Thoughts About Animals and Their Rights

Golden Drops of Bare Truths

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."

Dr. Gerald Curtler
"The more helpless the victim, the greater the crime!"

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???"

George Bernard Shaw
"We are all victims of the violence that animals suffer... their liberation is also our liberation."

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."

Unknown
"Animals don't wear makeup, don't drink alcohol, don't drop bombs, don't smoke... because you do, why should they 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!"

Mark Twain
"Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat. Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit, your dog would go to heaven and you would stay out!"

Walt Whitman
"I think I could always live with animals. The more you're around people, the more you love animals."

George Schaller (Zoologist/Director for Science)
"Humans are the one species the world could do very well without."

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!"

Mark Twain
"If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man, but it would degrade the cat!"

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)

Pennsylvania Dutch Saying
"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children!"

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)

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winner (Author The Color Purple)
"But if by some miracle and all our struggle, the earth is spared, only justice to every living being will save humankind."

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."

Albert Schweitzer
"To the truly ethical man, all of life is sacred, including forms of life that from the human point of view may seem lower than ours."

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!"

The Sacred Book of the Sikhs
"He who toward all living things is kind... Ah! He indeed will true religion find."

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."

St. Francis of Assisi
"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

Ecclesiastes 3:10
"For that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them: As the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast."

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...'"

Pedro di Lorenzo
"Torturing animals in any form in the name of Christ, the Virgin and the Saints, in these pagan practices, it simply means to step on and spit at, the work of God."

Vatican City
"Pope John Paul said that 'the future of humanity and planet earth are in danger because of a lack of respect for animals and the environment. It is necessary and urgent that following the example of the poor man [St. Francis] one decides to abandon inconsiderate forms of domination, capture and custody with respect to all creatures.'" (Associated Press)

Rt. Rev. John Chanler White, D.D. (Late Episcopal Bishop of Springfield, Illinois)
"As a Bishop of the Church of God, I am ashamed to say that the Church as an organization has never made any official pronouncement on the subject of the care and treatment of animals that I am able to find. I am more and more amazed as I have studied the matter to find that the Church has almost completely ignored the animal kingdom... It is time, fully time, that all Christian people awake to the necessity of taking an active part in the fight against what I dare to call the Crime of Animal Cruelty. Everyone who loves God and animals should help bear the burden of the fight against this insidious evil."

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)

Richard Bach
"Here's a test to find out whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't!"

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."

Mark Twain
"A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it."

Adrienne Rich
"My heart is moved by all I cannot save: So much has been destroyed, I have to cast my lot with those who age after age perseverily with no extraordinary power reconstitute the world." (The Dream of a Common Language)

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!"

John Adams
"This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!"

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)

Haywood Brown
"A cat is nobody's fool!"

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)

Lewis Mumford
"One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence." (The Transformations of Man)

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)

Charlie Rose (Former Representative)
"I am not willing to let the market-place determine the future of the animal kingdom."

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!"

Brother John
"Recorded history shows the relationship between human and animal has been very one-sided! Man's exploitation/treatment of animals stands out as one of the darkest stains on his reputation. Is the purpose of life for the indulgence of selfish desires? Or a medium for soul growth? If we behave brutally or selfishly, then we are brutes and selfish. No religious label or outward facade alters this truth. Can we believe in and preach life after death, and yet be party to murdering millions of innocent animals via the blood-drenched abattoir, vivisection, fur trade, 'games', entertainment, 'sports'???"

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"

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."

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)

Parkes Cadman (1864-1936)
"We have abolished human bondage because it cursed those who imposed it. It is now our bounden duty to oppose cruelty to those creatures of our common Father which share with man the mystery of life." (The Clergy Speak for Animals)

The Holy Bible (Isaiah 66:3)
"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations."

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)

