelty to the innocent not to punish the guilty.'

Unknown 'It may be noble, even spiritually uplifting, to forgive one's own personal enemies. The Dailai Lama appears to have done so. And Christ certainly exemplified that ideal. But it is sheer complicity to forgive enemies of other innocent victims.'

Unknown 'Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals!'

Horacio Granada 'Humanity is already completely ripened for the supreme punishment: the end of this shameless species is rapidly approaching. We are really living the end of a species that completed its cycle and has dug its own grave!'

Ogonyok, Russian Magazine 'Out of 135 criminals, including robbers and rapists, 118 admitted that when they were children they burned/hanged/ stabbed domestic animals.' (Quoted in Voice of the Voiceless) ******

Jeff D. Copeland 'Sharks. Though they have long been stigmatized as the terror of the seas, they have far more to fear from humans. Over 100 million sharks die at the hands of humans each year, while only 25 people a year die from shark attacks!' (E Magazine)

Adela P. 'Make a Last Will and Testament NOW!!! Only a formal legal document will place whatever your assets are exactly to benefit the animals... if that's what you (hopefully) want! Two or three loyal-to-the-cause and very active animal rights groups are better than one. But... carefully observe/investigate regularly the consistency, nature, frequency of the groups' activities. If they don't measure up, just change them!!! There are today many other great groups small and large that need your help!!!'

Adela P. 'Some, while deploring animal abuses, on the same breath approve 'benefits to humans from certain animal abuses'! Who would criticize the Jewish holocaust or Black slavery, and YET praise the benefits to Germans or Whites??? This convenient ambiguity at the expense of animals is unacceptable!!!'

Enrique Núñez, Pro dignidad Humana 'Aforismos'
'Sensitive persons do hear the moans of the world that's being murdered, and the moans of the animals' that are being tortured. Those who do not perceive such clamor, are already dead for God.'

Prof. Gary L. Francione (Rutgers U. School of Law) 'We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.'

Adela P. 'Humans call animals 'dumb'... after they robbed their entire own precious world. They are intelligent beings in their own right, and thoroughly self-sufficient... if not molested by humans. Yet, after millennia of slavery by selfish/callous humans they're made to look dumb! The 'superior species' in their situations would, too, appear 'dumb'.'

Adela P. 'It seems increasingly dogs are attacking humans in response to their slavery... AND, wildlife in captivity are also attacking their enslavers AND the public... Their messages are loud and clear: LET US OUT AND LEAVE US ALONE!!!'

Adela P. Watch it! It was robbed from other beings so it's HOT 'MERCHANDISE' and it's against the Law... the LAW OF DECENCY!!! Stay within this Law, steer clear of wool/pearl/silk/ fish bone/ fur/ivory/coral/ down/beeswax/honey/ cashmere/ lanolin/ feathers/ camel hair/flesh/milk/ eggs/ fish/ seafood/ other!!!'

Adela P. 'All animals go through interminable hard labor to produce what humans shamelessly rob from them at great physical/mental pain to them and to their young. THINK TWICE before using hot 'merchandise'!!!'

Carol Watson (Amberwood Burro Sanctuary)
'Burros (also known as Donkeys): Kind/gentle-eyed/velvety-nosed donkey/burro has been throughout history a burden bearer/used extensively in every other conceivable work, and the reward for his loyal service has been neglect/abuse/ridicule! Ever since the decline of mining and the invention of automobile the burro no longer being gainful to man, was abandoned. They banded together and lived off grazing lands which ranchers used for their sheep/cattle, and hunters for their target animals. War is declared on burros by shooting/burning/running them off cliffs to their deaths!'

