animal-rights-activists

"Besides the darkness of the night, many minor shadows cross our paths, making the hues of Life obscure. These are not always caused by sorrow. There are clouds brought by misunderstanding, sharp words and thoughtless speeches. Want of thought throws many shadows."

"Hallie Eustace Miles ... The daughter of the of , Hallie Killick married the sportsman and writer in 1906. Together with her husband, she ran a vegetarian restaurant and pioneering health food centre, and counted AC Benson, among other literary luminaries, as customers and friends. As the centenary of the first world war approaches, her diary of their life during the , originally published in 1930, is definitely worth seeking out."

"Many argue that the is inhumane, that meat is expensive, that it contains uric acid, that it may be tubercular, and so on. All this is too true; but I do not think that the scientific case for meat is sufficiently explained, or given its due as a body-builder and repairer, as a stimulant and appetizer, which is why, when most people go without it, they must have a substitute."

"...Blood and Flesh with a voracious Appetite we devour, and glut ourselves with slaughter'd Animals, perhaps endued with Reason equal to ourselves; it may be we cannot affirm, that they possess one so perfect as ours, but that Perfection is acquir'd by Discipline, which the Generality of Brutes want. They have not Seminaries of Literature, nor Cambridge, Oxford, nor Eaton or Westminster, where Arts and Sciences are taught by Rules. — No, Nature is their only School-Mistress, and they learn her Instructions with wonderful Promptness and Sagacity. The Elements founded by the infinite Creator serve them as a Book, to teach them all the Knowledge which is necessary for their Well-being here."

"At all events, the pleasing persuasion that his work may have contributed to mitigate the ferocities of prejudice, and to diminish in some degree the great mass of misery which oppresses the animal world, will in the hour of distress convey to the Author's heart a consolation which the tooth of calumny will not be able to impoison."

"Fatigued with answering the enquiries, and replying to the objections of his friends, with respect to the singularity of his mode of life, the Author of this performance conceived that he might consult his ease by making, once for all, a public apology for his opinions. Those who despise the weakness of his arguments will nevertheless learn to admit the innocence of his tenets, and suffer him to pursue, without molestation, a system of life that is more the result of sentiment than of reason, in a man who imagines that the human race were not made to live scientifically, but according to nature."

"Ye sons of modern science, who court not wisdom in her walks of silent meditation in the grove, who behold her not in the living loveliness of her works, but expect to meet her in the midst of obscenity and corruption; ye who dig for knowledge in the depth of the dunghill, and who hope to discover wisdom enthroned amid the fragments of mortality, and the abhorrence of the senses; ye that with ruffian violence interrogate trembling nature, who plunge into her maternal bosom the butcher knife, and, in quest of your nefarious science, the fibres of agonizing animals, delight to scrutinize; ye dare also to violate the human form august; and, holding up the entrails of man, ye exclaim: behold the bowels of a carnivorous animal!—Barbarians! to these very bowels I appeal against your cruel dogmas; to these bowels, fraught with mercy, and entwined with compassion; to these bowels which nature hath sanctified to the sentiments of pity and of gratitude; to the yearnings of kindred, to the melting tenderness of love!"

"[E]very thing which partakes of Sense, has also Reason; 'tis the Mind alone that sees, hears, &c. the Body of itself being blind, deaf, and void of all Sense. Therefore since Beasts see and hear, and perform all other Actions of Sense as we do; I hope it will not be unreasonable to assert they have a Seat of Reason."

"If I have any Virtues in me, or if there be such a distinguishing Characteristick in Man, they are chiefly a universal Love of my Fellow-creatures, placed here in concert with me to compleat the Harmony of the Universe."

"Before we enter immediately upon the intended Controversy about the Right of eating Animals; I would beg Leave first to endeavour to unprejudice your Mind, by shewing the Primitive and Religious Notions of eating Flesh: They established their Reasons upon a fundamental Law in Nature, the original Justice of the World, which teaches us not to do that to another which we would not have another do to us. Now since 'tis evident that no Man would willingly become the Food of Beasts; therefore by the same Rule, he ought not to prey on them."