Chinese Book of Rewards and Punishments. Five paragraphs from the explanations of the commandments: (1) Do not let your children make toys out of flies/butterflies or birds. Such behavior results in injury to living creatures, but also it arouses in young hearts an impulse to cruelty and murder. Stories illustrative of the commandments: (2) The wife of a soldier named Fan was tuberculous and close to death. She was ordered to eat the brains of 100 sparrows as a remedy. When she saw the birds in the cage, she sighed and said: "Must it be that 100 living creatures are to be killed that I may be healed? I would rather die than permit them to suffer." She opened the cage and allowed them to fly away. Afterwards she recovered from her illness. (3) Tsao-Pin lived in a ruined house. His children begged him to have it repaired. He answered: "In the cold winter the cracks in the walls and the space between the tiles and between the stones provide a shelter and a refuge to all kinds of living creatures. We should not endanger their lives." (4) Wu-Tang used to take his son hunting with him. One day they came upon a stag that was playing with its young one. Tang took an arrow and killed the young one. The frightened stag ran off with a cry of anguish. When Tang concealed himself the stag returned and licked the wounds of its fawn. Tang again drew his bow and killed it. He then saw another stag and sent an arrow towards it, but the arrow was deflected and pierced his son. Tang threw his bow away and tearfully embraced his dead son, when he heard a voice from the air: "Tang, the stag loved its fawn as much as you loved your son." (5) Meng-tse praises King Suan of Tsi because of his compassion in freeing an ox that was to be sacrificed at the dedication of some bells. Such a sentiment, he says, should suffice to make one king of the world. Monastic Taoism & Kan-Ying-P'ien. From the commandments for monks: (1st): Thou shalt kill no living thing nor do injury to its life. (2nd): Thou shalt not consume as food the flesh and blood of any living creature. (34th): Thou shall not strike or whip domestic animals. (35th): Thou shall not intentionally crush insects and ants with thy foot. (36th): Thou shalt not play with hooks and arrows for thine own amusement. (37th): Thou shalt not climb into trees to remove nests and to destroy the eggs. (63rd): Thou shalt not catch birds and quadrupeds with snares and nets. (64th): Thou shalt not frighten and scare away birds that are brooding on their nests. (68th): Thou shalt not dig up during the winter months animals hibernating in the earth. (112th): Thou shalt not pour hot water on the ground in order to exterminate insects and ants.

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)

"Animals live by ethics! (1) A flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a pond. One of the flock is captured by a gardener who had clipped its wings. When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing its struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage it, but no use. The entire flock then settled back on the pond and waited, even though the urge to go on was strong, for several days, until the damaged feathers grew sufficiently to permit the goose to fly. (2) A friend who owned a small cafe and used to throw crumbs for the sparrows, noticed that one was injured and had difficulty getting about. But he was interested to discover that the other sparrows would leave the crumbs which lay nearest their crippled comrade so that he could get his share, undisturbed.'
'When so much mistreatment of animals continues, when the cries of thirsty beasts from our railway cars die out unheard, when so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses, when animals meet a painful death in our kitchens, when animals suffer incredibly from merciless men and are turned over to the cruel play of children, WE ALL BEAR THE GUILT FOR IT. We are afraid of shocking people if we let it be noticed how much we are moved by the suffering man brings to animals. We think that others may have become more 'rational' than we, and may accept as customary and as a matter of course the things we have gotten excited about. Once in a while, however, a word suddenly slips out which shows that even they have not yet become reconciled to this suffering. Now they come very close to us though they were formerly strangers. The masks with which we were deceiving each other fall off. Now we learn from each other that no one is able to escape the grip of the cruelty that flourishes ceaselessly around us."

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!'"

Norm Phelps
"There's no greater temptation than to use a protest to vent the frustration and anger that we all feel in the face of atrocity. Sometimes it feels really good to blow off steam at animal abusers and people who defend them. But the purpose of a demonstration is not to make us feel good. If we present the public with an image of animal activists as angry/hostile/crude, we have sacrificed the good of the animals for our own gratification." (Quoted in The Abolitionist)

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)

Ingrid Newkirk, PETA
"Opportunities abound, not just to avoid making mistakes in the marketplace - which animals pay for with their lives - but to say and do even small things that will make a huge difference in how animals are treated and viewed. Act on the adage, 'All that evil needs to triumph is for enough good people to do nothing.' Wherever you are, if you see something wrong, put yourself in the animal's place and speak up! There are always other people who hold the same view but are waiting for someone else to go first. That someone is you. Even the terminally shy can be shameless salespeople, planting animal rights seeds in others' minds without even speaking to them! In restaurants talk loudly to your companion about how the vegetarian food is the best! On crowded elevators, discuss how 'Sarah' lost 30 pounds since she stopped eating chicken and fish! There is no 'one true way' to animal liberation - all that matters is that you are doing something. Don't fret over failures! REMEMBER: Every single act brings animal liberation that much closer!" (The Animals' Agenda)

Mother Theresa
"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person-to-person."

Rabbix
"No more compromises. No more lies. Every 6 seconds an animal is murdered! If YOU don't act, then YOU condone... If YOU don't fight, then YOU don't win!" (No Compromise Magazine)

John Stuart Mill
"Every great movement must experience three states: ridicule, discussion, adoption."

Richard Calore
"To be an animal lover is great. To be an animal protector is greater!" (In Defense of Cats)

PETA's Animal Times
"'The Artist', a vegan singer, reminds everyone who criticizes activists for 'wasting' their compassion on animals: 'Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.'"

