Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. — Arthur Schopenhauer
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. — Louis J. Camuti
Animal lovers are a special breed of humans, generous of spirit, full of empathy, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, and with hearts as big as a cloudless sky — John Grogan
Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. — Milan Kundera
Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind. — Henry Bergh
The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals. — Friedrich Nietzsche
You know, we all oppose animal cruelty. But sometimes we forget that animals on farms suffer and feel pain like all other animals. They, too, deserve to be protected from harm and cruelty. — Charlotte Ross
Man's highest duty is to protect animals from cruelty. — Emile Zola
To inflict cruelties on defenceless creatures, or condone such acts, is to abuse one of the cardinal tenets of a civilized society - reverence for life. — Jon Evans
It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked. — Haile Selassie
The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals — Theophile Gautier
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. — Charles Darwin
God requires that we assist the animals, when they need our help. Each being (human or creature) has the same right of protection. — Francis of Assisi
We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. — Immanuel Kant
Everyday, I have the choice to live a life of compassion that not only saves animals, but helps the environment. — Kat Von D
Short Animal Compassion Quotes
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. — Abraham Lincoln
It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal. — Joaquin Phoenix
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — Mahatma Gandhi
It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice. — Tom Regan
Animal Compassion Image Quotes
A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.
Have Compassion Quotes
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. — Francis of Assisi
Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them whenever they require it. — Francis of Assisi
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.
True happiness comes from having a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved by cultivating altruism, love and compassion, and by eliminating anger, selfishness and greed. — Dalai Lama
I don’t know how to save the world. I don’t have the answers or The Answer. I hold no secret knowledge as to how to fix the mistakes of generations past and present. I only know that without compassion and respect for all of Earth’s inhabitants, none of us will survive—nor will we deserve to. — Leonard Peltier
True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own. — Nikos Kazantzakis
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same. — Rachel Scott
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. — Lao Tzu
Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another! — Pythagoras
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. — Lao Tzu
Compassion Towards Animals Quotes
If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals. — Albert Einstein
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. — Albert Einstein
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 toward our fellow creatures. — Mahatma Gandhi
Everything you need, you courage, strength, compassion and love; everything you need is already within you.
As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, all men were Nazis. — Isaac Bashevis Singer
Have compassion towards each other, including animals. Love and respect every living being on this planet - a key factor to a greater society. — Matt Sorum
Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. — Cesar Chavez
If you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a longer table than a taller fence.
Have compassion towards each other, including animals. — Matt Sorum
Buddhism cannot be true to itself until Buddhists resolve their ambivalence toward nonhuman animals and extend the full protection of their compassion to the most harmless and helpless of those who live at our mercy in the visible realms. — Norm Phelps
Let a man fear, above all, me, his God, and so much the gentler will he become toward my creatures and animals, on whom, on account of me, their Creator, he ought to have compassion. — Bridget of Sweden
Human Compassion Quotes
The revolution and women's liberation go together. We do not talk of women's emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky. — Thomas Sankara
The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. — Albert Schweitzer
For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed? — Bell Hooks
It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. — Thomas Jefferson
A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success. — Otto von Bismarck
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. — Charlie Chaplin
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural, but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. — Walter Brueggemann
Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community. — Joan D. Chittister
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. — Dalai Lama
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience. — Harry Belafonte
Kindness To Animals Quotes
Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages. — Tom Regan
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. — Richard Gere
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.' — George Thorndike Angell
We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of 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. — Albert Einstein
Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research. — George Bernard Shaw
Man is the only animal that deals in that atorcity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. — Mark Twain
Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo. — A. A. Milne
To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us. — Frans de Waal
The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies... they are the trees and the plants and the seeds. — Plato
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. — Isaiah
Animal Ethics Quotes
You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. — Jeremy Bentham
The meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future. The claim that we would not have morals or ethics without religion is extraordinary. Animals in nature seem to behave in moral ways without organized religion. — Bill Nye
I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect. — Temple Grandin
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. — Arthur Schopenhauer
A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help. — Albert Schweitzer
What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
Our treatment of animals, in every department, is deeply and systematically immoral. Becoming a vegetarian is only the most minimal ethical response to the magnitude of the evil. — Colin McGinn
Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places. — Leonardo da Vinci
Compassion And Empathy Quotes
If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. — Jack Kornfield
It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul. — Desmond Tutu
The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. — Meryl Streep
When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you. — Susan Sarandon
The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy. — Dean Koontz
By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively- a never-ending process — Johan Galtung
When you turn your back on the voices of those who are in pain and who are angry, you breed hate. Love is the way out, not hate. — Lex Fridman
True connection can happen without words. It just requires our attention, empathy and compassion. — Rangan Chatterjee
Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives. — Oprah Winfrey
How many of us can honestly say that we have plumbed the depths of our minds and hearts? How many of us regularly listen to ourselves with empathy and understanding – in the supportive way that a trusted friend can? — William Ury
Compassionate Love Quotes
You can't go to Heaven hating somebody. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient now. Be grateful now. Love Jesus and Mary now. Accept God's will now. — Mother Angelica
