Unknown

"The antlers of the common white-tailed deer seem peculiarly liable to become interlocked so tightly that it is well-nigh impossible to separate them. And whenever this happens, the doom of both deer is sealed. Unless found speedily and killed, they must die of starvation."

"The killing of natural prey for daily food is not murder.A starving wolf on the desolate barren grounds may even kill and devour a wounded pack-mate without becoming a criminal by that act alone. True, such a manifestation of hard-hearted-ness and bad taste is very reprehensible; but its cause is hunger, not sheer blackness of heart."

"Next to the plainly expressed desire to quench their thirst the dominant thought in the minds of those animals, one and all, was the fear of being attacked. In some species this ever-present and harassing dread was a pitiful spectacle. I wish it might be witnessed by all those ultra-humane persons who think and say that the free wild animals are the only happy ones!"

"Documentary film of scenes of wild carnivores preying on other animals is usually edited so to not show the harsh reality of nature. A TV program I watched by chance 12 years ago reported the fact without concealing the details ... Five hyenas surrounded an animal like a deer at night and bit its abdomen. The animal had already lost the vigor to run away or to resist and was immobilized by terror at the persistent attack of the hyenas. In a moment, the skin of its abdomen was torn up and the bloody flesh was exposed throughout the abdomen. The animal's four legs staggered but it didn't fall; the legs stood and supported the body full of injuries. The hyenas bit the animal's exposed bloody flesh, bit by bit, and began to eat it. The animal didn't fall down yet and stood still with all its might, but no one saved this pitiful animal; it was eaten alive ...This occurrence is not special but repeated everywhere on the earth every day. I was deeply shocked, however, as if I had learned nature's true colors of cruelty for the first time. I had the intuition that such thing should absolutely not exist. Even if people permit it as natural law, I must deny it firmly. I wanted to drive away the hyenas to save the animals from being eaten alive ... If I had not seen the TV program by chance, I would have continued to eat meat and to hold a superficial philosophy ignorant of the cruelty of nature."

"If we were asked, "Which one may be called the ruling passion of the wild animal?" we would without hesitation answer,—it is fear."

"From the cradle to the grave, every strictly wild animal lives, day and night, in a state of fear of bodily harm, and dread of hunger and famine."

"Now the 'free, wild life' is a round of strife, And of ceaseless hunger and fear; And the life in the wild of the animal child 'Is not all skittles and beer."

"It is not fair to sympathize only with livestock, and not with animals eaten by carnivores. Everyone would have wanted to help the animal attacked by the carnivores if he had actually observed the scene I described [documentary footage of a deer being attacked by hyenas]."

"In their greatest hunger they attack the ranchmen's haystacks, just as far as the stout and high log fences will permit them to go, and many a kind-hearted ranchman has robbed his own haystacks to save the lives of starving and despairing elk."

"In the temperate and frigid zones, life was a seasonal battle with bitter cold, torrents of cold rain in early winter or spring, devastating sleet, and deep snow and ice that left no room for argument. At the same time, the species that were not predatory found themselves surrounded by fangs and claws, and the never-ending hunger of their owners."

""The rat goes out for its food, and is clever in getting it, for it eats all animals inferior to it in strength", and in turn, it "has to avoid snakes and birds and serpents of prey, who look for it in order to devour it" and are stronger than the rat. Mosquitos "know instinctively that blood is the thing which makes them live" and when they see an animal, "they know that the skin has been fashioned to serve them as food". In turn, flies hunt the mosquito "which is the food that they like best", and predators eat the flies. "All animals, in short, can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn. Every weak animal devours those weaker than itself. Strong animals cannot escape being devoured by other animals stronger than they."

"I oppose the ecologists because for them, the fox that eats the hare is good, as long as it "preserves the natural balance", while I see the suffering of the hare. You have to have a fairly closed mind to what it represents in reality to find it "good". Environmentalists see in nature only species; without human intervention, these species vary little, at least not visibly; the resulting impression of stability gives a vague feeling of rest and security; and they speak then of the harmony of nature."