Anatole France 'An old philosopher said to Monsieur Coignard, a Reverend Father: 'You are a pig!' To which Abad Coignard answered: 'You flatter me, sir. But unfortunately, I'm only a man.'' (From 'Opinions and Warnings of Abad Coignard')

Arthur B. Evans & Ron Miller
'Jules Verne was not the 'mad scientist' some thought him to be. In several of his novels he showed great concern for the dangers of technology/pollution caused by the oil industry/the imminent extinction of whales, and in his 1901 novel 'The Village in the Tree Tops' he exposed the slaughter of elephants for their ivory!' (Scientific America)

Godofredo Tutzin, Esq. 'The first public protest against cruelty to animals, per Toynbee, a historian, was in 55 BC by the Roman people, to save the life of an elephant.' (Cuando los Animales Tenían Voz) (When Animals had a voice)

Thomas Berry 'The reduction of the earth to an object simply for human's use/ possession is unthinkable in most traditional cultures... the earth belongs to itself and to all the component members of the community.' (The Viable Human)

Mahatma Gandhi 'The Earth has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed!'

Bina Robinson (The Civil Abolitionist)
'Men and women who elect not to add to the over proliferation of the human species are to be commended for taking this responsibility. Some criticize them for supporting animals instead of adopting children, but everyone isn't cut out for parenthood. Children are infinitely more expensive to support and require many more years of commitment. It's more selfish to bring beings to the world that may have a life below par!'

Population Crisis Committee
'In the 6 seconds it takes you to read this sentence, 24 people will be added to the Earth's population. Before you've finished this letter, that number will reach 1000. Within an hour... 11,000. By day's end... 260,000. Before you go to bed 21 nights from now, the net growth in human numbers will be enough to fill a city the size of San Francisco. It took 4 million years for humanity to reach the 2 billion mark. Only 30 years to add a 3rd billion. And now we're increasing by 95 million every single year! No wonder they call it the human race!'

Pat Derby 'You have to love animals for what they are or leave them alone. The best thing you can do for them if you love them is leave them alone and see that other people do too.'

Humane Activist News (Animals Need You, Inc.) 'Among many other fine qualities in animals, their understanding of compassion even surpasses humans'! They do not want others to suffer. When rhesus monkeys were forced by experimenters at Northwestern University to choose between starving and electrically shocking a helpless companion, they chose to starve!!!'

Unknown 'You love an animal when you don't want anything from her/him.'

Abraham Lincoln 'I could not have slept tonight if I had left that helpless creature to perish on the ground. (To friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to re-nest a fledgling.)'

Unknown 'To be able to love a butterfly, we must care for the caterpillars too.'

William Cowper Powys 'I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility), the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.'

Unknown 'Kind hearts are the gardens; kind thoughts are the roots; kind words are the blossoms; kind deeds are the fruits - animal and human kindness... ah so good!'

Cardinal Newman 'Now what is it moves our very heart, and sickens us so much as cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this: first, that they have done us no harm; next that they have no power whatsoever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny, of which they are the victims, which make their sufferings so especially touching. There is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.'

Buddha 'All beings tremble before violence, all fear death, all love life - see yourself in others, then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?'

Concern for Helping Animals in Israel
'There's a Jewish Law to prevent 'tsaar ba-alei chaim' (the suffering of living creatures) and to value their lives as intrinsically worthy. Causing suffering to any living creature constitutes a violation of this Law which states: 'It is forbidden, according to the Law of the Holy Torah, to inflict pain upon any living creatures. On the contrary, it is our duty to relieve the pain of any creatures...'' Helen Keller 'I'm the only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do!'

Larry Eisenberg 'The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention.' (Bulletin Boarders C.S.S.)

Robert F. Kennedy 'Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.'

Steven Tiger, Physician Assistant-Certified (The Anti-Vivisection Society)
'So keep at it [animal rights fight] and keep cool. We are not trying to achieve the impossible. We are trying to accelerate the inevitable.'

Margaret Mead 'Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.'

Susan Jeffers and Ellen Carr 'Feel the fear and do it anyway.'

Anonymous 'I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.' (Quoted by Carla in PETA's Animal Times)

William L. O'Neill 'All great reforms require one to dare a lot to win a little.'

