Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.
I’ve just always loved animals.
There’s a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines.
The countenances of children, like those of animals, are masks, not faces, for they have not yet developed a significant profile of their own.
The fashion industry has a responsibility to represent a healthy image of women, but to start weighing them and putting them against a wall and making them feel like animals? No.
I saw a bank of white light, and then I saw all my beloved animals. For a moment I stepped out of my body.
Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn’t, but they do, and a lot.
People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile.
In Britain, the great hidden secret of talking animals and children’s literature is how political it was in its bones, beneath the obvious cuteness.
Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don’t vote.
Like all animals, human beings have always taken what they want from nature. But we are the rogue species. We are unique in our ability to use resources on a scale and at a speed that our fellow species can’t.
Fifty percent of the weight of the soybean is protein. And what a protein! No other protein that we’ve known comes so nearly to the basic protein of animals and humans as soybean protein.
We can move water easily with plastic pipes. We can move shade around with nursery cloth like a tinker toy for animals and plants. Yet we have developed this necessity to grow food with chemical fertiliser because we have forgotten the magic of manure.
Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.
The important thing is that we now have the tools to sequence all kinds of animals and plants and microbes – as well as humans. It is not important that we didn’t actually finish the human sequence yet.
I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It’s common, it’s in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who’ve got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it’s fun when it’s impulsive and it’s about fun.
Everything that I’ve done in my life was to lead me to my work with the animals.
I had a ton of animals; I had a goat growing up, a bunch of rabbits, a vegetable garden.
We’re in ‘Jurassic Park’ territory. If we go to the zoo in the future, we’ll have zoos for extinct animals.
I suppose I am one: an activist – for animals and a vegan lifestyle. I hear that word, however, and look around to see if someone is indeed referring to me.
Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
I personally cannot tell you how many times we rescuers put our names on animals to come to us as soon as they are eligible for release, only to find they have been senselessly killed by overzealous pound workers.
Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history.
As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone – to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew.
I’ve had a love of animals from birth. I love getting to know other species. We should all be aware that there is not one thing we can give a wild animal in captivity that they need.
People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason in a way that animals can’t do.
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
I could really use a corporate sponsor. People think that because you’re in the movies, you’re rich. I have allocated all my resources to Shambala so the animals will always be safe.
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
Maybe one day the world will change, that we’ll be in a luxurious position of being able to debate whether or not it’s inherently wrong to eat animals, but the question doesn’t matter right now.
The Indians could not undertake any widespread cultivation of the plains not only because they lacked iron tools but also because they had no draft animals.
Experiments with animals have long been handicapped by our anthropocentric attitude: We often test them in ways that work fine with humans but not so well with other species.
For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history.
If we lose bees, we may be looking at losing apples and oranges. We may be looking at losing a great deal of other crops, as well, and other animals that depend on those crops.
I’ve been a rescue dog mom several times and occasionally found comfort in scrolling through pictures of animals on various adoption center websites, just to fantasize about adding to the family.
I think of animals more as spirits that come and go. They enter our lives at a particular time and they leave at a particular time. The whole glorious history of animals with people is about joy and connection. It’s about loving this creature and letting this creature love you.
I think some women try to make you feel you’re not all female because you haven’t given birth. There are a lot of prejudices. Some women think women who have animals are deeply sad, because what they really want is a child. Mind you, there’s probably an element of truth in that.
Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals, and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone’s home.
In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
I dressed up as a veterinarian for a Halloween costume party. I had the lab coat. I got a couple of stuffed animals for patients and put bandages on them.
I want to be an entrepreneur too; I like the business side of things. When I was younger I wanted to be a vet or a tightrope walker. But I have no sense of balance and I can’t bear animals dying, so I abandoned both ideas.
It is up to the public to stop attending these theatrical, and aquatic shows, and circuses with wild animals. The rhetoric about how the animals are happy and well cared for are lies. Don’t be swayed by them. The money behind these shows is huge; there is nothing good about them.
Successive generations of middle-class parents used to foist their own favourite books on their children. But some time in the late Eighties it began to wane – not because children had lost interest in adorable animals but because most of it was available on useful, pacifying video.
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.
I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.
I know lots and lots and lots of vegetarians who think it’s perfectly all right to kill animals for food to eat, but don’t do it because they think all the ways in which it’s done are wrong.
People on death row, the treatment of animals, women’s right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!
I remember as a little girl I could tell you the name of the dog next door, but I couldn’t tell you the names of the kids. The dog was my best friend. I love animals. They give so much to you and demand so little.
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
The beliefs I was raised with – to respect animals and to be aware of nature, to understand that we share this planet with other creatures – have had a huge impact on me.
Animals don’t deserve to be abused. They deserve to be friends with us and they deserve to be appreciated for the beautiful beings they are.
God made a mistake when he gave to humans, infected as they are with evil, jurisdiction over Earth. He should have given jurisdiction to animals.
I’m lucky because I have a job I love. I really miss being away from home, being in my own bed, seeing my animals and siblings, having my moms cookies. I have a couple cats. I got a kitten about a year ago and now Im going on the road so I wont see him for a while. I feel bad.
Doctors are human animals. They want to be loved, they are tribal, they instinctually favor stories over scientific evidence, they make mistakes, and even small gifts make them susceptible to being biased. If we took doctors seriously as human animals, we might hurt them – and they might hurt us – a lot less.
