Animals Quotes

“There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham - all a sham, James, and it won't stand when things come to be turned inside out and put down for what they”
― Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

“People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.”
― Ashly Lorenzana

“Horses make a landscape look beautiful.”
― Alice Walker

“Never mind, said Hachiko each day. Here I wait, for my friend who’s late. I will stay, just to walk beside you for one more day.”
― Jess C. Scott, Skins, Animal Stories

“Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

“I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.”
― David Sedaris

“There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man-made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a-stink, while in the distance their owners witter, "He's an old soppy really, just poke him if he's a nuisance," and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker.”
― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.”
― Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

“Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in a filthy, waste-coated room is not very healthy. Beyond deformities, eye damage, blindness, bacterial infections of bones, slipped vertebrae, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, slipped tendons, twisted lower legs and necks, respiratory diseases, and weakened immune systems are frequent and long-standing problems on factory farms.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“Veganism is not a "sacrifice." It is a joy.”
― GaryLFrancione

“When you start with a necessary evil, and then over time the necessity passes away, what's left?”
― Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

“Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
― Dimitri Merejkowski, Romance of Leonard da Vinci

“The only good cage is an empty cage.”
― Lawrence Anthony, The Elephant Whisperer

“If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry. ”
― Dave Barry

“People who really appreciated animals always asked their names.”
― Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern

“People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“We may sometimes witness conversations at cross purposes and see how people hold muted dialogues of the deaf. They keep talking without really recognizing what the other is trying to bring home. Why should we not more engage in discussions with animals, promising much better results? Animals often appear to be much wiser, reasonable observers, and excellent listeners. (Let us say more and speak less)-Erik Pevernagie”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It's just the way things are. Take a moment to consider this statement. Really think about it. We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors towards animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door--and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple: carnism.”
― Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

“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

“Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

“I think he just loved being with the bears because they didn't make him feel bad. I get it too. When he was with the bears, they didn't care that he was kind of weird, or that he'd gotten into trouble for drinking too much and using drugs(which apparently he did a lot of). They didn't ask him a bunch of stupid questions about how he felt, or why he did what he did. They just let him be who he was.”
― Michael Thomas Ford, Suicide Notes

“The world is a wide place where we stumble like children learning to walk. The world is a bright mosaic where we learn like children to see, where our little blurry eyes strive greedily to take in as much light and love and colour and detail as they can.

The world is a coaxing whisper when the wind lips the trees, when the sea licks the shore, when animals burrow into earth and people look up at the sympathetic stars. The world is an admonishing roar when gales chase rainclouds over the plains and whip up ocean waves, when people crowd into cities or intrude into dazzling jungles.

What right have we to carry our desperate mouths up mountains or into deserts? Do we want to taste rock and sand or do we expect to make impossible poems from space and silence? The vastness at least reminds us how tiny we are, and how much we don't yet understand. We are mere babes in the universe, all brothers and sisters in the nursery together. We had better learn to play nicely before we're allowed out..... And we want to go out, don't we? ..... Into the distant humming welcoming darkness.”
― Jay Woodman, SPAN

“To identify with others is to see something of yourself in them and to see something of them in yourself--even if the only thing you identify with is the desire to be free from suffering.”
― Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

“May our daily choices be a reflection of our deepest values, and may we use our voices to speak for those who need us most, those who have no voice, those who have no choice.”
― Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Vegan's Daily Companion: 365 Days of Inspiration for Cooking, Eating, and Living Compassionately

“The fate of animals is of far greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous.”
― Emile Zola

“To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told -- that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning.”
― Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism

“‘Yes, but humans are more important than animals,’ said Brutha.
‘This is a point of view often expressed by humans,’ said Om.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods