The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals Quotes

“Alas! the very attempt could not fail to encounter the ridicule of the mob, the obloquy of the sensual, and the sneers of the unfeeling. The advocate of mercy would incur the reproach of misanthropy, and be traduced as a wild unsocial animal, who had formed a nefarious design to curtail the comforts of human life (7).—Good God! and is compassion then so great a crime? Is it so heinous an offence against society, to respect in other animals that principle of life which they have received, no less than man himself, at the hand of Nature? O, mother of every living thing! O, thou eternal fountain of beneficence; shall I then be persecuted as a monster, for having listened to thy sacred voice? to that voice of mercy which speaks from the bottom of my heart; while other men, with impunity, torment and massacre the unoffending animals, while they fill the air with the cries of innocence, and deluge thy maternal bosom with the blood of the most amiable of thy creatures.”
― John Oswald, The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals

“But from the texture of the very human heart arises the strongest argument in behalf of the persecuted creatures. Within us there exists a rooted repugnance to the spilling of blood; a repugnance which yields only to custom, and which even the most inveterate custom can never entirely overcome. Hence the ungracious task of shedding the tide of life for the gluttony of our table, has, in every country, been committed to the lowest class of men; and their profession is, in every country, an object of abhorrence. On the carcase we feed, without remorse, because the dying struggles of the butchered creature are secluded from our sight; because his cries pierce not our ear; because his agonising shrieks sink not into our soul: but were we forced, with our own hands, to assassinate the animals whom we devour, who is there amongst us that would not throw down, with detestation, the knife; and, rather than embrue his hands in the murder of the lamb, consent, for ever, to forego the favourite repast? What then shall we say? Vainly planted in our breast, is this abhorrence of cruelty, this sympathetic affection for every animal?”
― John Oswald, The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals

“And is not the human race itself highly interested to prevent the habit of spilling blood? For will the man, habituated to havoc, be nice to distinguish the vital tide of a quadruped, from that which flows from a creature with two legs? Are the dying struggles of a lambkin less affecting than the agonies of any animal whatever? Or will the ruffian, who beholds, unmoved, the supplicating looks of innocence itself, and, reckless of the calf's infantine cries, plunges, pitiless, in her quivering side, the murdering steel; will he turn, I say, with horror from human assassination?”
― John Oswald, The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals

“May the benevolent system spread to every corner of the globe; may we learn to recognize and to respect in other animals the feelings which vibrate in ourselves; may we be led to perceive that those cruel repasts are not more injurious to the creatures whom we devour than they are hostile to our health, which delights in innocent simplicity, and destructive of our happiness, which is wounded by every act of violence, while it feeds as it were on the prospect of well-being, and is raised to the highest summit of enjoyment by the sympathetic touch of social satisfaction.”
― John Oswald, The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals

“The butcher's knife hath laid low the delight of a fond dam, and the darling of nature is now stretched in gore upon the ground.”
― John Oswald, The Cry of Nature; Or, an Appeal to Mercy and to Justice, on Behalf of the Persecuted Animals