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Animal Quotes

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Animal Quotes

“We can see quite plainly that our present civilization is built on the exploitation of animals, just as past civilisations were built on the exploitation of slaves.”

Today Past Animal Civilization Built Slavery Slave Comparison Vegan Exploitation Exploits Civilisation

Author:Donald Watson

“No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in a way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains as to wilderness, as that which declares that the world was made especially for the uses of men. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged.”

Men World Way Made Use Seems Earth Form Culture Understanding Term Nature Animal Darkness Century Taught Civilization Relation Plant Obstacles Enormous Wilderness Dogma Crystals Conceit Wildness

Author:John Muir

“Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.”

Men Whole Facts Strong Animal Depends Civilization Tendencies Traits Rivalry

Author:William James

“It is not just contemporary industrial society that is dysfunctional; it is civilization itself. We humans are born to be creatures of the land and the sea and the stars; we are relations to the animals, cohorts to the plants. Our well being, and the well-being of the very planet depend on our pursuance of our given place within the natural world.”

World Humans Wells Given Stars Born Natural Animal Sea Land Planets Depends Civilization Creatures Relation Plant Contemporary Well Being Natural World

Author:Chellis Glendinning

“"Motherboard," for me, has four different levels: the bottom part is the water, vegetation, and growth. The second part is the world with figures and animals; there's chaos and civilization. The third part is the digital zone - these red things are turning into really loud digital sounds. Then the fourth level is like ether and things turning into air. This idea of how we're becoming partly digitalized is really interesting to me.”

“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

“The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.”

Men Eye Age Artist Animal Habit Civilization Clothes Priests Bankers Dwelling Bourgeois

Author:Honore de Balzac

“I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.”

Ifs Humans Would Be Names Nations Felt Animal Dog Civilization Treats Shame Prosperity Extremes Income Cruelty Illegal Human History Percentages Unprecedented Affordability

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“If kissing is man's greatest invention, then fermentation and patriarchy compete with the domestication of animals for the distinction of being man's worst folly, and no doubt the three combined long ago, the one growing out of the others, to foster civilization and lead Western humanity to its present state of decline.”

Ifs Men Long States Humanity Three Animal Doubt Growing Worst Civilization Kissing Western Invention No Doubt Folly Distinction Decline Long Ago Patriarchy Fermentation

Book:Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“There is increasing social concern about our use of nonhumans for experiments, food, clothing and entertainment. This concern about animals reflects both our own moral development as a civilization and our recognition that the differences between humans and animals are, for the most part, differences of degree and not of kind.”

Humans Kind Use Social Differences Animal Moral Development Civilization Degrees Concern Entertainment Experiments Recognition Clothings Humans And Animals Moral Development

Author:Gary L. Francione

“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible to civilization. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that the reformation must be worked.”

Character Church Animal Civilization Kitchen Fancy Suspects Quantity Reformation Animal Food

Book:Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American

Source: Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American

“Our understanding of what constitutes intelligence is utterly relative. If an aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, for example, all of Western civilization would probably flunk. We have a very convenient and self-serving way of defining intelligence. If an animal does something, we call it instinct. If we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.”

Ifs Way Doe Self Reason Understanding Animal Example Civilization Tests Instinct Western Serving Relative Defining Convenient Western Civilization Self Serving

Book:Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth

Source: Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth