Best 5844 quotes in «animal quotes» category

I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.

I think that we are supernatural. We are unique. We're the only animals in the universe that we know of that actually have self-consciousness, a sense of time and our own mortality.

I think the black man in America wants to be recognized as a human being; and it's almost impossible for one who has enslaved another to bring himself to accept the person who used to pull his plow, who used to be an animal, subhuman, who used to be considered as such by him-it's almost impossible for that person in his right mind to accept that person as his equal.

I think the lion, besides the elephant, was the one animal that I just started thinking about so much.

I think the moment that I'm very proud of is building a business without using animals. And, hopefully, changing people's perception of how you can do luxury fashion.

I think the most alarming animals I have encountered are really poisonous snakes.

I think the Native Americans had the right idea about preserving and respecting the earth. Not just using it up. We are not the center of the universe and that we think we are will most likely be the end of us. Then nature will go on its way, with humans only being a faint ugly memory. And yes I am fond of animals or most of them.

I think the rapidly growing tendency to regard animals as born for nothing except slavery to so-called humanity absolutely disgusting.

I think the primary gift of the animal is offered to writer and non-writer alike; they teach us about love, or attunement, which is love in action. A lot of people have closer relationships with animals than they do with other humans, because real intimacy requires both parties to consistently lean in, and animals are so good at this. They remain consistently, amazingly attuned to us, even when we fail them, and so we stay present, because we sense we're safe.

I think there is just a vein of humanity that really loves animals and really loves to read about them.

I think there is something very interesting about people who live day to day in an environment where they could get taken out by a wild animal. There has to be some kind respect that is derived from that relationship.

I think there is a classy way to go about changing people's views about how they treat animals, and that is with compassion, strategic moves, and passing laws to protect animals, not throwing paint and flour on people. That only turns them away from your whole purpose of helping those without a voice.

I think there's a very fundamental urge to create a safe space, a home; most animals have that impulse, and humans certainly do - with some exceptions, like nomadic people who perhaps don't feel the need to settle in quite that way. But most of us do want to have space, somewhere we feel secure and where we repeatedly return. Somewhere we can sleep without fear. And there's nothing wrong with that desire. It's completely understandable. It only becomes ugly when that creation of a safe space involves making an enclosure from which other people are kept out.

I think there's always going to be a problem dealing with firearms, with knives. It's the animal we are that cause the problems.

I think there will come a time when civilized people will look back in horror on our generation and the ones that have preceded it; the idea that we should eat other living things running around on four legs, that we should raise them just for the purpose of killing them! The people of the future will say 'meat-eaters' in disgust and regard us in the same way that we regard cannibals and cannibalism.

I think the world has mostly ended because the cities we wander through are as rotten as we are. Buildings have collapsed. Rusted cars clog the streets. Most glass is shattered and the wind drifting through the hollow high-rises moans like an animal left to die. I don't know what happened. Disease? War? Social collapse? Or was it just us? The Dead replacing the Living? I guess it's not so important. Once you're arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters which road you took.

I think the unconditional love you get from an animal, especially a dog, is better than anything else.

I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective.

I think we all connect with dogs the most because they're pack animals. I know that cats are a little bit too aloof for me, although I wouldn't totally object to bringing one into our pack if I could find the right match that would get along with my dogs.

I think we're insecure about our self-imposed spot at the top of the pyramid of life. New studies are continually undermining our superiority complex and forcing us to reconsider our relationship to animals.

I think we’re like farm animals before an earthquake.

I think we learn some of the greatest lessons in life from animals, whether it's love, suffering, or the value of silence.

I think we must ask ourselves if this is really what we want to do to God's creation, to drive it to extinction? Because extinction really is irreversible; species that go extinct are lost forever. This is not like Jurassic Park. We can't bring them back.

I think what he loved about me the most was that I wasn't part of that world. But once we were together publicly, he wanted to change me into that social animal.

