#animal

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them. ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#ethics #humans #vegetarianism #dreams

Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don't do. ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#food-safety #non-fiction #vegetarinism #equality

I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being. ↗

— Rai Aren

#animals #compassion #equality #ethical-vegan #kindness

To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant. ↗

— Beryl Markham

#companionship #man #tolerance #equality

The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings. ↗

— Peter Singer

#equality #equality

At the same time we see the phenomenon of successful women adopting the standards of men with a vengeance. Will women's march to power ascendancy, won against all odds, mean that they too will choose to flaunt their preferences for red meat, animal skin, sport hunting, and even bullfighting? As women are swelling the ranks of biomedical science, many have adopted the practice of animal experimentation. Will animal exploitation become the ultimate symbol of equality with the white male? ↗

— Maria Comninou

#animals #feminism #women #equality

We middles see the world in shades of grey rather than in the clear blacks and whites of committed animal activists and their equally vociferous opponents ↗

— Hal Herzog

#morals #philosophy #equality

One trained dog equals 60 search-and-rescue workers. ↗

— Charles Stoehr

#dogs #heroes #equality

But those who are incapable of pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men. A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces -- laying bare the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with forceps -- would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women for the gratification of his curiosity. ↗

— Robert Ingersoll

#compassion #vivisection #experience

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen. ↗

— Alice Walker

#life