"The idea that all captive wild animals are necessarily "miserable" is erroneous, because some captive animals are better fed, better protected and are more happy in captivity than similar animals are in a wild state, beset by dangers and harassed by hunger and thirst."

"Torture is permanent in Latin America; is it harmonious? Environmentalists find it good that the fox kills the hare, because that preserves an order. Torture also preserves order."

"Indeed the amount of suffering and premature death present in nature could still be glimpsed were we only to consider the tiny number of animals that successfully reach maturity in comparison to those who die shortly after coming into existence. Population dynamics shows how this figure is very low because of the prevalent reproductive strategy in nature, which consists in producing very large numbers of offspring who have very little chance of survival."

"[I]t is not inherently absurd to suppose that there is an obligation to protect animals from natural predators, even if this obligation has limited practical application. Nor (except, perhaps, in the case of ethical holists) does it conflict with our deepest moral convictions. If one of these convictions is that we should strive to reduce the amount of suffering in the world, then assisting prey animals, in some cases at least, is one way in which this might be accomplished."

"Even if we were required to meddle in nature, protecting animals from predators would not be a high priority – if it would be sensible at all. Better that we help whales stuck in ice or protect animals threatened by natural disaster. Predators are, with very few exceptions (such as humans), exclusively or primarily carnivores, being unable to survive without meat. To protect the gazelle from the lion, or the elephant from the hyena, would be to save one but doom the other. It seems very doubtful that we are obligated to pick sides here (even if shooting a lion might cause the lion less suffering than what her gazelle victims would experience). Nature really seems to be "red in tooth and claw" when it comes to carnivores. In conclusion, the reductio argument concerning positive obligations to animals fails. Contrary to that argument, if the combination of equal consideration and our obligations to humans supports any positive obligations to animals, these obligations prove to be plausible ones."

"Nature isn't good or bad. It doesn't say anything about happiness or suffering. What we can do is look at what drives our existence, and then figure out what experiences animals are most likely to have as a result."

"In every part of the animal world we find implements of torture surpassing in devilish ingenuity anything that was ever seen in the dungeons of the Inquisition."

"Utility, rights, and holistic standards all point toward some modest steps to limit or check the predatory activity of carnivores relative to their victims. At the very least, we should limit current subsidies to nature's carnivores. Policing nature need not be absurdly costly or violate common-sense intuitions."

"Many believers in animal rights and the relevance of animal welfare do not critically examine their basic assumptions ... [T]ypically these individuals hold two conflicting views. The first view is that animal welfare counts, and that people should treat animals as decently as possible. The second view is a presumption of human non-interference with nature, as much as possible ... [T]he two views are less compatible than is commonly supposed. If we care about the welfare and rights of individual animals, we may be led to interfere with nature whenever the costs of doing so are sufficiently low."

"In other cases we are interfering with nature, whether we like it or not. It is not a question of uncertainty holding us back from policing, but rather how to compare one form of policing to another. Humans change water levels, fertilize particular soils, influence climatic conditions, and do many other things that affect the balance of power in nature. These human activities will not go away any time soon, but in the meantime we need to evaluate their effects on carnivores and their victims."

"If the universe were self-aware, the only reasonable conclusion one could reach about it is that it hates itself, as it has decided to manifest itself as a legion of survival machines that tear each other apart for a living."

"Among brutes as well as men, everything important and delightful as it may be in its nature and effects, is begun, Continued, and ended in difficulty. We view throughout the whole animal creation the painful anxiety of the mother too often rewarded with the loss of the young progeny, and her trouble about rearing them end in disappointment ... the hawk and the owl will always prey on the infant family of the sparrow and the mouse: all nature is one wide waste of devastation; and, though we may diminish the sufferings of animals under our own eyes, yet the wood and the wilderness will be theatres of woe, and the wide waters of the deep tainted with the blood of savage strife, so long as the world remains in its present condition."

