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Animal Quotes

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Animal Quotes

“The beliefs I was raised with - to respect animals and to be aware of nature, to understand that we share this planet with other creatures - have had a huge impact on me.”

Belief Animal Share Planets Huge Creatures Impact Raised

Author:Stella McCartney

“My mother was convinced, and on this head I have retained her firm belief, that to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state; that it is one of those curses cast upon man either by his fall, or by the obduracy of his own perversity.”

Men Humans States Mother Purpose Fall Belief Animal Casts Convinced Flesh Firm Curse Feeding Vegetarianism Shameful Infirmity Perversity Firm Beliefs

Author:Alphonse de Lamartine

“Man lives, not directly or nakedly in nature like the animals, but within a mythological universe, a body of assumptions and beliefs developed from his existential concerns.”

Men Body Universe Belief Animal Concern Assumption Existential

Book:The Northrop Frye Quote Book

Source: The Northrop Frye Quote Book

“The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.”

Source: The Lost World

“We are like coral animals embedded in a technological reef of extruded psychic objects...All our tool-making implies our belief in an ultimate tool.”

Belief Growth Animal Objects Tools Ultimate Technological Psychics Embedded Reefs

Book:True Hallucinations: And, the Archaic Revival

Source: True Hallucinations: And, the Archaic Revival

“Mr. J.S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, "Utilitarianism," of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality," but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man?”

Source: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

“People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason, in a way that animals can’t do.”

People Way Reason Past Belief Imagination Animal Behavior Moved Making Changes

Author:Gretchen Rubin

“I find very reasonable the Celtic belief that the souls of our dearly departed are trapped in some inferior being, in an animal, aplant, an inanimate object, indeed lost to us until the day, which for some never arrives, when we find that we pass near the tree, or come to possess the object which is their prison. Then they quiver, call us, and as soon as we have recognized them, the spell is broken. Freed by us, they have vanquished death and return to live with us.”

Soul Death Belief Lost Animal Tree Objects Broken Return Prison Reasonable Spells Trapped Inferiors Departed Celtic Quiver Inanimate Objects

Author:Marcel Proust

“An animal can learn to fight, but to sing beautiful things and make people believe them.”

People Believe Beautiful Fighting Belief Animal Music Musician Beautiful Things

Author:Dalton Trumbo

“A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.”

Men Way Hands Three Belief Enjoy Sides Animal Fire Prejudice Crowds Hills Grades Contradiction Agreement Thinker Cows Pointing Shouting Gregarious

Author:William Golding

“As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs.”

Men Long Religion Faith Belief Animal Knowledge Learning Path Greater Diversity Respect Fundamentals Remains Individualism Diverse Inquiring Free Thought Unanimity Divergence

Author:Arthur Keith

“I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.”

World May Shows Feelings Form Belief Lines Animal Expression Succeed Highest Draws Absolutes Add Intellect Scales Distinction Faculty Animal World

Author:Thomas Huxley

“And at this moment in history, our core value happens to be the raw, aching truth of the human predicament. It may also be the only belief that can save us as a species. A species that will continue to find comfort and delight in the companionship of animals, the miracle of birds, the colours of the corals and the majesty of the forests. We are in it together, on this blue spinning marble in the cold and silent void. And we must act on that belief, if we are going to be able to continue to live a good life here, in this beautiful and fragile country, on this lovely planet, our only home.”

“To me, animal communication seemed an insane idea, years ago; but my experience altered my life and my beliefs.”

Years Ideas Belief Animal Communication Years Ago Insane Altered

Author:Bernie Siegel

“The romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things, but they still kill the animals and uproot the plants in order to eat, to live. If they don't, they will die.”

People Ifs World May Stills Spiritual Order Dies Belief Natural Animal Views All Things Plant Unity Natural World Eden Spiritual Beliefs

Author:Michael Crichton