Mary McDonald-Lewis, Dir.
'Do get involved in animal rights, YES... BUT: pace yourself! Don't assume you will end these atrocities tomorrow! Lots of people with lots of more knowledge before have been working over hundred years to end this obscenity. Do take time to play! Celebrate frequently the beauty that does exist despite the world's brutality. Do unite with others who share your views. Every individual who gets involved takes a single stone from the enslaving wall until one day the wall must inevitably crumble and fall! While many animals and many of us will not live to see that day, we are working to help build the foundation for the activists of tomorrow who'll continue our work. Our torch must not be allowed to fall to the ground, but passed from generation to generation without a stop until that glorious day of animal liberation arrives! Tomorrow's activists will remember the early animal soldiers with respect and affection.' (Last Chance for Animals)

Unknown 'Sad many wonderful activists abandon our cause when getting older! Keep in mind this anonymous golden thought: 'NOBODY GROWS OLD BY MERELY LIVING A NUMBER OF YEARS; PEOPLE GROW OLD BY DESERTING THEIR IDEALS!''

Ed Duvin 'In the words of the Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, 'Sometimes to be silent is to lie.' Our movement hasn't been silent but whispering at a barely audible level ... it hardly represents the brutal truth!' (Animalines)

Dr. Martin Luther King 'If a man has not discovered something he will die for, he is not fit to live.' (Quoted by Chris DeRose (Last Chance for Animals) in 'In Your Face')

Ralph Chaplin 'Mourn not the dead, that in the cool earth lie, dust unto dust; The calm, sweet earth, that mothers all who die, as all men must; But rather mourn the apathetic throng, the cowed and the meek, who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak!'

Abraham Lincoln 'He who sees cruelty and does nothing about it is himself cruel.'

Richard Calore 'The hands that help are far, far holier than the hands that pray. The true duty of an animal rights/protection society is not to prolong life but to prevent suffering!' (In Defense of Cats)

Unknown 'Congressman Robert Torricelli gave a speech on how to get your Congressperson to co-sponsor and support legislation you want. The Congressman's advice was to pester the life out of your representative. Write/phone and, if possible, visit his/her office. Bring others with you if you can, to show more support. Keep up the pressure, and encourage as many others as you can to do the same until the Congressperson becomes inundated with letters and phone calls. He reminded us that the other side works very hard to stop legislation that would benefit animals, and we must work just as hard, or even harder, if we want these bills to pass.'

Ava Barcelona 'Don't ask, 'How is one protest letter going to help?' If a million people ask the same question - you know the math!' (As quoted by Dot Hayes, Act'tion Line)

Dr. Escarlata Justo Brito (ESSI, Spain) 'Animals cannot be defended with sentimentalism and crying, because this does not move any hearts. More effective is to engage in a more practical fight based on scientific and economic arguments. Many people only understand money and their own welfare, not the suffering and murder of innocent species.'

Edmund Burke 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good persons to do nothing.'

Intl. Society for Animal Rights 'Let's bring MORE & MORE to the attention of the public the truth about the existing link between animal crimes and other contemporary injustices: spousal abuse/child abuse/elderly abuse/ other human abuses.'

Ahsley Montague (Anthropologist and Social Biologist) 'Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die... do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing. There are no excuses for inaction, despair, egotism, or petulance that matter to the animals.'

Adela P. 'Colleges/high schools/(elementary too?) are terrific places to sow animal rights seeds! A sympathetic student could, through the school's animal rights or protection group, invite you to show videos/give talks. If no group, take an inexpensive course and start one. You'll get free use of copying/phoning/ computers/ meeting place... and receive a good money grant too!'

Unknown 'There is a replacement to every single animal product in existence. Find it - use it... Or just rid your life of it!'

Adela P. 'Animal abusers are not the only culprits - the consumers are the biggest abusers! As long as buyers, users, attendees at animal performances, etc., keep using, abusers keep abusing!!!' ******

Terry Stanley, Pres. Northwoods Humane Society, Hayward, Wisconsin
'We have those who would like us to stay popular by not taking stands against hunting, fur, and animal use in research. But something a very wise man once said to me always repeats itself loudly: 'You fail because you become so focused on the little dog or cat at your feet, that not looking up, you fail to see the nation of animals who are suffering.''

John Morley 'Active hatred of cruelty, injustice and oppression is perhaps the main difference between a good person and a bad one.'

John Ruskin 'He who is not actively kind is cruel!'

Lawrence Carter Long (Former Poster Child for the United Way)
'The animal rights movement I belong to does not have the time or the inclination to criticize the work of others, it understands that working towards our abolitionist goals in incremental steps is the only way we will move ahead, and it has no use for labels - it is too busy taking action. The animal rights movement I belong to is united in support of our common goals rather than squabbling over attention or money, it has no room for ego or ivory tower activists with personal agendas - it understands the value of working together!'

Alex Pacheco (PETA) 'Please remember the hundreds of tiny empty stomachs in our communities. Winter is a tough time for birds and other small creatures as food can become buried beneath snow or frozen ground. Scatter seeds in your yard, nearby parks.'

Adela P. 'Please also remember the pitiful gasping/thirsty little mouths/ beaks in summer. They'll appreciate abundant/fresh/cool/clean/ water! Food they can get easily in parks/sidewalks!'

Henry Spira (Coalition to Abolish the Draize Test)
'Never deceive the media or the public. Credibility is all we have to go on. Nothing gets done without total commitment and outrage mixed with political realism. Never assume anything: Check everything out yourself, at the source. Establish the credibility that when we start something, we finish it. With such track record, we then move to bigger struggles and more significant victories. No congressional bill or legal gimmickry by itself will save the animals. The courts can, at best, open up the possibility for us to intervene in defense of animals, but the courts will not act until effective protests disrupt the system's orderly operation.'

Steven Tiger, Physician Assistant-Certified
'Reform vs. Abolition: Some reformers waste their time condemning abolitionists as standing in the way of achievable gain, while some abolitionists are busy condemning reformers as betrayers of the cause. But the issue is not about philosophical purity vs. practical accomplishment; it is about identifying one's arena of activity and working in the manner appropriate for that arena.' (Reform vs. Abolition -The Final Word)

St. Louis Animal Rights Team
''Violence' vs. Passivism: Last Century's 'Underground Railroad' illegally helped human slaves escape from bondage. They recognized the laws that legalized slavery were morally wrong and should not be legitimized with compliance. They risked their own freedom by violating the property rights of slave owners and leading slaves to freedom. Today, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) risk their freedom to liberate innocent animals that are immorally abused/injured/murdered by actions that violate the property rights of animal abusers. Animals are covertly removed from danger and placed in foster care facilities. Torturing equipment like stereotaxic devices/ decapitators/ restraining devices, etc. are damaged or destroyed to prevent their further use. No human or non-human animal is ever harmed in any way.' (Position Statement)

Robert A. Hansen 'Animal Liberation Front (ALF). The moderates in our movement have precious little basis for reprehending those who raid laboratories or engage in 'ecotage'. To paraphrase Seneca - 'Extremism in the cause of compassion is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.''

Martin Luther King 'And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right.'

Albert Leffingwell, M.D. 'He is a slave who dare not be in the right with two or three; he's a slave who dare not choose hatred, slander and abuse, rather than in silence shrink from the truth he needs must think. There's no slavery more degrading to character than the ignoble fear of standing for truth and justice without the multitudes clamoring approbation and support.'

Adela P. 'It's disheartening that animal people criticize societies that enlist the help of actors or organize creative acts like 'I'd rather go naked than wear fur,' to increase public awareness to our cause. These are great/courageous ideas which time has come! Liberation of animals is REVOLUTION - not elegant performance/ intellectual competition. We should do most anything to advance the animal rights cause. All the bickering may make the one step forward... TWO STEPS BACKWARD???'

Allan Bullington 'If social activism required human perfection, nothing would ever get done. Thankfully, we don't have to be perfect to show people how to prevent the suffering of others. In the long run, the best we can do is to make sure we're doing the best we can do ourselves and to speak out for all living beings.' (The True Nature Network)

Adela P. 'Beware of armchair 'animal rights or welfare' societies! Anyone can become a 'nonprofit' society, make occasional mailings of heart-rending pictures and just wait for the contributions to shower in... It takes a genuine animal person or group to devote maximum time, hard work and money towards the total liberation of all animals, including doing 'dirty work' when needed and refraining from any and all use of animals and their products, even compassion for insects, etc. too! Contribute only to those who, in your conscience, qualify!!! AND... there are thousands of effective things we can do for the animal cause with little or no money - alone or with others!!!'