"If you stop and think about the sheer number of animals on Earth that make a living by laying eggs in other animals and doing all sorts of horrible things to them before consuming them alive, it can give one pause."

"Tennyson nailed it. We trust that God is love. But we also believe that God is the creator of the nature, and nature simply does not seem to point to a God of love. Parasites, viruses, bacteria, diseases and cancer kill millions and torment millions more, humans and animals alike. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides and volcanoes do the same. And the animal kingdom is, as Tennyson said, red in tooth in claw. (So is the human kingdom for that matter). The creation looks almost as much like it was created by a cosmic predator (I Pet 5:8) as it does like it was created by an all loving, peaceful, benevolent Creator. There seems to be a "Lucifer Principle" at work in the world, as Howard Bloom noted. "Nature does not abhor evil," he says. "[S]he embraces it." (The Lucifer Principle)."

"Among these, animals are classified as the one of the three (or four) unfortunate rebirth destinies ... The category of animals includes both land and sea creatures, as well as insects. The specific kinds of suffering that animals undergo are frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts; these include the constant need to search for their own food while always seeking to avoid becoming food for others. ... The possibility of achieving rebirth out of the realm of animals is said to be particularly difficult because of either the inevitable killing in which predators engage or because of animals' constant fear of becoming prey; neither mental state is conducive to higher rebirth."

"But, good heavens! the whole plan of life is one of rapine. We did not fashion the spider to prey upon the fly, or the cat to play with the wounded mouse. We did not ordain that the strong should fall upon the weak, and tear and torture them for their own benefit. Surely we are not responsible for the brutalities of the animal creation."

"[J]ust a smidgen of biological insight makes it clear that, although the natural world can be marvelous, it is also filled with ethical horrors: predation, parasitism, fratricide, infanticide, disease, pain, old age and death — and that suffering (like joy) is built into the nature of things. The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator."

"Near the brook a heron lay in frozen stubble. Its wings were stuck to the ground by frost, and the mandibles of its bill were frozen together. Its eyes were open and living, the rest of it was dead ... As I approached I could see its whole body craving into flight. But it could not fly. I gave it peace, and saw the agonised sunlight of its eyes slowly heal with cloud."

"More seriously still, the value commitments of the humane movement seem at bottom to betray a world-denying or rather a life-Ioathing philosophy. The natural world as actually constituted is one in which one being lives at the expense of others. Each organism, in Darwin's metaphor, struggles to maintain its own organic integrity. The more complex animals seem to experience Gudging from our own case, and reasoning from analogy appropriate and adaptive psychological accompaniments to organic existence. There is a palpable passion for self-preservation. There are desire, pleasure in the satisfaction of desires, acute agony attending injury, frustration, and chronic dread of death. But these experiences are the psychological substance of living. To live is to be anxious about life, to feel pain and pleasure in a fitting mixture, and sooner or later to die. That is the way the system works. If nature as a whole is good, then pain and death are also good."

"It is often assumed that wild animals live in a kind of natural paradise and that it is only the appearance and intervention of human agencies that bring about suffering. This essentially Rousseauian view is at odds with the wealth of informatio n derived from field studies of animal populations. Scarcity of food and water, predation, disease and intraspecific aggression are some of the factors which have been identified as normal parts of a wild environment which cause suffering in wild animals on a regular basis."

"[E]cosystems do not only have value aesthetically and prudentially, they also have disvalue. In aesthetic terms, few of us enjoy the sight of animals dying through starvation or disease. And many of us also recoil rather than feel a sense of wonder at the reality of predation. And, as we have seen, ecosystems also possess prudential disvalue. As well as improving the well-being of sentient animals of which they are a part, they also facilitate their suffering. This means that if we value ecosystems for the the beauty and the well-being they afford, we cannot object to interventions which interfere with and change those ecosystems if they increase that beauty and well-being. In other words, then, it appears that sometimes out duty may be to protect ecosystems, and at other times it may be to interfere with them."

