"As long as human beings go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. "
Isaac Bashevis Singer

"In studying the traits and dispositions of the so-called lower animals, and contrasting them with man's, I find the result humiliating to me. "
Mark Twain

"I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice ... While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of man, that's all."
Henry David Thoreau

"When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. "
Ingrid Newkirk (PETA director)

"Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, feathers, or wings, it is, for that reason, to be of no account? "
Jean Paul Richter

"It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man. "
Albert Schweitzer

"Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. "
Albert Schweitzer

"We and the beasts are kin. "
Ernest Thompson Seton

"Perhaps the time has come to formulate a moral code which would govern our relations with the great creatures of the sea as well as with those on dry land. That this will come to pass is [my] dear wish. "
Jacques Cousteau

"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery. "
Charles Darwin

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. "
Thomas Edison

"Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. "
Albert Einstein

"All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals."
Peter Singer

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. "
Mahatma Gandhi

"As custodians of the planet it is our responsibity 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

"No truth appears to me more evident than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant. "
David Hume

"Men who have practiced tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame. How can they still hold their heads high among human beings? "
Samuel Johnson

"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

"How narrow we selfish, conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation! "
John Muir

"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

"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

"Human beings are the only animals of which I am throughly and cravenly afraid."
George Bernard Shaw

"The worst sin towards or fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That’s the essence of inhumanity."
George Bernard Shaw

"A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist and shrinks from injuring anything that lives."
Albert Schweitzer

"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

"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 wherever they require it."
Francis of Assisi

"Thus godlike sympathy grows and thrives and spreads far beyond the teachings of churches and schools, where too often the mean, blinding, loveless doctrine is taught that animals have neither mind nor soul, have no rights tthat we are bound to respect, and were made only for man to be petted, spoiled, slaughtered, or enslaved."
John Mur

"Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals’ suffering? Because government is not. why not? Animals don’t vote.
Paul Harvey

"You ask people why they have deer heads on the wall. They always say, ‘Because it’s such a beautiful animal.’ There you go. I think my mother’s attractive, but I have photographs of her."
Ellen DeGeneres

"A robin red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage."
William Blake

"If a robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage,
How feels heaven when
Dies the billionth batter hen?
Spike Milligan

"Will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless explitation of the species in our power?"
Peter Singer, Ph.D.

"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

"The wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. He is in front of it."
Axel Munthe

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. this is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
Mark Twain