"The butcher's knife hath laid low the delight of a fond dam, & the darling of Nature is now stretched in gore upon the ground."

"But here the sons of science sport with the sentiments of mercy; and why, with a malicious grin, demands the modern sophist, why then is man furnished with the canine, or dog-teeth, except that nature meant him carnivorous?—Fallacious argument! Is the fitness of an action to be determined purely by the physical capacity of the agent? Because nature, kindly provident, has bestowed upon us a superabundance of animal vigour, does it follow that we ought to abuse, by habitual exertions, an excess of force, evidently granted to guard our existence on occasions of dire distress? In cases of extreme famine we destroy and devour each other; but from thence will any one pretend to prove, that man was made to feed upon his fellow men?"

"Disgusted with continual scenes of slaughter and desolation, pierced by the incessant shrieks of suffering innocence, and, shocked by the shouts of persecuting brutality, the humane mind averts abhorrent from the view, and, turning her eyes to Hindostan, dwells with heart-felt consolation on the happy spot, where mercy protects with her right hand the streams of life, and every animal is allowed to enjoy in peace the portion of bliss which nature prepared it to receive."

"And, indeed, has not nature given, to almost every creature, the same spontaneous signs of the various affections? Admire we not in other animals whatever is most eloquent in man, the tremor of desire, the tear of distress, the piercing cry of anguish, the pity-pleading look, expressions that speak the soul with a feeling which words are feeble to convey?"

"Man is but one Link in the great Concatenation of Beings, and to ufurp an Authority over any other part of the Chain is indeed Pride, rank Pride, and Haughtiness of Soul."

"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."

"A Flie, a Mite, or other Insect, are in the same great Chain of Beings; and I but help to fill up the Rank of the Divin Works, I am no more than they. Look upon the Mechanism of a Spider with a Microscopic Eye, upon the Architecture of the Bee, &c. let Man consider the Fineness of their Texture and Composure, and with what Exactness they are form'd, and he will find in himself nothing to be vain of. If I boast of any thing, it is only of being join'd with you in this great Concatenation of Things, and moving with you in one of its Revolutions—My Friend, when we are worn out, and drop insensibly into the Grave, we only leave the Space to be filled up in the next successive Moment, perhaps by some other Race of Creatures, who compleat the Harmony of Wonders in this Structure of the Universe."

"We have no Right of Property from Nature. When Men were first made, no Boundaries were set to his Possession; Right and Wrong were not known; no Man assumed a Right by Nature, and what was effected was by Power. If we could claim no Right to the Bodies of Animals, we had no Power to destroy. The Sparrow and the Fish of the Sea are in common to all, no Man claims a particular Right to them, therefore has no Power by Nature over them to kill."

"The Author is very far from entertaining a presumption that his slender labours (crude and imperfect as they are now hurried to the press) will ever operate an effect on the public mind—and yet, when he considers the natural bias of the human heart to the side of mercy, and observes on all hands the barbarous governments of Europe giving way to a better system of things, he is inclined to hope that the day is beginning to approach when the growing sentiment of peace and good-will towards men will also embrace, in a wide circle of benevolence, the lower orders of life."

"But far other is the fate of animals: for, alas! when they are plucked from the tree of Life, suddenly the withered blossoms of their beauty shrink to the chilly hand of Death. Quenched in his cold cold grasp expires the lamp of their loveliness, and struck by the livid blast of loathed putrefaction, their comely limbs are involved in ghastly horror. Shall we leave the living herbs to seek, in the den of death, an obscene aliment?—Insensible to the blooming beauties of Pomona, unallured by the fragrant fume that exhale from her groves of golden fruits, unmoved by the nectar of Nature, by the ambrosia of innocence, shall the voracious vultures of our impure appetite speed across the lovely scenes and alight in the loathsome sink of putrefaction to devour the funeral of other creatures, to load with cadaverous rottenness, a wretched stomach?"