Prof. Gary L. Francione (Rutgers U. School of Law)
'We need to reshape the movement as one of grassroots activists, and not 'professional activists' who populate the seemingly endless number of national animal rights groups. For many people, activism has become writing a check to a national group that is very pleased to have you leave it to them. Although it is important to give financial support to worthy efforts only, giving money is not enough and giving to the wrong groups can actually do more harm than good.'

Adela P. 'Some 'good animal' people USE the animal rights/protection movement for their own careers/fame/money!!! What's the difference between animals in labs/zoos/factory farms/pet shops/ circuses/etc. and those held in captivity to teach them OUR language/exhibit/train to market as pets (and other)/intrude into their territories to move or study them with myriads of profitable excuses instead of denouncing their slavery and contributing to their liberation!!! Animals don't need to learn humans' ways or 'be helped' (for whose benefit?) any more than already forced into for millennia! To all animal opportunists who pass as animal rights persons, beware: better follow the genuine advice from Pat Derby: JUST LEAVE ANIMALS ALONE!!!'

Eric Eckholm 'One animal or plant species may become extinct every hour. All species are doomed to extinction, but man through worldwide development/killing animals for food/profit/using toxic chemicals such as pesticides/industrial wastes, will accelerate the extinction of plants/animals and the result will be a more hostile environment for man.' (Worldwatch Institute) *******

Adela P. 'Ecology more important than saving animals from slavery??? Humans suffer the raping of the earth but animals suffer DOUBLY: the raping of the earth PLUS their own raping by humans. They are innocent/they are not the ones who raped the earth/they enrich it for us all from the tiniest microscopic beings to the largest ones.'

Adela P. 'I hear it's better to use animal products than synthetics, which are harmful to humans and the earth... but destroying one segment of the creation to allegedly save another is the idea of fools!!!'

Phil Becker 'What is 'Animal Rights'? It is the philosophy of allowing nonhuman animals to have the most basic rights that all sentient beings desire: the freedom to live a natural life free from human exploitation, pain and suffering, and premature death. This is what the animal rights movement is about, it is not about working for equality between human and nonhuman animals.' (Vegetarian Journal)

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) 'Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment!'

Phil Becker 'How is 'Animal Rights' different from 'Animal Welfare'? Animal welfare seeks to alleviate the suffering of animals while they are being exploited - without attempting to question the fundamental basis of whether it is acceptable to exploit animals in the first place. Animal rights beliefs reject the idea that animals need to have a value to the human species in order to be deserving of rights.' (Vegetarian Journal)

Reverence for Life 'Distinguishing a true gentleman is his instinctive chivalry at all times and on all occasions toward the weak and defenseless, be it human or be it nonhuman.'

C. Richard Calore 'Many times I'm told I should stop protecting animals and start protecting people. I'm deeply concerned about the poor/the children/the elderly/the sick and those persecuted because of race, color and creed. Their suffering is my suffering, but at least they can talk for their own defense; animals cannot!' ('The Rights of Animals' Voice of the Voiceless)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 'So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind while just the art of being kind, is all the sad world needs.'

Thomas Alva Edison 'The money one gets for selling one's soul is always spent in deadening one's conscience, so the net gain at the end of a lifetime is no greater than if the diabolic bargain had not been struck.'

Unknown 'You cannot do evil that good may result.'

Walt Whitman 'I think I could turn and live with animals, They are so placid and self-contained! I stand and look at them long and long, They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.' (Song of Myself 'Leaves of Grass')

Schopenhauer 'The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.' (On the Basis of Morality)

Sabrina LeBeauf (Cosby Shaw Star) 'Even animals who sometimes seem unlovable to humans, have also feelings. They can suffer just as we do.'