Mother Jones
"If you can't lower heaven, raise hell!" (Quoted in Defense of Animals Magazine)

Adela P.
"Ideas to answer impertinent arguments like: 'You should give your money and work to humans instead of animals.'
'1st Answer: I give to both, DO YOU???
'2nd Answer: Ask the government to stop playing with trips to the planets, stop hoarding war/nuclear weapons, stop meddling in other countries' affairs and use these trillions of dollars to help humans!
'3rd Answer: Use the thousands of dollars you spend on fur, leather and steaks!'"

Adela P.
"Turn your back to insensitive people who machine gun you with challenges trying to 'catch' you wearing leather/eating flesh. They're not interested in your answers! Save your time/energy/ emotion to enlighten reasonable/kind people who don't have the information. But if you have the urge of the last word tell them: 'Even so, we are way ahead of you - at least we help some issues while you help none!'"

Henry Spira
"I don't see us as saints and them as sinners; one sees a universe of pain and suffering and asks what can one do." (Interview in E Magazine)

Gary Francione, Esq.
"To use animal welfare reforms as a 'springboard into animal rights' has the new welfarists chasing their tails to decrease pain/ suffering which are permitted in virtually unlimited amounts and in virtually unlimited ways as long as there is an identifiable human 'benefit'. This is what 'institutionalized animal exploitation' means: ANY ANIMAL INTEREST, HOWEVER FUNDAMENTAL, MAY BE SACRIFICED IN ORDER TO SERVE HUMAN INTEREST, HOWEVER TRIVIAL. We must ensure that incremental changes attack the big problem - the property status of animals." (Friends of Animals' Act-ion Line)

Brigid Brophy
"If, say, your employer had offered to bump you off at thirty, would you be reconciled to him on condition he did it humanely???" (Hackenfeller's Ape)

Adela P.
"'Drawing a line': I don't eat veal but ok chicken/fish; don't support animal experimentation but ok 'necessary' ones, don't wear fur but ok leather, etc. is totally unacceptable to a genuine animal rights group/person! Welfarists/protectionists approve the use of all animals 'if treatead well'! A gigantic absurdity for personal/opportunistic convenience at the expense of the animals they SAY they love! Who is anybody to decide which beings' parts to consume/wear??? Whether you put them in your feet/penis/back/mouth... it's the same crime! The ONLY answer is - LEAVE ALL ANIMALS ALONE!!!"

Adela P.
"There's talk of 'playing God' when forced to euthanize hopelessly homeless animals to spare them a torturous existence. But the very same critics are eating/wearing/using animals/ supporting vivisection and other lowest depths exploitation!!! They are NOT just playing God, they are downright THE EVILS THEMSELVES in all their savagery!"

Adela P.
"Novices in the movement may be at different levels of animal wearing/consuming, and might be only a matter of time for their ultimate enlightenment, though thanks to increased activism AND the multimedia today, it takes almost no time to learn all about the animal plight. BUT: it's fair/logical to expect from societies/activists total abstention or they're not ready for leadership. They confuse the public/discredit the movement/make a mockery of our cause!!! My contention/puzzle: how can anyone continue to wear/consume/use animals after knowing their horrid tragedy?"

Unknown
"Take nothing but pictures - leave nothing but footprints."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
"Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority (to animals), for they are without sin, and you with your 'greatness' defile the earth."

J. Howard Moore
"A universe is indeed to be pitied whose dominating inhabitants are so unconscious and so ethically embryonic that they make life a commodity, mercy a disease, and systematic massacre a pastime and a profession."

Chinese Proverb
"A tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows."

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)
"Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day." (Uncle Vanya, 1897)

Chief Seattle of the Suquamish
"Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

Mahatma Gandhi
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall - think of it, ALWAYS."

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Carole Etzler
"For you are the sister of each one living there. Of the beasts in the forest, of the birds in the air. May you love and defend them, womanchild, womanchild..."

Aldous Huxley
"The truth does not cease to exist because it is ignored."

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
"The day will come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny."

Unknown
"The cowards behave BECAUSE of fear; the heroes behave DESPITE of fear."

Charles Mackay (British poet 1814-1889)
"Man Without Enemies: You have no enemies you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray Of duty, that the brave endure, Must have made foes. If you have none, Small is the work that you have done. You've hit no traitor on the hip, You've dashed no cup from perjured lip, You've never turned the wrong to right, You've been a coward in the fight."

Charles Darwin
"Animals whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equals." (Metaphysics, Materialism, and the Evolution of Mind)

Gary Yourofsky, Founder and President ADAPTT (Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow)
"The great philosopher Pythagoras said: 'As long as humanity continues to be the ruthless destroyer of other beings, we will never know health or peace. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed those who sow the seed of murder and pain will never reap joy and love.' Antithetically, here's a comment from Ted Nugent, the world's most outspoken hunter: 'I contribute to the dead of winter and the moans of silence, blood trails are music to my ears. I'm a gut-pile addict. The pig didn't know I was there. It's my kick. I love shafting animals.'"