"…I believe it inconsistent with Humanity to eat Flesh, inconsistent with our Nature, or the Intentions of God in our first Formation, to imbrue our Teeth in the Blood of the Animals. They have the same Sense of Pleasure and Pain as we have, and we put them to an equal Torture with us by a Wound given to them; if so, it is at best a Cruelty to destroy them. I would fain know of you, that if I believe it criminal to eat Flesh, and continue so to do, whether I do not live in a Sin against Conscience, against Nature, which is the greatest of Sins; if by her I am convicted, if that faithful Monitor sets it before me as criminal to feed on the animal Creation, I seem to need no other Remonstrance."

"It is ironic that we often believe that empathy and complex emotions only really exist in humans but we then fail to empathise with the animals who suffer at our hands."

"We have created a form of tyranny over the natural world, pillaging, extracting, using and destroying as we please. We have placed ourselves above the ecological life support systems that our species depends on for survival and exploited them for our own short-term benefit, cutting down forests and polluting rivers and oceans. We have destroyed millions of years of evolution in the blink of an eye, quite literally bulldozing our way around this finite planet. For all of our intelligence, we have still failed to grasp the simple reality that we need the planet more than the planet needs us."

"Veganism will come about as a result of the traits in humans that we are most proud of – ingenuity, intellectual honesty, progressiveness and self-reflection – while rejecting many of the traits that are most damaging – stubbornness, wilful ignorance, violence, selfishness and apathy. We are already seeing this in action, and though getting accurate population statistics is challenging, a clear theme is being revealed by polling and surveys: veganism is growing."

"Every time we eat, we have the power to radically transform the world we live in and simultaneously contribute to addressing many of the most pressing issues that our species currently faces: climate change, infectious disease, chronic disease, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Every single day, our choices can help alleviate all of these problems or they can perpetuate them."

"People often call vegans extremists, and yet veganism is merely living by the principle that if I am against cruelty then I will do what I can to avoid perpetuating systems that cause physical and mental harm to animals. It is a clear indictment of how ingrained our state of cognitive dissonance is that we see attempts at moral consistency as signs of extremism. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal?"

"Every form of cruelty—whether it be trapping, hunting, the working of ponies in mines, or the practice of vivisection—casts a slur on humanity. These actions demand our attention if we are to make progress as a truly humane society."

"There are paths to knowledge which must be forever closed to us, and the way of vivisection is one of those paths. It is made possible only because of our cowardice and fears."

"Much has also been said about the cruelties inflicted by animals upon one another. But I must emphasize that, in their original wild state, and with rare exceptions, animals kill only for food, not for the sake of killing. That is a prerogative peculiar to humankind."

"As to the actual intensity of pain felt by animals, let us take each of the five senses. When compared to humans, most of these senses are far more acutely and highly developed in animals. Additionally, animals possess other remarkable senses, such as the homing instinct and an awareness of their approaching death."

"While some animals are protected by law, far too many still remain outside the pale of such protection. And so, I ask: should not their capacity to suffer be the measure of their right to be protected? This is not a plea for charity but for justice—a right that must be claimed."

"I am quite convinced that within its limitations an animal has this higher life, and that it has not merely a 'blind life within the brain', but a very real one within the soul, with its own standard of right and wrong."

"A man who has made a tolerable progress in humanity, will adopt, and ever bear in mind, the principle of increasing, as far as lies within his power, the quantity of pleasure in the world, and diminishing that of pain: he will establish this to himself as a constant and inviolable rule of action, and in carrying it into practice he will not overlook one created thing that is endowed with faculties capable of perceiving pleasure and pain. He will reflect on who it was that gave these faculties and remember that they were not given to be sported with. He will not esteem the meanest of animals beneath the notice of his humanity because, in the meanest of them, the wisdom and power of the all-benevolent Being are displayed. This is the Being without whom not a single sparrow shall fall to the ground and whose bounty feeds the young ravens that call upon him. His sensibility will be tremblingly alive to the sensations of all animated nature, and he will feel for everything that is capable of feeling: he will look upon pity, kindness, and mercy toward his own species as the weightier matters of humanity, but at the same time, he will consider the humane treatment of animals as more than the tithe of the anise and cummin of it. He will scrupulously do his duty in the former, and in the latter, he will not leave it undone."