The Lord has loved me so much: we must love everyone...we must be compassionate! — Josephine Bakhita
If I were to meet the slave-traders who kidnapped me and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands, for if that did not happen, I would not be a Christian and Religious today... The Lord has loved me so much: we must love everyone... we must be compassionate! — Josephine Bakhita
Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. — Rick Warren
With the beginning of a great & compassionate love, comes the growth of one's heart, and with that, a profound inner change. The way to opening the mind is often first through the heart. And once is the mind & heart are open, so many things become possible. — Irwin Corey
Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action. — Desmond Tutu
Love has an immense ability to help heal the devastating wounds that life sometimes deals us. Love also enhances our sense of connection to the larger world. Loving responsiveness is the foundation of a truly compassionate, civilized society. — Sue Johnson
We continually encounter hardships. People disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. But God is constant and compassionate. We are not alone. He cares. Against all reason, the transcendent God loves us so much that He has committed Himself to us. — Charles R. Swindoll
If one calls upon Him repeatedly, He becomes compassionate; and so a devoted attachment comes into being. This love for love's sake should be hidden from all eyes. — Sarada Devi
Animal Welfare Quotes
Most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems and that, in turn, is the reason why man, whenever he comes into contact with nature, threatens to kill the natural system in which and from which he live. — Konrad Lorenz
Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul. — Pythagoras
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature. — Rachel Carson
Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury. — Alexander von Humboldt
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage. — William Blake
If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals? — George Bernard Shaw
One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. — James Stewart
I didn't realize puppy mills were a problem until my wife, Bessy, and I got our first dog, Cannoli. — Joe Gatto
Loving Compassion Quotes
Listen with ears of tolerance! See through the eyes of compassion! Speak with the language of love — Rumi
The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there? — Jack Kornfield
A heart full of love and compassion is the main source of inner strength, willpower, happiness, and mental tranquility — Dalai Lama
Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom. — Rumi
Let's get loose with Compassion. Let's drown in the delicious ambience of Love. — Hafez
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. — Simone de Beauvoir
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. — Thomas Merton
I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion--and where it isn't, that's where my work lies. — Ram Dass
A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. — Amelia Earhart
What are the things that you can't see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love...They're the guiding lights of a life. — Jimmy Carter
Love And Compassion Quotes
Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love. — Jane Goodall
All meditation must begin with arousing deep compassion. Whatever one does must emerge from an attitude of love and benefitting others. — Milarepa
To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long. — Marlene Dietrich
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. — Nhat Hanh
Now is the time to understand That all your ideas of right and wrong Were just a child's training wheelsTo be laid aside When you finally live With veracity And love. — Hafez
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely. ... He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Wherever love and compassion are active in life, we can perceive the magic breath of the spirit blowing through the sense world. — Rudolf Steiner
I have seen faith rise 'mountain high' when the truth of God's present love and compassion begins to dawn upon the minds and hearts of the people. It is not what God can do, but what we know He yearns to do, that inspires faith. — F. F. Bosworth
I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it. — Robert M. Sapolsky
We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace. — Albert Schweitzer
Who taught me that animals were put on this Earth for food? Who taught me to disrespect animals and view them as mere commodities? Who stole my compassion, my empathy and my conscience? Who lied to me? Who instilled this vicious mindset of human-to-animal exploitation as standard operating procedure? — Gary Yourofsky
For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. — Albert Schweitzer
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals. — Peter Singer
The animal should not be measured by man. In a world older than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the sense we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. — Henry Beston
Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies...that which to us is merely an evening's meal, but to them is life itself. — T. Casey Brennan
Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life. — Elizabeth Goudge
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. — Leonardo da Vinci
Animals cannot speak, but can you and I not speak for them and represent them? Let us all feel their silent cry of agony and let us all help that cry to be heard in the world. — Rukmini Devi Arundale
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. — Peter Kay
If you visit the killing floor of a slaughterhouse, it will brand your soul for life. — Howard Lyman
No nation is truly free until the animal, man's younger brother is free and happy. — Sadhu T. L. Vaswani
If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that. — Ellen DeGeneres
We are beginning to learn that each animal has a life and a place and a role in this world. If we place compassion and care in the middle of all our dealings with the animal world and honor and respect their lives, our attitudes will change. — Jane Goodall
Animals, they are one of the most beautiful gifts we have and, you know, if there are people that have compassion, there are very few people that put their money into animal rescue organizations. And if there is someone that has that passion, animals need all the help they can get. — Alyssa Milano
Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to. — Alfred Armand Montapert
I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice - and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals. — Brigid Brophy
As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together. — Isaac Bashevis Singer
If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution - and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity. — Jane Goodall
We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear. — Robert Louis Stevenson
Killing an animal to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and we have no right to do it. — Doris Day
'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings and this commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai. — Leo Tolstoy
A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being. — Muhammad
You can't go into the ring and be a nice guy. I would go a month, two months, without having sex. It worked for me because it made me a vicious animal. You can't fight if you have any compassion or anything like that. — Jake LaMotta
I became a vegetarian out of compassion for animals and to live as healthy as possible. I realized soon after that I was truly concerned with nonviolent consumption and my own health, a vegan diet was the best decision. — Davey Havok
The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
One day, I just thought, if you see a bird with a broken leg, you really have the urge to do something about it and help the bird, then at the same time you go to a restaurant and eat a chicken or something. It doesn't make any sense. — Patrik Baboumian
The more we come in contact with animals and observe their behaviour, the more we love them, for we see how great is their care of the young. — Immanuel Kant
In Conclusion
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