Marc Bekoff, Prof. Of Organismic Biology, U. of Colorado, Boulder. Editor "The Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal Welfare;" author "Strolling with our Kin: Speaking for and Respecting Voiceless Animals" (Satya Magazine)
"In the end, it doesn't really matter what animals look like or how they behave - whether they're similar to us or not. We need to honor and respect all other animals in what David Abram in 'The Spell of the Sensuous' calls the 'more-than-human world.'"

Edward Augustus Freeman
"The awful wrongs and sufferings forced upon the innocent, helpless, faithful animal race, form the blackest chapter in the whole world's history."

Eric
"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything!"

Anti-Vivisection Society, Switzerland
"It's an old, old story: The closer to the Mecca, the farther from Allah; the closer to the church, the farther from Jesus; the closer to the law, the farther from justice."

Unknown
"What a shame not to do anything with the excuse that we can't do it all!"

Ralph Waldo Emerson
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children... to leave the world a better place... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel Laureate)
"We know now, as we have always known instinctively, that animals can suffer as much as human beings. Their emotions and their sensitivity are often stronger than those of a human being."

Mark Twain
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man."

Rachel Carson
"Unless 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."

Unknown
"I know, O Lord of Life and Love, about the need, Touch my heart with love That I, too, may love and give."

Erienne de Grellet
"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."

Hans Ruesch, Medical Historian (Author Slaughter of the Innocent, Naked Empress, others)
"But there's little doubt that if the animals believed in the Devil, to them he (the Devil) would look remarkably like a human being!"

Count Leo Tolstoi
"If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." (Quoted in In Defense of Animals magazine)

Mark Twain
"God created a monkey because He was disappointed in man."

Ingrid Newkirk
"As long as people treat animals as toys, possessions and commodities, rather than as individuals with feelings, widespread neglect and abuse is destined to continue." (Quoted in In Defense of Animals Magazine)

Mark Twain
"In studying the traits and dispositions of the so-called lower animals, and contrasting them with man's, I find the result humiliating to me."

Dr. Suess
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Rabbi Solomon Ganzfried
"...according to the Biblical account (Gen. 9), it is forbidden, according to the law of the torah, to inflict pain upon any living creature. On the contrary, it is our duty to relieve the pain of any creature, even if it is ownerless or belongs to a non-Jew."

Pope John Paul, II
"It is necessary and urgent that, following the example of the poor man (St. Francis), one decides to abandon inconsiderate forms of domination, capture and custody with respect to all creatures."

Warren H. MacDonald
"St. Jerome advised the unwary about 1,600 years ago: 'Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.'" (Letters to the Editor)

Unknown
"The missing verse of Genesis: On the 8th Day man took over... and it was NOT good!"

Unknown
"Religion keeps people away from God."

Erma Bombeck
"In Saudi Arabia, a motorist accidentally killed a monkey on a highway in the Khamis Messeit region. Later, while driving home on the same road, he found monkeys still gathered around the dead animal's body. The mourners spotted his car, jumped on it, and smashed his windows!" ("All I Know About Behavior I Learned in Loehmann's Dressing Room")

Ingrid Newkirk, PETA
"Over time, human beings have stopped doing many shameful things to each other. And just as surely as it is now illegal to experiment on orphans and prisoners of war, one day animal abuse - for fur, for food, for entertainment, and for testing - will also be gone. Forever."

Livi French
"To err is human, to purr is feline. To err is human, to grrr is canine."

Wall Street Journal
"Common sense is sometimes called horse sense. For good reason. Have you ever seen a horse at the $2 window betting on how fast a person can run???"

From "Your Health"
"Oriental medicines are big business! But manufacturing them tramples animals, some of which are endangered. For example, tigers, the rhinoceros, pangolin (a protected anteater species) and sea horses all die to make medicines such as Armadillo Counter Poison Pill, Laryngitis Pills or Sea Horse Genital Tonic Pills."

Belizean Proverb
"The crow may be caged, but its thoughts are in the cornfield."

Patty Jaymes, "Why Animals Need You"
"Because they have a voice to cry
Without the words to tell you why;

Or silently their sad eyes plead
For mercy others fail to heed.

Because of crimes few people know
In factory farm and rodeo,

In careless home and puppy mill
That breed the surplus shelters kill,

In laboratory cage and stall
Where pain-racked victims cringe and crawl,

Or scream from cruel restraining chair
To those who can't be moved to care.

