Over 50 quotes and sayings about Animals and their rights
Sri Aurobindo: ‘Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.’
1. True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.
– Joseph Addison
2. Happiness is a warm puppy.
– Charles M. Schulz
3. Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.
– Sri Aurobindo
4. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man’s.
5. Animals are my friends … and I don’t eat my friends.
6. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.
7. I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
8. Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.
9. I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
10. I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her.
– Ellen DeGeneres
11. A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
12. You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.
– Paul McCartney
13. A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
14. The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
15. Animals don’t hate, and we’re supposed to be better than them.
– Elvis Presley
16. Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.
– Dean Koontz
17. You know, sometimes the world seems like a pretty mean place.’
‘That’s why animals are so soft and huggy.
– Bill Watterson
18. Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
– Anatole France
19. Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.
– John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog
20. If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
– James Herriot
20. I think I could turn and live with the 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 his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.
21. I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
– Leonardo da Vinci
22. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian.
– Linda McCartney, Linda’s Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meals Without Meat
23. The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.
– Martin Luther
24. The dog’s agenda is simple, fathomable, overt: I want. “I want to go out, come in, eat something, lie here, play with that, kiss you. There are no ulterior motives with a dog, no mind games, no second-guessing, no complicated negotiations or bargains, and no guilt trips or grudges if a request is denied.
– Caroline Knapp
25. Whoever said you can’t buy Happiness forgot little puppies.
– Gene Hill
26. I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends – the fear, the terror, the pain – and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being.
– Rai Aren
27. To be a vegetarian is to disagree – to disagree with the course of things today… starvation, cruelty – we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it’s a strong one.
– Isaac Bashevis Singer
28. I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
– Hippolyte Taine
29. Animals never worry about Heaven or Hell. neither do I. maybe that’s why we get along.
– Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems
30. Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.
– Colette
31. Discipline isn’t about showing a dog who’s boss; it’s about taking
responsibility for a living creature you have brought into your world.
– Cesar Millan, Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar’s Way to Transform Your Dog … and Your Life
32. True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.
– Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
33. Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.
– Alfred A. Montapert
34. There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.
– Anna Sewell
35. Life is life’s greatest gift. 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.
– Lloyd Biggle Jr.
36. When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.
– Buddha
37. Love of animals is a universal impulse, a common ground on which all of us may meet. By loving and understanding animals, perhaps we humans shall come to understand each other.
– Louis J. Camuti
38. Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is – whether its victim is human or animal – we cannot expect things to be much better in this world.
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.
– Rachel Carson
39. I was so moved by the intelligence,sense of fun and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian.
Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.
– James Cromwell
40. Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging is such acts of brutality.
41. The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties. The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.
– Charles Darwin
42. You have to love animals for what they are or leave them alone. The best thing you can do if you love them is leave them alone and see that other people do too.
– Pat Derby
43. 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.
44. Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.
– James A. Froude
45. If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution – and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity.
– Jane Goodall
46. He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
47. I would look at a dog and when our eyes met, I realized that the dog and all creatures are my family. They’re like you and me.
– Ziggy Marley
48. Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it is to the caterpillar.
– Bradley Miller
49. Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
– Arthur Schopenhauer
50. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.
51. If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.
Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
52. The difference between dog people and cat people: dog people wish their dogs were people. Cat people wish they were cats.
– Simon Sinek
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Photo credit: Holgi