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Animals Quotes

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Animals Quotes

“If we take the position that an assessment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism is not possible because we are all “on our own journey,” then moral assessment becomes completely impossible or is speciesist. It is impossible because if we are all “on our own journey,” then there is nothing to say to the racist, sexist, anti-semite, homophobe, etc. If we say that those forms of discrimination are morally bad, but, with respect to animals, we are all “on our own journey” and we cannot make moral assessments about, for instance, dairy consumption, then we are simply being speciesist and not applying the same moral analysis to nonhumans that we apply to the human context.”

LifeWisdomInspirational QuotesJusticeEducationRightsRacismSlaveryVulnerableSexismAnimalsNonviolenceExploitationVeganismPeace On EarthAbolitionAhimsaMoral ObligationPeace MakingClassismAbolitionistSpeciesismPeace MovementSentienceFrancioneAbleistMoral ImperativeNonviolence JainismHeterosexism
Author:GaryLFrancione
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“If we are ever going to see a paradigm shift, we have to be clear about how we want the present paradigm to shift. We must be clear that veganism is the unequivocal baseline of anything that deserves to be called an “animal rights” movement. If “animal rights” means anything, it means that we cannot morally justify any animal exploitation; we cannot justify creating animals as human resources, however “humane” that treatment may be. We must stop thinking that people will find veganism “daunting” and that we have to promote something less than veganism. If we explain the moral ideas and the arguments in favor of veganism clearly, people will understand. They may not all go vegan immediately; in fact, most won’t. But we should always be clear about the moral baseline. If someone wants to do less as an incremental matter, let that be her/his decision, and not something that we advise to do. The baseline should always be clear. We should never be promoting “happy” or “humane” exploitation as morally acceptable.”

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Author:GaryLFrancione
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“There are some animal advocates who say that to maintain that veganism is the moral baseline is objectionable because it is “judgmental,” or constitutes a judgment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism and a condemnation that vegetarians (or other consumers of animal products) are “bad” people. Yes to the first part; no to the second. There is no coherent distinction between flesh and other animal products. They are all the same and we cannot justify consuming any of them. To say that you do not eat flesh but that you eat dairy or eggs or whatever, or that you don’t wear fur but you wear leather or wool, is like saying that you eat the meat from spotted cows but not from brown cows; it makers no sense whatsoever. The supposed “line” between meat and everything else is just a fantasy–an arbitrary distinction that is made to enable some exploitation to be segmented off and regarded as “better” or as morally acceptable. This is not a condemnation of vegetarians who are not vegans; it is, however, a plea to those people to recognize their actions do not conform with a moral principle that they claim to accept and that all animal products are the result of imposing suffering and death on sentient beings. It is not a matter of judging individuals; it is, however, a matter of judging practices and institutions. And that is a necessary component of ethical living.”

LifeWisdomInspirational QuotesJusticeEducationRightsRacismSlaveryVulnerableSexismAnimalsNonviolenceExploitationVeganismPeace On EarthAbolitionAhimsaMoral ObligationPeace MakingClassismAbolitionistSpeciesismPeace MovementSentienceFrancioneAbleistMoral ImperativeNonviolence JainismHeterosexism
Author:GaryLFrancione
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“An abolitionist is, as I have developed that notion, one who (1) maintains that we cannot justify animal use, however “humane” it may be; (2) rejects welfare campaigns that seek more “humane” exploitation, or single-issue campaigns that seek to portray one form of animal exploitation as morally worse than other forms of animal exploitation (e.g., a campaign that seeks to distinguish fur from wool or leather); and (3) regards veganism, or the complete rejection of the consumption or use of any animal products, as a moral baseline. An abolitionist regards creative, nonviolent vegan education as the primary form of activism, because she understands that the paradigm will not shift until we address demand and educate people to stop thinking of animals as things we eat, wear, or use as our resources.”