Because they are crucified in vain -
Are made to bear unending pain,

They're hunted, trapped, caged and oppressed
Without remorse and without rest;

Because YOU love them - YOU must fight
To erase their pain and end their plight,

And make their waiting dream come true
Because... the ANIMALS NEED YOU!!!"

Voltaire
"This animal is vicious; when attacked, he defends himself."

Times Magazine
"'Is the human species a cancer on the planet?' American Anthropology Society's Symposium Organizer, Dr. Warren Hern, physician and epidemiologist, said that aerial and satellite views of urban centers taken over a period of years bore a striking similarity to images of cancerous tissue invading the healthy surrounding tissue. He added that in many parts of the world the increase in human numbers is rapid and uncontrolled, that it invades and destroys habitats, and that by killing off many species it reduces the differentiation of nature."

Unknown
"Though a cage be made of gold, it is still a cage!"

Italian Proverb
"Break the legs of evil custom."

"All that is best in me I have given to (animals) and I mean to stand by them to the last and share their fate whatever it may be. If it is true that there is to be no haven of rest for them when their sufferings here are at an end, I, for one, am not going to bargain for any heaven for myself. I shall go without fear where they go, and by the side of my brothers and sisters from the forests and the fields, from skies to seas, lie down to merciful extinction in their mysterious underworld, safe from any further torments." (Preface to "The Story of San Michele" by Axel Munthe)

Edward Pape, "Think Again Brother Man"
"This is the voice of the creatures
Calling the one that can speak,
To rouse the few who may listen
On behalf of the dumb and the weak.

Long ago, when our Earth was much younger,
When ice covered valley and hill,
The cold and the maddening hunger
Drove your forebears to hunt and to kill.

And when, after gruesome long ages,
The ice withdrew to the pole,
You failed to resume the clean living
Of a harmless link in the whole.

And now you torture and kill us
For profit, for fun - even furs!
And what you call 'vivisection'
Is a slur on your kind and a curse!

You poison our soil and our water
And the air we breathe to survive.
You plunder and fell all our forests,
Destroying what keeps us alive.

Can't you see that sharing this planet
Was truly a wonderful plan?
Think again - Are you sure you can face God -
Alone on this Earth - brother Man?"

Norman Cousins
"Albert Schweitzer always believed that the best medicine for any illness he might have was the knowledge that he had a job to do, plus a good sense of humor. He once said that disease tended to leave him rather rapidly because it found so little hospitality inside his body." (Anatomy of an Illness)

Patty Jaymes, "Our Endeavor"
"It's hard to change the world, we know,
And yet we have to try,
So long as cruel injustice lives
And gentle creatures die.

While any animals are harmed
By thoughtlessness or plan,
We'll fight - and feel in serving them
We serve the best in man."

Kathy L. Lineaweaver
"I refer to those who describe murders/riots/panics and other catastrophes perpetrated by humans, and who say to be 'acting like animals.' I refer specifically to comments regarding a recent ship hijacking where it was said that the terrorists acted like 'cowardly animals.' These terrorists and guerrilla acts are NOT animal in nature - they are HUMAN in nature. As one who sees the balance, beauty and meaning of the world in which nonhuman animals must face life-or-death situations everyday just to survive and perpetuate their species, I grossly resent and take offense at these statements! When was the last time we saw a gorilla hijack a plane? A pod of whales hijack an ocean liner? A group of nonhuman animals walk down the street and terrorize the neighborhood??? Human animals are the terrorists and guerrillas when they go into the nonhuman animals' homes to slaughter them for fur coats, hunting trophies, plumage and all the other atrocious reasons society gives for the gross lack of respect for life, and murder of our fellow creatures inhabiting this world. If and when man comes off his ego trip, maybe he'll see just how insignificant he is to the total scheme of beings on this planet in which ALL creatures share. Then, the saying will be turned around to 'They behaved like people.'" (Letter to Abigail Van Buren in the York Daily Record)

Lucy Martinez
"Zoologists and others from the scientific industry, plus so-called 'animal lovers' are trying to breed rare species of animals back from the brink of extinction. This means a lot of genetic and medical manipulation, to say nothing of snatching them from their own families and habitats, and keeping them in captivity for exploitation. Any nearly extinct species which makes a 'comeback' in population, will become accessible and disposable and they will be hunted back into low population again. Spaying or neutering is more sensible than breeding... and this goes for everyone, people too!"