Bill Kern, Dept. of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation, University of Florida 'When people decide an animal is a nuisance, they are basically putting a death penalty on that animal.' (Quoted in the Miami Herald)

James Boswell (1740-1795) 'But the question is, whether the animals who endure such sufferings of various kinds for the service and entertainment of man, would accept existence upon the terms on which they have it.' (Life of Dr. Johnson)

World Society for the Protection of Animals 'If you don't think animal protection is a battle, consider the weapons we're up against: harpoon; leg-hold trap; cockfighting spur; puntilla (knife used in the slaughter of livestock in certain countries); ferao (used in Brazil to poke out the eyes of cattle before leading them to slaughter); hakapik (used to club baby seals)... among others!'

Vernon Howard 'What domestication and human 'help' (read slavery) does to animals. >From Taoism: 'A carefree band of horses galloped spiritedly around the hills and meadows. They dined on green grass and drank clear water form cool streams. Living freely, naturally and contentedly. Along came a horse-trainer named Polo. He captured the unsuspecting horses, declaring, 'I know what is best for them.' He bridled the horses, decorated them with cheap ornaments, gave them numbers. Then he made them perform in public. They were forced to trot about in precise formation to the crackling commands of a whip. The once-carefree horses turned into mechanical performers tired, sick, afraid...' (Mystic Path)

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832, Philosopher, Oxford University) 'I don't care whether animals are capable of thinking; all I care about is that they are capable of suffering!'

Unknown 'We are all victims of the violence that animals suffer... their liberation is also our liberation!'

Adela P. ''Extinction' issue. Save the species for whom??? Humans' convenience, of course! Individuals of the species are snatched from their homes/family/habitat/held in captivity/forced to mate at great physical/ spiritual pain. When the right numbers are reached, their holocaust starts all over again! Another merry-go-round/ bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual!!! Protectionists/welfarists find it a profitable issue: no controversy/ easy donations! I'd rather see an entire species extinct than in the hands of the humans!'

Brigid Brophy (1929-) 'To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals.' ('The Rights of Animals', Sunday Times)

Adela P. 'FREE animals of the jungle/air/sea/mountains are called 'wild', 'savage', 'vicious', 'beasts' who defend themselves and their own territories from greedy, ruthless 'brave' men armed to the teeth/ with snares, tranquilizing guns, other. Enslaving them forever, then murdering them, THEN calling them 'dumb'!!!'

Vernon Howard 'Cruelty practiced as a matter of social principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means to a higher goal is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any civilization.' (The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power)

Vernon Howard 'The Truth must be told at all costs, no matter how unpopular it may be. The authentic spiritual leader, having freed himself of his own false need to be popular, tells the Truth whether it falls on fertile or stony ground. Such a teacher is the salt of the earth, though few know it. If you think the world is delirious as is, you would find it intolerable without his healing influence.' (The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power)

Arthur Schopenhauer '[T]he moralists of Europe [have] pretended that beasts have no rights... a doctrine revolting/gross/barbarous... on which a native of the Asiatic uplands could not look without righteous horror...' (PETA's Animal Times 'Ask Carla')

Hitopadesa 'Life is as dear to others as it is to oneself. Good men bear this in mind and are merciful to all living creatures.'

L.T. Danshiell 'The lack of humane education is the principal cause of crime.' (From a Legislative Address)

Lord (Walter Russell) Brain (1895-1966) 'I personally can see no reason for conceding mind to my fellow men and denying it to animals... I at least cannot doubt that the interests and activities of animals are correlated with awareness and feeling in the same way as my own, and which may be, for aught I know, just as vivid.' (Presidential address 'The Assessment of Pain in Men and Animals')

Unknown
'He [the truly ethical man] breaks no leaf from the tree, plucks no flower, is careful to crush no insect with his feet. When he works by his lamp in the summer evening, he prefers to keep his window shut and to breathe the stifling air rather than to see insect after insect falling on his table with singed wings. If after a rain he is walking on the road and sees an earthworm gone astray, he remembers it will dry up in the sun if it does not get back in time to the earth into which it can burrow, and helps it from the fatal stones into the grass. If he comes upon an insect fallen into a puddle, he takes time to save it by extending a leaf or a stalk to it. He is not afraid of being laughed at as sentimental. It is the fate of every truth to be ridiculed before it is recognized. It was once considered stupid to think colored men were really human and must be treated humanely. The time is coming when people will be amazed that it took so long for mankind to recognize that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with ethics.'