LifeWisdomInspirational QuotesJusticeEducationRightsRacismSlaveryVulnerableSexismAnimalsNonviolenceExploitationVeganismPeace On EarthAbolitionAhimsaMoral ObligationPeace MakingClassismAbolitionistSpeciesismPeace MovementSentienceFrancioneAbleistMoral ImperativeNonviolence JainismHeterosexism
Author:GaryLFrancione
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“Feliz is our lone jaguar. The last jaguar we had before him died of despair. That wasn't the official cause of death, of course not, but we all knew it. The rumor goes that the zoo's owners, the Pinkton family, paid an obscene amount to acquire another jaguar, probably the only one on Earth, given the state of the countries in which the creature's natural habitat once existed. Feliz was plucked out of the last few acres of the Amazon as the bulldozers waited, like customers impatiently hovering while a buffet is prepared. So Feliz is kind of a big deal. He doesn't appear cognizant of this fact, however. If anything, he looks to be on a mission to wear away the floor of his enclosure until he drops right through the earth and out of this life. He paces without cease. His nails are worn to stubs and his mouth hangs open in a perpetual rictus that wrecks your heart. He longs to forget all this, and to be forgotten.”

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Book:The Island of Last Things
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“We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions—love, antipathy, charity, or malice—and what part is determined by the constant power play among individuals. True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.”

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Book:The Unbearable Lightness of Being
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“I think he just loved being with the bears because they didn't make him feel bad. I get it too. When he was with the bears, they didn't care that he was kind of weird, or that he'd gotten into trouble for drinking too much and using drugs(which apparently he did a lot of). They didn't ask him a bunch of stupid questions about how he felt, or why he did what he did. They just let him be who he was.”

PeopleFreedomPersonalityBearsDrinkingCuriosityStupidityAnimalsDrugsQuestionsSuicidalStupid PeopleDrug AddictionSuicidal ThoughtsDrinking AlcoholLonlinessMisanthropyFeeling BadAnimals LovePeople SuckSuicide NotesAnimal KindnessLetting Down
Book:Suicide Notes
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“For some reason, she wanted to be with the animals more than the people. She couldn't describe how she felt about the animals or why she had such a strong need to see them, because she didn't understand it herself. But it was one of the reasons she was brave enough to venture out for the first time on her own. Maybe she was drawn to them because they understood what it was like to be locked up, with no control over what happened next. Maybe it was because her cat was the only one who had never let her down. Or maybe her love of animals was part of who she was, like the way her left foot turned in slightly, the way her fingers were long and thin, and the way her skin was white as snow. Whatever the cause, seeing the baby elephant and the other animals was the only thing she cared about right now.”

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Book:The Life She Was Given
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“If a person sins when they kills another person, why is it that they do not sin when they kill a beast?” Idalina looked across at her, frowned slightly and then shrugged. “They do.” “But people do not speak of it as sin,” the girl persisted. “No,” Idalina said. “That is because people do not see themselves in the beasts as they do in other people. If they did, they would say that it is the same.”

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Book:From Whence The Rivers Run
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“People look at you peculiar if you talk about the feeling you got for animals, saying animals have no souls, no sense of good or bad, no value up next to humans," he said. "I don't know about that. Sometimes I think animals are the ones who should be saying such things about us." He shook his head. "Animals can tear your heart out. They can maim you. They can kill you dead on instinct alone and saunter into the next minute like it was nothing. But at least you know the ground rules with animals. You can count the cost of breaking the rules. You never know with people. Even the good can hurt you bad, and the bad, well, they're going to hurt you but good." He dropped his arm from the window to rub his gnarled hand. "It's why I keep choosing animals. Even if it kills me. One day, it probably will.”

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Book:West with Giraffes
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“As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own mind there was an inextricable connection between language and truth, a conviction that by using plain and unambiguous words one could forbid oneself the comfort of certain falsehoods and delusions. Every time you hear a piece of psychobabble or propaganda—'people's princess,' say, or 'collateral damage,' or 'peace initiative'—it is good to have a well-thumbed collection of his essays nearby. His main enemy in discourse was euphemism, just as his main enemy in practice was the abuse of power, and (more important) the slavish willingness of people to submit to it.”

MindTruthLanguagePeacePowerInfluenceLiesConvictionEqualityPropagandaPhrasesDelusionAnimalsSubmissionEuphemismGeorge OrwellCollateral DamagePlain LanguageThought PoliceTermsDoublethinkRudyard KiplingDiana Princess Of Wales
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.”

