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, Jr.
Simplistic Animal Rights quotations
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.
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.
The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being.
God requires that we assist the animals, when they need our help.
Each being (human or creature) has the same right of protection.
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
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.
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.
If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.
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.
Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.
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.
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.
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.
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage.
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.
It's not about loving animals. It's about fighting injustice. My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals.
All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.
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.
I don't care whether animals are capable of thinking;
all I care about is that they are capable of suffering!
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.
I don't have any understanding of a human being who doesn't respect the beauty of life and that goes for all creatures that have thoughts, feelings and needs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
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?
Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
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.
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.
In 1968, I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry, and unhappy like we do.
We need an extreme movement because what is happening to animals is so extreme.
Some misinformed people claim that animal rights activists are terrorists, but these people are simply ignorant of who the real terrorists are - the companies and industries that torture literally billions of animals each year.
If an 'animal abuser' were killed in a research lab firebombing, I would unequivocally support that, too.
Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight.
If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?
A human being has been given an intellect to make choices, and we know there are other food sources that do not require the killing of a creature that would protest being killed.
Behind every beautiful fur, there is a story. It is a bloody, barbaric story.
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.
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.
Hurt no living thing: Ladybird, nor butterfly, Nor moth with dusty wing.
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.
Zoos are becoming facsimiles - or perhaps caricatures - of how animals once were in their natural habitat. If the right policies toward nature were pursued, we would need no zoos at all.
If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.