"Have you a right to torture animals for your pleasure? Have you a right to make their lives amid terror and misery in order to derive some measure of gratification from what are called the pleasures of the chase?"

"I have observed cats and dogs, horses, cattle and sheep under every kind of pain, and I do unhesitatingly say that they suffer as we suffer."

"In offering to the public a book on Humanity to Animals, I am sensible that I lay myself open to no small portion of ridicule; independent of all the common dangers to which authors are exposed. To many, no doubt, the subject which I have chosen will appear whimsical and uninteresting, and the particulars into which it is about to lead me ludicrous and mean. From the reflecting, however, and the humane I shall hope for a different opinion and of these the number, I trust, among my countrymen is by no means inconsiderable. The exertions which have been made to diminish the sufferings of the prisoners, and to better the condition of the poor, the flourishing state of charitable institutions; the interest excited in the nation by the struggles for the abolition of the slave-trade; the growing detestation of religious persecution—all these and other circumstances induce me to believe that we have not been retrograding in Humanity during the present century: and I feel the more inclination and encouragement to execute the task to which I have set myself, inasmuch as humanity to animals presents itself to my mind as having an important connection with humanity towards mankind."

"Yet, like all God’s wonderful gifts to us, this great gift of pain can be turned into a horrible curse. Just in proportion as God’s love provides the possibility of good, so our vice or ignorance makes the possibility of evil. The abuse of God’s gift of pain may be the cause of the most terrible of evils, and we call it cruelty."

"When we really understand what pain has to teach us, we shall in large measure have abolished suffering."

"Every single act of cruelty contributes something towards generating in the mind an habit of cruelty."

"[I]t is our duty to cultivate humanity towards animals […] not content merely to rescue animals from pain but to leave them still more abundantly gratified."

"When considering the extent of an animal’s capacity for suffering, it is impossible to draw a distinct line between domestic animals and so-called vermin. Such a line is purely a matter of sentiment. The fact remains that all vertebrate animals are highly sensitive."

"[E]very experiment is cruel which gives pain to an animal, without having for its object the leading to some great and public good."

"Animals are endued with a capability of perceiving pleasure and pain; and from the abundant provision which we perceive in the world for the gratification of their several senses, we must conclude that the Creator wills the happiness of these his creatures, and consequently that humanity towards them is agreeable to him, and cruelty the contrary. This, I take it, is the foundation of the Rights of animals, as far as they can be traced independently of scripture; and is, even by itself, decisive on the subject, being the same sort of argument as that on which moralists found the Rights of Mankind, as deduced from the Light of Nature."

"I won't back down. I am a politician you can count on."

"Paula has achieved something many thought impossible: she has made conservation a mainstream, national conversation in Kenya. She has given it a Kenyan face and a Kenyan voice, inspiring a whole new generation."

"If David Attenborough is the global voice of wildlife, then Paula Kahumbu is his fiercely passionate, Kenyan counterpart—a force of nature who has dedicated her life to saving her country's iconic animals."

"Kahumbu does not suffer fools gladly. She is a formidable and fearless advocate, known for speaking truth to power, whether confronting poaching syndicates or challenging government policies that fail wildlife."

"We have to tell stories that make people fall in love with wildlife. You don't protect what you don't love, and you can't love what you don't know. That's why we make 'Wildlife Warriors'—to show the beauty and the drama of our natural world."

"What we know about elephants today is incredible,They are like people."

"My purpose is not just to be a scientist, my purpose is really to do conservation through education, through innovation, through storytelling. As a conservation scientist, you’re only producing scientific articles that are only read by other scientists. But when you are on National Geographic or Disney, that inspires people and educates them to care about nature."