Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. — Milan Kundera
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
Cruelty to animals is an enormous injustice; so is expecting those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder to do the dangerous, soul-numbing work of slaughtering sentient beings on our behalf. — Victoria Moran
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. — Emile Zola
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
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
All animals, including humans, have a right to lives of dignity and respect, without forced intrusions. — Marc Bekoff
Speciesism: A failure, in attitude or practice, to accord any nonhuman being equal consideration and respect — Joan Dunayer
Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. — Peter Singer
We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. — Immanuel Kant
I believe animals should be respected as citizens of this earth. They should have the right to their own freedom, their own families, and their own life. — John Feldmann
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
Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. — Alexander von Humboldt
The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals — Theophile Gautier
It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice. — Tom Regan
If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals. — Albert Einstein
Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery. — Philip Wollen
Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
Animal Philosophy Quotes
Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy. — Albert Schweitzer
Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system — Bill Mollison
In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do. — Cesar Chavez
You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.
If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then
explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for
us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat? — Sarah Palin
The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature--all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct. — Michael Crichton
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. — Mark Twain
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. — Peter Singer
Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men. — Bertrand Russell
Man may be considered as a superior species of animal that produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives. — Hippolyte Taine
Animal Welfare Quotes
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 love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man. — Charles Darwin
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
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
Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul. — Pythagoras
Be kind to every kind, not just mankind.
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
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
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage. — William Blake
Animal Rights Quotes
Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. — Martin Luther King
All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man. ... God wants us to help animals, if they need help. Every creature in distress has the same right to be protected. — Francis of Assisi
The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being. — Konrad Lorenz
If your dog doesn’t like someone you probably shouldn’t, either.
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
I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings. — Cesar Chavez
It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else. — Maimonides
When it is too hard to look back, and you are afraid to look ahead... Look beside you. I'll always be there.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land. — Sitting Bull
Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it. — Dick Gregory
Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing. — Maynard James Keenan
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
Animal Compassion Quotes
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
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
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals. — Peter Singer
We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
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
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. — Abraham Lincoln
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
Animals do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.
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
Animal Research Quotes
Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research. — George Bernard Shaw
If an 'animal abuser' were killed in a research lab firebombing, I would unequivocally support that, too. — Gary Yourofsky
I discovered cosplay because I was going to an anime convention and did some research, and found out people dressed up as characters. I made a very badly put-together costume because I felt this desire to dress up. — Yaya Han
Every animal on earth is a living being with feelings, emotions, and a family life. Just like you and me.
New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine. — Daniel Akaka
New drugs and surgical techniques offer promise in the fight against cancer, Alzheimer's, tuberculosis, AIDS, and a host of other life-threatening diseases. Animal research has been, and continues to be, fundamental to advancements in medicine. — Daniel Kahikina Akaka
The excuse or toleration of cruelty upon any living creature by a woman is a deadly sin against the grandest force in nature - maternal love ... In not a single instance known to science has the cure of any human disease resulted necessarily from this fallacious method of research. — Elizabeth Blackwell
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
Given the choice of apathy or someone liberating mink, burning down a research torture-laboratory, or killing a vivisectionist or other DIRECT murderer of animals, I will choose the aforesaid actions over apathy any day of the week.- — Gary Yourofsky
If abandoning animal research means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it ... We have no basic right ... not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to. — Tom Regan
Researching 'Lone Wolf,' I was amazed at how thoughtful and intelligent these animals are. There has never been a documented attack against a human by a wolf that wasn't provoked by the human. — Jodi Picoult
Without animal research, polio would still be claiming thousands of lives each year. — Albert Sabin
Animals And Society Quotes
Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing. — Johan Huizinga
I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. — Mark Twain
There is too much animal courage in society and not sufficient moral courage. — Mary Baker Eddy
You, (my meat-eating friends), put your health at risk – that’s your business. But animal-based diets put the land, the water, the air, a society’s collective health, and even our collective pharmaceutical resources at risk. That’s my business. That’s everyone’s business. — Howard Lyman
You can tell all you need to about a society from how it treats animals and beaches. — Frank DeFord
A secret society exists, and is living among all of us. They are neither people nor animals, but something in-between. — Karen White
The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Churches, laws - everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he's only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty. But don't say to me we're not violent. — Sam Peckinpah
Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws. — Marc Bekoff
Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture. — Amos Bronson Alcott
Animal Testing Quotes
Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. — Milan Kundera
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers. — Peter Kay
universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. — Arthur Schopenhauer
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it. — Ingrid Newkirk
Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time. — Henry Beston
Giving cancer to laboratory animals has not and will not help us to understand the disease or to treat those persons suffering from it. — Albert Sabin
Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored — Alice Walker
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing — George Orwell
Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character. — George Bernard Shaw
I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. — Mahatma Gandhi
Animal Love Quotes
Who does not love his own tongue is far worse than a brute or stinking fish. — Jose Rizal
If a man has to make a woman the center of his love, why should he integrate animality into this sacred human emotion?...Is love incompelete without it?...Is love the name of physical excersize ? — Saadat Hasan Manto
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. — Mary Oliver
Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem. — Walt Whitman
Our thoughts ought by instinct to fly upwards from animals, men and natural objects to their creator. If created things are so utterly lovely, how gloriously beautiful must he be who made them! The wisdom of the worker is revealed in his handiwork. — Anthony of Padua
Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. — Fyodor Dostoevsky
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. — Anatole France
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's. — Mark Twain
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. — Immanuel Kant
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals. — Theodor Adorno
Learning about factory farms and their horrendous treatment of animals is what made me become vegetarian in the first place. I also support the education of the public on adopting pets from animal shelters or saving homeless animals off the street in lieu of buying them from pet shops. — Laura Mennell
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! — Eddie Vedder
A civilized society must count animals as worthy of moral consideration and ethical treatment. The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham
I'm very involved with PETA - People for Ethical Treatment of Animals - and Greenpeace and a lot of women's shelter and clothing giveaways. — Pink
Although Christianity has a poor record on animals (as it does, it must be said, on the treatment of slaves, women, children, and gays), it is also the case that Christian theology, when creatively and critically handled, can provide a strong basis for animal rights. — Andrew Linzey
According to the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, fish have feelings too. Whenever my sons go fishing they always tell me, "Dad it doesn't hurt a fish to get hooked." Well I watch and I see and I believe it's painful for the fish. — Donald Trump
We live longer and healthier lives than ever before. Animal research has improved the treatment of infections, helped with immunisation, improved cancer treatment and had a big impact on managing heart disease, brain disorders, arthritis and transplantation. — Robert Winston
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. — Peter Singer
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 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
Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind. — Henry Bergh
Animals shouldn't be mistreated. — Tucker Carlson
For too long we have occupied ourselves with responding to the consequences of cruelty and abuse and have neglected the important task of building up an ethical system in which justice for animals is regarded as the norm rather than the exception. Our only hope is to put our focus on the education of the young. — John Hoyt
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
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
We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human. — Albert Schweitzer
Driven by a wish to save Tomás from a life of penury and misunderstanding, Fermin had decided that he needed to develop my friend's latent conversational and social skills. Like the good ape he is, man is a social animal, characterized by cronyism, nepotism, corruption, and gossip. That's the intrinsic blueprint for our ethical behavior. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies. — Mark Twain
Men will be just to men when they are kind to animals. — Henry Bergh
We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim. — Alphonse De Lamartine
When man learns to respect even the smallest being of creation...nobody has to teach him to love his fellow man. Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man. — Albert Schweitzer
We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words. — Anna Sewell
We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding One generation and out. We have no problems with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding. — Wayne Pacelle
Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures. — Dalai Lama
A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him. — Albert Schweitzer
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. — Aldo Leopold
All education should be directed toward the refinement of the individual's sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humans everywhere, but to all living things whatsoever. — Ashley Montagu
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together. — Isaac Bashevis Singer
Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of "us" and "them" creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering. It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethic, religious, political, and social conflicts. — Marc Bekoff
By ethical conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe. — Albert Schweitzer
The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another. — Albert Schweitzer
I was aware of what animals go through because I had driven animals to slaughter and I'd killed animals. And I was aware that there were certain ethical issues, but they weren't preying on my mind very heavily. — Neal Barnard
I've always felt you don't have to be completely detached, emotionally uninvolved to make precise observations. There's nothing wrong with feeling great empathy for your subjects. — Jane Goodall
Standing before you as the advocate of the lower races, I declare what I believe cannot be gainsaid...that just so soon and so far as we pour into all our schools the songs, the poems, and literature of mercy toward these lower creatures, just so soon and so far shall we reach the roots not only of cruelty, but of crime. — George Thorndike Angell
We need a boundless ethics which will include animals also. — Albert Schweitzer
Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility with regard to everything that has life. — Albert Schweitzer
I must say...that more unmanly, brutal treatment of a little pony it was never my painful lot to witness; and by giving way to such passion, you injure your own character as much, nay more, than you injure your horse, and remember, we shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast. — Anna Sewell
Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. — Bion of Borysthenes
The thinking man must oppose all cruelties no matter how deeply rooted in tradition or surrounded by a halo. — Albert Schweitzer
Man is the "ethical animal" ethical in potentiality even if, unfortunately, not in actuality. His capacity for ethical judgment like freedom, reason and the other unique characteristics of the human being is based upon his consciousness of himself. — Rollo May
Ethically they had arrived at the conclusion that man's supremacy over lower animals meant not that the former should prey upon the latter, but that the higher should protect the lower, and that there should be mutual aid between the two as between man and man. They had also brought out the truth that man eats not for enjoyment but to live. — Mahatma Gandhi
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of animal ethics quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about animal ethics to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of animal ethics quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