"Fox Urine: This horrifically produced product is marketed as a way to keep deer out of gardens, but experts say it doesn't work. On urine-collection 'farms,' foxes, coyotes, raccoons and other animals are crammed into tiny cages. They live on feces-encrusted wire cage floors so their urine can be collected in trays below. On one such 'farm,' PETA investigators found animals with open infected wounds and exposed bones. Most huddled together in fear, but others had gone 'cage-crazy' and circled endlessly, seeking a way to comfort themselves. Some chewed and mutilated their own flesh. Owners then killed them for their fur by using agonizing anal electrocution. Some sporting goods stores sell urine collected from deer crammed into tiny pens for use by hunters to mask their human odor and to lure bucks to the hunters' tree stands. Be a 'deer' - and ask managers of local gardening, department and sporting goods stores NOT to sell bottled urine." ("Ask Carla," PETA's Animal Times)

E. Albertine, Long Island City
"The Health Dept. is not required to be knowledgeable or honest. Insecticides kill weak insects, but the strong ones survive and multiply. Disease is all around us, but we will not be affected by it if we build up our immune systems. If we take responsibility for our lives, we do not have to blame mosquitoes for our illness." (Printed in Queens Tribune)

"t"
"Horrors that only a few years ago belonged in the realm of dystopian science fiction have become common place in today's world - genetically engineered Frankenstein foods are forced down our throats by governments and corporations; animals soaked in a bath of poisonous growth hormones are slaughtered in the name of a quick buck and increased profit; vast warehouses of 'bio-machines' (better known to you and I as pigs) lie in darkness, ready to be harvested for their organs for human transplants; the country side is dotted with concrete bunkers where bloodied vivisectors tirelessly work their way through the guts and viscera of endless animal victims! The horrors are seemingly endless... but they are NOT inevitable!" (Underground Magazine)

Good Medicine
"Animal Parts in Your Herbal Supplement??? Have you read the label on your herbal supplements lately? Despite their natural image, certain brands of supplements contain 'raw animal parts.' In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Scott A. Norton reported that one product explicitly listed 17 cow organs, including lungs and brain matter. Other manufacturers, however, used terms that may slip by the average label-reader. For instance, Dr. Norton noted the consumer may not realize that 'hypothalamus' refers to brain tissue or that 'orchis' refers to bulls' testicles. Currently, there are no federal safety regulations to protect consumers who use herbal supplements." (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)

Patty Jaymes, "Insects Are Bug People"
"Insects are bug people
Who can't help being small,
That's something hardly anyone
Understands at all!

I think bugs are fun to watch
But aren't meant to touch,

As catching them will frighten them
And hurts them very much.

Sometimes thoughtless children
Will kill them just for fun,
Or break their little wings and legs
So they can't fly or run.

When I see others harming them
I always make a fuss,
'Cause I think bugs are people -
Like YOU, or ME, or US!"

Unknown
"Are animal rights people extremists? Do you think it's not extreme to torture/murder living creatures for lipstick? Do you think it's not extreme to breed more dogs and cats while 7 million die in shelters each year? Do you think it's not extreme to torture/murder a living creature to wear their dead skins? Finally, do you think it's not extreme to torture living creatures without their consent to make a living? If we are ALL extremists. I prefer to be an extremist for justice, compassion and peace, and not for pain, murder, rape and oppression."

Mark Twain
"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."

Elic Wiesel
"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Karen Iacobbo, writer /teacher of vegetarianism, animal rights & environmentalism
"The antidote for despair is action!"

Margaret Mead
"The difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer."

Unknown
"Stop Whining... Start a Revolution!"

"In a real way, we must share at least some of the blame and guilt for the killing (of animals) if we do not do ALL we can to stop it! Rather than sacrificing that high ground, thoughtfully-selected direct action affirms it. A few hours in jail, or even days, is NOTHING compared to a day at the slaughterhouse, the research lab or the fur farm." (No Compromise "An Open Letter to Grassroots Activists")

Unknown
"What a shame not to do anything with the excuse that we can't do it all!"

Anonymous
"'Start with Yourself' When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable. As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt I tried changing only my family, those closest to me... but alas, they would have none of it. And now , as I lie on my death bed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, Then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world." (Written on the tomb of an ancient Anglican Bishop in the crypts of the Westminster Abbey)

Rosa Parks
"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."

Unknown
"A single voice may not be heard, but the voices of many cannot be ignored."

Marc Bekoff
"We don't want to be remembered as the generation that killed nature. Please act! But be patient. Activism takes time, but it's well worth it. Protest gently but forcefully. No one likes to be bullied and changes that come about due to heavy-handedness are usually short-lived and make little difference. Deep-rooted changes take time, and often it takes many efforts to accumulate the momentum that's needed to produce deep changes in attitude and heart that truly make a difference. It's important to listen to all views and master opponents' arguments. Only by knowing the tactics of your opponents can you mount a serious offense." (The Importance of Activism)

Unknown
"An Aspiration. I want to live that I may give No pain to beast or bird, That I may be entirely free From cruel deed or word Renouncing meat, that I may eat Of Nature's bounteous store; And every day this better way Delights me more and more!"