George Bernard Shaw 'Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.'

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 'For fidelity, devotion, love, many a two-legged animal is below the dog and the horse. Happy would it be for thousands of people if they could stand at last before the Judgment Seat and say 'I have loved as truly and I have lived as decently as my dog.' And yet we call them 'only brutes'!' (The Clergy Speak for Animals)

Luther Burbank (1849-1926) 'If the creatures with fur/feathers/fins are our brothers in a lower stage of development then their very weakness and inability to protest, demands that man should refrain from torturing them for the mere possibility of obtaining some knowledge which he believes may be to his own interest.' (Letter to Mrs. C.P. Farrell)

Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1923-) 'Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life's scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest...' (The Light that Never Was)

Ernest Bell (1851-1933) 'The man who is described as behaving 'like a beast' would often in his behavior be a disgrace to any known animal.' (Summer School Papers)

Will Cuppy (1884-1949) 'If an animal does something we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence!' (National Enquirer)

George Louis Leclerk de Buffon (1707-1788) 'He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess.' (L'Histoire Naturelle)

Ernest Bell (1851-1933) 'The old assumption that animals acted exclusively by instinct, while man had a monopoly of reason, is, we think, maintained by few people nowadays who have any knowledge at all about animals. We can only wonder that so absurd a theory could have been held for so long a time as it was, when on all sides the evidence of animals' power of reasoning is crushing.' (Summer School Papers)

Ernest Bell (1851-1933) 'Man is an almost hopelessly conceited animal, this pygmy! He thinks that not only the earth with all that it contains was created for his benefit, but also the sky, the sun, and indeed, the whole universe, as far as he has any knowledge of it, were designed for his purposes and welfare.' (Superiority in the Lower Animals)

Lord (Henry) Bolingbroke (1678-1751) 'I think it indisputable that the distance between the intellectual faculties of different men is greater than that between the same faculties in some men and some other animals.' (Essays on Human Knowledge)

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) 'The horse is, like man, the most beautiful and the most miserable of creatures, only, in the case of man, it is vice or property that makes him ugly. He is responsible for his own decadence, while the horse is only a slave.' (Rose Bonheur, a Life and a Legend)

1936 Dhammapada (Buddhism) 'One act of pure love in saving life is greater than spending the whole of one's time in religious offerings to the gods.'

Anna Sewell 'There is no religion without love. If it does not teach to be good and kind to beast as well as man it is all a sham.' (Black Beauty) Quoted in Peta's Animal Times 'Ask Carla'

St. John Chrysostom (c.347-407) 'Surely we ought to show them (animals) great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves.' (Homilies)

Yin-chih-wen (A Confucian-Taoist treatise, probably post 4th Century A.D. Attr. Wen Ch'ang)
'(1) Buy captive creatures and set them free. (2) Hold fast to vegetarianism and abstain from taking life. (3) Whenever taking a step, always watch for ants and insects. Prohibit the building of fires outside (lest insects be killed) and do not set mountain woods or forests ablaze. (4) Help people in distress as you would help a fish in a dried up rut. Free people from danger as you would free a sparrow from a fine net. (5) Benefit living creatures and human beings. Cultivate goodness and happiness.'

L.C. Birch (1918-) '(The animal rights movement) should be supported by all Christians. In an ecological universe, every created entity has intrinsic value because all are subjects as well as objects. As we cover more and more of the earth with our factories/ highways/ towns/parking lots, we annihilate more and more plants and animals.' (From address before 450 scientists/religious leaders at the World Council of Churches Conference on Faith/Science and the Future)

Dr. Joyce Brothers 'Psychologists/sociologists/criminologists studied prison inmates who committed especially brutal/sadistic crimes to humans like rape/torture/murder. One common factor in almost all of these sadistic crimes was a background of animal abuse and torture in these criminals' youths, adolescence or early childhood. Because of these and many similar findings, abuse of animals is viewed as a predictor of vicious crimes against people!' (Daily News)

Samson Raphael Hirsch 'Above all, those to whom the care of young minds has been entrusted should see to it that they respect both the smallest and largest animals as beings which, like people, have been summoned to the joy of life...'

