#animals

It's brutal out there. A bear will eat a lactating ewe alive, starting with her udders. as a rule, animals in the wild don't get good deaths surrounded by their loved ones. ↗

— Michael Pollan

#food #death

The pattern glitters with cruelty. The blue beads are colored with fish blood, the reds with powdered heart. The beads collect in borders of mercy. The yellows are dyed with the ocher of silence. There is no telling which twin will fall asleep first, allowing the other's colors to dominate, for how long. The design grows, the overlay deepens. The beaders have no other order at the heart of their being. Do you know that the beads are sewn onto the fabric of the earth with endless strands of human muscle, human sinew, human hair? We are as crucial to this making as other animals. No more and no less important than the deer. ↗

— Louise Erdrich

#fate #humanity #myth #nature #design

...if he sees his fellow humans as anything more than complicated animals. Not so different from a deer or a wolf, knitted together with the same sinew but in another design. ↗

— Benjamin Percy

#design

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. ↗

— Josh Billings

#dogs #love

You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan. ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#abolitionist #ahimsa #animals #education #exploitation

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

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

I am no theologian, and do not have the answers to these questions, and one of the reasons I enjoy the animals on the farm so much is that they don't think about their pain, or question it, they accept it and endure it, true stoics. I have never heard a donkey or cow whine (although I guess dogs do). I told my friend this: pain, like joy, is a gift. It challenges us, tests, defines us, causes us to grow, empathize, and also, to appreciate its absence. If nothing else, it sharpens the experience of joy. The minute something happens to me that causes pain, I start wondering how I can respond to it, what I can learn from it, what it has taught me or shown me about myself. This doesn't make it hurt any less, but it puts it, for me, on a more manageable level. I don't know if there is a God, or if he causes me or anybody else to hurt, or if he could stop pain. I try to accept it and live beyond it. I think the animals have taught me that. The Problem of Pain is that it exists, and is ubiquitous. The Challenge of Pain is how we respond to it. ↗

— Jon Katz

#farm #pain #problem #experience