"Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court."
— Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings)

"You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals."
— Paul McCartney

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
— Leo Tolstoy

"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her."
— Ellen DeGeneres

"If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."
— Mark Twain

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends."
— George Bernard Shaw

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

"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience."
— Woodrow Wilson

"Man is the cruelest animal."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"If you don't own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life."
— Roger Caras

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

""Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not, himself, find peace."

"
— Albert Schweitzer (Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer)

"“Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them.”
"
— Elvis Presley

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."
— Anatole France

""If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian."
"
— Linda McCartney (Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meatless Meals)

"Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind's capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don't; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us.
"
— Matthew Scully (Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy)

"May all that have life be delivered from suffering"
— Siddhārtha Gautama

"When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals' emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow."
— Marc Bekoff (The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter)

"People would rather believe than know."
— Edward O. Wilson

"Indeed, people speak sometimes about the "animal" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to animals, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel."
— Fyodor Dostoevsky

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."
— John Muir

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats..."
— Albert Schweitzer

"The smallest feline is a masterpiece."
— Leonardo da Vinci

"“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”"
— Jean Cocteau

"Cats are just like humans emotionally; leaving one outside is like abandoning a child - so cruel and hurtful. No cats nor kittens deserve to be left outside alone."
— Tammy Huang

"As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind."
— Cleveland Amory

"“I believe cats to be spirits come to earth. A cat, I am sure, could walk on a cloud without coming through.”"
— Jules Verne

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
— Anne Frank

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
— Margaret Mead

"A day without laughter is a day wasted."
— Charlie Chaplin

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
— Elie Wiesel

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
— Albert Einstein

"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."
— Malcolm X (By Any Means Necessary)

"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also."
— Mark Twain

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike."
— Oscar Wilde (An Ideal Husband)

"Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world."
— Laozi (Tao Te Ching)

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;"
— Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

"Inevitably anyone with an independent mind must become 'one who resists or opposes authority or established conventions': a rebel. If enough people come to agree with, and follow, the Rebel, we now have a Devil. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have --- Greatness."
— Aleister Crowley

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."
— Anaïs Nin

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
— Nelson Mandela

"Learning is a weightless treasure you can always carry easily."
— Chinese proverb

"The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead."
— Aristotle

"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn."
— T.H. White (The Once and Future King)

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."
— Plutarch

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."
— John Lubbock