Abraham Lincoln
"To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of men."

Goethe
"Knowing is not enough... we must apply. Willing is not enough... we must do."

S. Dale Smith
"Anger is not evil. It is simply power waiting to be directed." (Quoted by Carla in "PETA's Animals")

Alfred Adler
"It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."

Ingrid Newkirk, Founder and President of PETA
"We don't mind that people dislike us. We're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to get a message across."

Bradley Miller
"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar."

Mark Twain
"Get your facts first. Then you can distort 'em as you please."

William Lloyd Garrison
"Reader! are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their down-trodden victims? If with the former, then are you the foe of God and man? If with the latter, what are you prepared to do in their behalf? Be faithful, be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. Come what may - cost what it may - inscribe on our banner which you unfurl to the breeze, as your religious and political motto: 'NO COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY! NO UNION WITH SLAVE HOLDERS!'" (Posted in Internet ar-nys group)

Animal Liberation Front (A.L.F.)
"There is no justice... Just Us!"

Rabbix
"No more compromises. No more lies. Every six seconds an animal dies!" (No Compromise)

Rabbix
"If YOU don't act, then YOU condone... If YOU don't fight, then YOU don't win." (No Compromise)

"BARRY HORNE - The animal rights martyr: 'People must do what they consider proper in response to my death. But let's not forget that to stop the Nazis was necessary to use a high level of violence.' Barry Horne said, the Great Britain eco-terrorist who took the fight for the rights of the animals the farthest! In 1994 this man, who was born in Liverpool 49 years ago burned in the Island of Wight several establishments in protest of the use of animals in scientific experiments, causing damage for 800 million pesetas." (But never harming human or nonhuman! He died in 11-01 while in jail in a hunger strike. Adela P.) (Extracted from "El Mundo," by Irene Hdez. Velasco)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity." (The Devil's Disciple)

Emile Zola (1840-1902)
"The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men."

Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)
"If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals."

George S. Arundale (1878-1945)
"The world stands at a parting of the ways and those who suffer know this with deeply anxious hearts. One way leads to destruction. It is the way of the tolerance of cruelty, if not the active engagement in it. It is the way of hunting for sport, the way of vivisection, the way of killing for self-adornment, the way of killing animals for food, the way of making slaves of animals without thought for their happiness and well-being. This is the way the world has been treading."
"The other way leads to salvation. It is the way of harmlessness, the way of the recognition of brotherhood with all creatures, the way of tenderness and compassion, the way of service and not of selfishness." (The Night Bell)

Dr Louis J. Camuti (1893-1981)
"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." (All my Patients Are Under the Bed)
"Never believe that animals suffer less than humans. Pain is the same for them that it is for us. Even worse, because they cannot help themselves." (Park Avenue Vet)

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
"Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their happiness, do not work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to animals: they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you." (The Brothers Karamazov)

George R. Farnum (1885-1973)
"Tenderness and pity should never be taken as weakness. Men who have been great in the true sense have never been indifferent to the rights, nor blind to the needs, of the helpless."
"The education of the heart should ever go hand in hand with the cultivation of the mind. Kindness toward all sentient creatures and compassion for suffering in all its forms are the hallmarks of the enlightened community and the badge of the cultural individual." (Reverence for Life)

Mr Justice Cusack (1916-1978)
"To say that you behaved like animals is offensive to the animal creation because animals of the farmyard and field have an innate sense of decency." (At Leeds Assizes, U.K., 1971)

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
"He that will not be merciful to his beast is a beast himself." (The Holy State)

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
"We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature." (Silent Spring)
"As cruel a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life." (Ibid.)

J. Todd Ferrier (1855-1943)
"It ought to make all who profess evangelical Christianity ashamed that the finest and most compassionate souls have not been within their own borders, but rather amongst those whose deepest thoughts have aroused the suspicion of heresy. Evangelical Christianity, as people understand it, has absolutely failed to kindle the Divine Compassion, and to realize itself in a great fire of sacred devotion to all life."

Suhas Gopinath, 19, youngest CEO who heads a multinational company
"As humans, we need to have some morality and ethics to give back to those innocent creatures from which we have taken and exploited for our comforts and needs. We need to utilise our intelligence and resources in protecting innocent animals, instead of applying the same intelligence to destruct them."

Richard Gere
"As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness."