EarthFreedomWonderBeautyWonderfulLessonsConversationCreaturesRespectAnimalsWildPlanetEnrichment
Book:The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds
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“Once, when I were a child, I were kicked by a small mule. Neither the mule nor I had any sense. I were trying to make the mule go one way, but the mule was trying to make me go another. I were for hitching the mule onto a plow. The mule were for nibbling grass. So, after that kicking, I learned right then and there to respect animals and peoples when they are not of the same mind as you are.”

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Book:The Return of Simple
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“I know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again, in the same sense in which I hope myself to rise again—which is, to reappear, clothed with another and better form of life than before. If the Father will raise his children, why should he not also raise those whom he has taught his little ones to love? Love is the one bond of the universe, the heart of God, the life of his children: if animals can be loved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly loveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish? Must the very immortality of love divide the bond of love? Must the love live on for ever without its object? or worse still, must the love die with its object, and be eternal no more than it? What a mis-invented correlation in which the one side was eternal, the other, where not yet annihilated, constantly perishing! Is not our love to the animals a precious variety of love? And if God gave the creatures to us, that a new phase of love might be born in us toward another kind of life from the same fountain, why should the new life be more perishing than the new love? Can you imagine that, if, here-after, one of God's little ones were to ask him to give again one of the earth's old loves—kitten, or pony, or squirrel, or dog, which he had taken from him, the Father would say no? If the thing was so good that God made it for and gave it to the child at first who never asked for it, why should he not give it again to the child who prays for it because the Father had made him love it? What a child may ask for, the Father will keep ready.”

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Book:Hope of the Gospel
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“Dhambi ya Adamu ilileta mauti duniani (kwa viumbe vyote, si tu kwa binadamu). Hiyo ni kwa mujibu wa Biblia. Kisayansi si kweli; kwa sababu mauti yalikuwepo kabla Adamu na Hawa hawajaumbwa! Lakini haya ndiyo mawazo yangu: Dhambi iliathiri uumbaji wote ikiwemo mimea, wanyama, wadudu na kila kitu kilichoumbwa na Mwenyezi Mungu; ambavyo huteseka kwa sababu ya laana ya dunia. Kama wanyama na mimea visingekuwa vinakufa, binadamu wasingepata mahali pa kuishi. Hata hivyo, kifo cha Yesu msalabani kitafufua kila kitu – kitafufua uumbaji wote.”

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Author:Enock Maregesi
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“The experience of joy will for the first time give you the experience of a beauty that is eternal. It will also give you an insight into the phenomenon of beauty. This insight will not only make you beautiful, it also transforms  your whole world. Then the whole world becomes beautiful, because the world reflects you. The world is a mirror of you. The trees, the flowers, the animals, the people, the rivers and the mountains will reflect you. You cannot get more than you give. Many people have not any beautiful to put into life, which is why they live such miserable, joyless, and bored lives. There may be a beautiful sunset, but they do not have the eyes to see it. There may be a bird singing, but they are deaf to hear it.They have no insight into beauty. When you have an insight into beauty, you will find beauty everywhere. Then you have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear. You will find beauty in a tree,in a stone, in a flower, in an animal or in the sky. You will find awe and wonder, and you will be thrilled and moved. To know real beauty, one has to go into deep silence. One has to become more aware, alert and silent. Then your heart becomes purified, and you become transformed. You start feeling yourself as a consciousness, rather than as a mind. Then there is beauty all around you. You have a silence and a grace, and suddenly the world is full of beauty. This is the essence of religious experience. It is only a deep silence that will give beauty, which gives a deep desire to share the experience with others.”

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Book:Man is Part of the Whole: Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion, Freedom and Grace
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“...a ripple of silence came toward me. As if the wood thrushes and squirrels and moths held their breath while something passed by. My bow was already strung. Quietly, I loosely nocked an arrow. Closer and closer the silence crept. The trees seemed to lean in, their entwined branches locking tighter, a living cage keeping even the smallest of birds from soaring out of the canopy.”

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Book:A Court of Thorns and Roses
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