Daily Breeze 'A 14-year old Japanese boy confessed to killing a mentally retarded 11-year old in Kobe and dumping the mutilated/severed head in a schoolyard. Police investigated killings of pigeons and other small animals in the area, which led them to the killer boy!' (CONTACT Magazine)

CONTACT Magazine
'Discovery Channel's 'Justice Files-Serial Killings' documented that murderers share a background of setting fires and cruelty to animals before murdering humans: Ted Bundy committed 50 murders and spent his youth torturing animals. Albert Salvo (The Boston Strangler) murdered 13 women and confessed as a youth he trapped dogs/cats in orange crates and shot arrows into the boxes. Jeffrey Dahmer inflicted unspeakable horrors to animals then went on to murder/mutilate dozens of humans, even cannibalized and committed necrophilia on some of the bodies! MORE? Day before Russell Eugene Weston shot & killed 2 U.S. Capitol officers and wounded a woman, he shot and killed all of his father's 14 cats, and left the remains of his father's 2 favorites ones in a bucket for him to find!!!'

Unknown ''The Bell of Justice'. In an old city in Italy, its king had installed a bell in the public square. Anyone wrongly treated would ring it and get justice. After many years the bell rope rotted away so it was tied with a wild vine to make it longer. One day an abandoned/old/starving horse wandered into the square, took a mouthful hungrily of the vine... and the bell rang! The king hurried to the square and saw an old/thin/hungry horse and said he should have justice. He immediately summoned the owner and ordered him to look after his old horse, to give him good food and water, a proper stable and peace and if he didn't he would be punished! Justice was done and all the citizens felt their magistrate acted wisely.'

William Blake 'Little fly, thy summer's play My thoughtless hand has brushed away. Am not I a fly like thee? Or art not thou a man like me? For I dance and drink and sing, Till some blind hand shall brush my wing!' (The Fly, from Songs of Experience)

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winner 'The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than Black people were made for Whites or women for men.' (Author The Color Purple)

Animals Magazine 'Bats. They do not 'multiply like rabbits', most bear only a single young each year. They do not chew through wiring/ insulation/ other. They aren't blind, they don't get into women's hair, and they aren't rodents. In fact, bats are more closely related to humans.'

Marjorie Thorn 'Death Watch. I wish I hadn't watched it, when I sprayed, From circling flight it fell upon my quilt. Its insect hands plucked at its mouth, assayed To take out toxin, and a human's guilt. Then wavering antenna met like hands in prayer. It shuddered some, but made no move to fly; Just bowed its head in posture of despair. Remorsefully I watched the creature die!' (In Ozark Gardens)

Brigid Brophy 'The fact that there are bigger injustices and wrongs doesn't make it right to sacrifice an innocent monkey. It doesn't alter the case at all.' (Hackenfeller's Ape)

Mohandas Gandhi 'It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result!' (PETA's Calendar)

Unknown: 'A wish changes nothing. A decision with action changes all!'

Unknown: 'Let's NOT forget the billions of animals that suffer and die because of the human race.'

Bill Dollinger 'Civil disobedience has been used as an effective means of bringing about social change throughout history. Thoreau/ Gandhi/ Martin Luther King, Jr. all practiced nonviolent civil disobedience. It allows us to follow the 'moral law,' and it attracts media to the event enabling us to tell the whole world what really goes on behind closed doors. Many expressed dismay at our willingness to break the laws which we consider to be unjust, to them this quote from Thoreau in his famous essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. If a law is of such nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law! Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.'' (FoA's 'Act-tionLine')

George T. Angell 'I am sometimes asked 'Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?' I answer, 'I am working at the roots!''

Sir Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940) 'Kindness to all God's creatures is an absolute rock-bottom necessity if peace and righteousness are to prevail.' (The Adventure of Life)

Rev. J.A. Mitchell 'Cruelty to animals is a two-edged sword, injuring not only the helpless sufferers, but blunting the moral nature of the person guilty of the offense. A man cannot be a true Christian and willingly inflict torture on any living being.'

Justice for animals is the social movement of our times and we must all participate to make it a reality. It’s long overdue. Carmina Gooch

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