Pamela Anderson
"My effort has been to narrate exposes of the leather trade in India and the meat industry in the US and even spearhead a petition drive against the annual seal hunt in Canada where baby seals are beaten bloody on ice for their fur. I have used my celeb status to fire off letters, pose for posters and motivated designers to create animal friendly fashions and even urged advertisers to stop using unwilling animal actors to sell products. And I will continue to work for the cause, whatever it takes."

Bryan Adams
"I'm strongly against fur and all other forms of animal exploitation. I'm against the slaughter of any living being whether it was seal, cow, dog or some other animal."

Pink
"I've always felt that animals are the purest spirits in the world. They don't fake or hide their feelings, and they are the most loyal creatures on Earth. And somehow we humans think we're smarter - what a joke. I wish every person was forced to know and learn and experience the horrors that these animals go through at the cost of our trends."

Dr. Janez Drnovsek, President of Slovenia
"Man has no compassion for humans, has no compassion for animals, has lost contact to the natural environment. He creates his own virtual world, where he does not live his own life, but the life of a consumer robot, thus drifting away ever further from his true self. Slowly and gradually he will stop being a feeling person that is connected with other beings and nature. And in the end, there will be no more real world. Somewhere along the line it will simply disappear."

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
"In 500 years (maybe less) people will look back on us and wonder about many things. No doubt behavior we consider normal today will inspire horror in our more enlightened successors. I am completely opposed to any form of animal exploitation, including animal experimentation, keeping animals in zoos or in circuses, (indeed any form of captivity for animals), the use of leather, fur, wool and silk. I also have begun to wonder whether any domesticated animal can lead an ideal life in the company of humans."

John Forsythe
"Man is not the lord of all the world's animals. He is the protector."

Arthur Schopenhauer
"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."

Alex Pacheco
"If only God had made the animals so they all cried out when they are suffering, it might be a different world. Something so simple could mean so much less agony."

John Robbins, Diet for a New America
"I have a dream. I see humankind understanding that the spirit which sings in our hearts sings as well in the hearts of the other animals."

H. W. Nevinson, Essays in Freedom and Rebellion
"Cruelty is the vice most natural to dullness of mind."

Victor Hugo
"No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
"Men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You remain responsible forever for what you have tamed."

Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter
"Remember, you hold the key to the future. You are the future. With knowledge comes growth and tolerance. Each and every one of us makes a difference. We must stroll with our animal kin, not walk away from them."

Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter
"Humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature."

Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter
"Our greatest discoveries come when our ethical relationship with other animals is respectful and not exploitive."

Dr. Janez Drnovsek, former President of Slovenia
"The meaning of life is in spreading peace and kindness."

Dr. Richard Twine, Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy; University of Lancaster
"The Protecting Animals in Democracy campaign is a vital effort to represent both the political status of nonhuman animals and the ethical and social relationships that many people feel towards animals in the UK."

Dr. Richard Ryder, historian and campaigner
"Britain may have led the world in interest in animal welfare, but British governments have led the world in resistance to change."

Henry Benston
"[Animals] are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time..."

Maria Griebl, VGT
"While Austria is introducing herself as a perfect host for football fans, because of imprisonment of animal rights activists, protests are being held in front of the embassies all around the world. With every day it is becoming clearer that this is a federal assault against the growing Animal rights movement, including the misuse of laws and massive violation of civil liberties."

His Holiness The Dalai Lama
"Whether we live just a few years or a whole century, it would be truly regrettable and sad if we were to spend that time aggravating the problems that afflict other people, animals, and the environment. The most important thing is to be a good human being."

Dean Ray Koontz, Watchers
"If we've come so far that we can create as God creates, then we have to learn to act with the justice and mercy of God."

Dr. Louis J .Camuti
"Never believe that animals suffer less than humans. Pain is the same for them that it is for us. Even worse, because they cannot help themselves."

Thomas Taylor
"On which account the banquet of Pythagoras, is much more pleasant and desirable, than that of Socrates: for the latter of these affirmed, that hunger was the sauce of food; but Pythagoras asserted, that to injure no one, and to act justly, was the sweetest of all banquets." (A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes)

John Douglas, profiler of serial killers for the FBI, U.S.
"Arson and cruelty to animals are 2 of 3 childhood warning signs regarding the potential to be a serial killer. (To no longer objectify living beings by ceasing hunting and fishing takes one l step further away from the murder of humans.)"

Asoka, King of India
"I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favour of non-injury to life and abstention from killing all living beings." (from Asoka's Edicts)

Dennis Kucinich, American politician and a representative of Ohio's 10th congressional district
"As a necessary component of the living world, we must extend compassion to one another and to every living thing."

Winston Churchill
"Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you. Give me a pig. He just looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal."

GOLDEN DROPS OF BARE TRUTHS collected by Adela Pisarevsky