", Philozoia: Or Moral Reflections on the Actual Condition of the Animal Kingdom, and on the Means of Improving the Same (1839), pp. 65–66"

"We now know that the whole of organic nature on our planet exists only by a relentless war of all against all. Thousands of animals and plants must daily perish in every part of the earth, in order that a few chosen individuals may continue to subsist and to enjoy life. But even the existence of these favoured few is a continual conflict with threatening dangers of every kind. Thousands of hopeful germs perish uselessly every minute. The raging war of interests in human society is only a feeble picture of the unceasing and terrible war of existence which reigns throughout the whole of the living world. The beautiful dream of God's goodness and wisdom in nature, to which as children we listened so devoutly fifty years ago, no longer finds credit now – at least among educated people who think."

"It is easy to have an ethics that, instead of questioning things that are difficult to change, decides to call them "good". My ethics, I want to consider it built on real things; happiness and suffering are for me real things, like water or stones, even if current physics does not know them. I cannot then, by convention, baptize anything "good". And also, this implies living in uncertainty, in ethical insecurity. Is it good to kill a snake, to save a large number of frogs? While these eat so many insects? They eat each other or harm plants. I don't know if they suffer, the plants, if they hurt when they choke on each other, poison themselves, get sick shade each other. In many cases, I do not know what is right. Or, what is right is too hard to assume: with each step I risk crushing ants. Maybe I should delete myself, to save ants? I will not do it."

"From a legal point of view, an organisation is a legal person. It is legitimised, under the laws of the land, by a legally recognised and binding constitution specifying purpose, procedures to be followed, hierarchical offices to be taken up, authority to be granted, and membership criteria and categories."

"Central Europe has several recognizably common architectural features that make some towns in Galicia look remarkably like towns in Transylvania and Slovakia; shared musicians—Liszt, Chopin, Mahler, Dvořák, Smetana, Bartók, Kodály; shared writers, such as Musil, Gombrowicz, Koestler, Brod, Mickiewicz, Kafka, Roth, Zweig, Faludy; and some peculiar shared traditions, such as the tiny coffee spoon and the oversweet desserts with whipping cream."

"– Eric T. Duckman"

"– Cornfed Pig"

"– Aunt Bernice/Aunt Beverly/Beatrice"

"/ – Charles"

"The Stepfather (2009 film) - the remake of the original film, starring Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, and Penn Badgley, about a boy who returns home from military school to find his mother happily in love and living with her new boyfriend. As the two men get to know each other, he becomes more and more suspicious of the man who is always there with a helpful hand."

"The Stepfather (1987 film) - a film starring Terry O'Quinn, Jill Schoelen and Shelley Hack about a man who, after murdering his entire family, remarries a widow with a teenage daughter in another town and prepares to do it all over again."

"Ich weiß wohl, daß wir nicht gleich sind noch sein können; aber ich halte dafür, daß der, der nötig zu haben glaubt, vom sogenannten Pöbel sich zu entfernen, um den Respekt zu erhalten, ebenso tadelhaft ist als ein Feiger, der sich vor seinem Feinde verbirgt, weil er zu unterliegen fürchtet."

"Balıqçının toruna düşən hər bir canlı onun üçün balıqdır."

"Döyüşdə və sevgide hamı bərabər."

"Nahardan sonra bir qədər əlləş, şamdan sonrasa bir qədər əyləş."

"Tələsən təndirə düşər."

"Consumption is encouraged by government, business, and even our social leaders. It teaches children the wrong values, pollutes the environment, affects health and health costs, and ultimately life expectancy.Most importantly, it distorts values and priorities. Unbridled consumption is not a virtue but a disease that should not be encouraged by our leaders. We must recognize that consumption alone is not a measure or standard of living or wellbeing, particularly if it pollutes the environment and affects health."