I think William Shakespeare was the wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly frank, though, that's not saying much. We are impossibly conceited animals, and actually dumb as heck. Ask any teacher. You don't even have to ask a teacher. Ask anybody. Dogs and cats are smarter than we are.

I thought about how odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people. The only activities I could think of that humans do that have no animal equivalent were smoking, body-building and writing. That's not much, considering how special we seem to think we are.

I thought the idea of 'Smurfs' lent itself to the 3-D environment pretty well, I think, better than some of the farm animal movies that have been done before. I was a fan of the 'Smurfs' and they come with their own fan base, which I thought was nice.

I thought the Invalids were beasts; I thought they would rip me apart. But these people saved me, and gave me the softest place to sleep, and nursed me back to health, and haven't asked for anything in return. The animals are on the other side of the fence: monsters wearing uniforms. They speak softly, and tell lies, and smile as they're slitting your throat.

It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion toward our fellow creatures.

It infuriated him to think that there were still people in the state who believed in a loving and merciful God. There are mystics who are said to have experienced God directly. He was a mystic, too, and what he had experienced was vacancy--a complete certainty in the existence of a dying, cooling world, of human beings who had evolved from animals for no purpose at all.

It is a fact that the ecological devastation of the planet can be traced to the consumption of meat and dairy, which contributes to water, soil, and air pollution as well as global warming and the mass extinction of many species of plant and animal forms.

It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another...we consider those, where the intellectual faculties most developed as the highest. - A bee doubtless would [use] ... instincts as a criteria.

It is a cruel folly to offer up to ostentation so many lives of creatures, as to make up the state of our treats.

It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh-meat of any kind is essential to health. Considerably more than three parts of the work in the world is done by men who never taste anything but vegetable, farinaceous food, and that of the simplest kind. There are more strength-producing properties in wholemeal flour, peas, beans, lentils, oatmeal, roots, and other vegetables of the same class, than there are beef or mutton, poultry or fish, or animal food of any description whatever.

It is a curious paradox of human history that a doctrine that tells human beings to regard themselves as sacrificial animals has been accepted as a doctrine representing benevolence and love for mankind.

It is a difficult matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical, methodical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave.

It is a fact that plants also have life like animals. But animals are endowed with mind, and nervous systems too while the plants do not possess the same.

It is always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!

...It is a legal requirement to carry out animal testing to ensure they are safe and effective

It is an amiable part of human nature, that we should love our animals; it is even better to love them to the point of folly, than not to love them at all.

It is an indication of the extent to which people are now isolated from the animals they eat that children brought up on storybooks that lead them to think of a farm as a place where animals wander around freely in idyllic conditions might be able to live out their entire lives without ever being forced to revise this rosy image.

It is an unfortunate fact that those people who are most eloquent in their demand for the conservation of animals are often those most eager to violate animal life at the first opportunity.

It is a perversely human perception that animals in their native habitat are running wild.

It is a sobering thought that animals could do without man, yet man would find it almost impossible to do without animals.

It is a truism, of course, that in "democratic" states the populace must be encouraged to imagine that it makes important decisions by voting, and must therefore be controlled by suitable propaganda, which implants ideas to which the voters respond as automatically as trained animals respond to words of command in a circus, thus leaving to the masses only a factitious choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee on the basis of their preference for a certain kind of oratory, a hair-style, or a particular facial expression.

It is a truly wonderful fact - the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity - that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group.

It is astonishing how the human animal survives its misfortunes.

It is a surprisingly close progression from hunting animals to hunting and torturing people... catching and lynching blacks or smoking out Jews during the Holocaust.

It is a testament to the effectiveness of advertising campaigns funded by the animal-user industries that a diet that is bad for us and harmful to the planet is thought of as "normal" and a diet that promotes health, happiness, and well-being is thought of as alternative, abnormal, or faddish. In fact, these days it is relatively easy to find vegetarian options in many restaurants and supermarkets, though you may have to ask.

It is better to have a few forms well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the first year's work, than to have two thousand dollars' worth of shells and corals bought from a curiosity-shop. The dozen animals would be your own.