Posted on 06/10/2002 4:34:41 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
I believe in animal rights, human rights, land rights, water rights, air rights." -Rod Coronado
"The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being." -Konrad Lorenz, "Man Meets Dog"
"I ask for the privilege of not being born ...not to be born until you can assure me of a home and a master to protect me, and a right to live as long as I am physically able to enjoy life...not to be born until my body is precious and men have ceased to exploit it because it is cheap and plentiful." -Author Unknown
"Look deep into the eyes of any animal, and then for a moment, trade places, their life becomes as precious as yours and you become as vulnerable as them. Now smile if you believe all animals deserve our respect and our protection, for in a way, they are us, and we are them." -Philip Ochoa Board Member, ALL FOR ANIMALS
"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy." -Plutarch
Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing. --Maynard
I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. Well, I think my mother is attractive, but I just keep photographs of her. -- Ellen DeGeneres
"I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me. I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned for a while to roam four-footed among the brambles,I caught the clinging mute glance of the prisoner and swore that I would be faithful." -Henry David Thoreau
"All national institutions of churches, whether jewish, christian, or turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." -Thomas Paine, "Age Of Reason"
"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love" -Pythagoras
"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?" -Buddha
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet" -Albert Einstein
"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man..." -Isaiah 66:3
Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses. -Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)
On leather jackets: That's the next step. You have to take one step at a time. It was easier to start with fur. -Dan Matthews, Director of Fur Campaign, PETA
Never buy wool again. Choose only cotton, synthetics and other non-animal fibers. -PETA
Humanity is the cancer of nature. -Dave Foreman, Earth First!
Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape. -John Muir, Founder of the Sierra Club
If the death of one rat cured all diseases, it wouldn't make any difference to me. -Chris Derose,founder and director of Last Chance for Animals
The liberation of animal life can only be achieved through the radical transformation of human consciousness and the overthrow of the existing power structure. -Transpecies Unlimited
The animal rights movement is "part of a revolutionary process aimed at restructuring the major institution of society..." -Dr. Morgan, Mobilization for Animals
The optimum human population of earth is zero. -Dave Foreman, Earth First!
The human race could go extinct and I for one would not shed any tears. -Dave Foreman, Earth First!
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men. -Alice Walker
Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty. -Albert Einstein
Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind. -Henry Bergh
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. -Mahatama Gandhi
Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more. -Franz Kafka
The thinking [person] must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another... - Albert Schweitzer
The wild, cruel animal is not behind the bars of a cage. He is in front of it. -Axel Munthe
Ostrasize hunters and trappers from your social life. Don't patronize stores and services owned by hunters and trappers. -Edward F. Dolan
It's hard to remember, if all you see of a chicken are it's body parts wrapped in plastic, or crates of them crammed on a slaughterhouse bound truck, but chickens are individuals. Anyone who gets to know a particular chicken learns that their range of emotions is vast and undeniable. - PETA investigator
Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. -Mark Twain
[Refering to a chicken egg factory] The stench, the ammonia, the noise - it's like hen hell. -Pam Clarke
No Fishing Because fish have a brain, a central nervous system, and pain receptors, they can feel pain just like cats, dogs, and humans. Just because they can't scream doesn't mean that they are not in pain. Also, other animals, like birds, often strangle or choke to death on lost hooks and lines. - PETA
I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature,let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. - Anonymous
What are we doing when we brainwash children in schools to cut open their fellow animals? Are we dangerously desensitizing them? Some of the most warped and blunted people I know are those who have gone through training of this sorts. -Richard D. Ryder
Conserve a hunter, harvest one today. -unknown
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. -Emile Zola
Iam the voice of the voiceless;
Through me the dumb shall speak,
Till the deaf world's ears be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.
.......................
And I am my brothers keeper,
And I will fight his fights;
And speak the words for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumes flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle: these are our brothers. All things are connected like the blood which unites one's family. -Chief Seattle
I care not much for a man's religon whose dog and cat are not the better for it. -Abraham Lincoln
A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral. -Leo Tolstoy
To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man. -Mahatma Gandhi
Truly man is the king of beast for his brutality excedes theirs. We live by the death of others. We are burial places. - Leonardo Da Vinci
Flesh can not be procured without causing destruction of life; one who uses flesh, therefore, commits hisma (injury) unavoidably. -Jainism
I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. -- One does not meet one's self until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human. -Loren Eisley
The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different. -Hippocrates
There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two tings, but they are people likeunto you. - The Koran
Behind every beautiful fur, there is a story. It is a bloody, barbaric story - Mary Tyler Moore
Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul -Pythagoras
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest -Henry David Thoreau
When a man wants to murder a tiger it is called a sport, when the tiger wants to murder him it is called ferocity. - George Bernard Shaw
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man - Charles Darwin
All cruelty springs from weakness. -Seneca
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity. - George Bernard Shaw
The more I see of men the more I like dogs. - Madame De Stael
I feel very sorry for women who continue to purchase real fur coats. They are lacking in a woman's most important requisites, heart and sensitivity. -Jayne Meadows
It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animl dumb because it is dumb to his dull senses. - Mark Twain
Peace begins in the kitchen: Go vegetarian. - PETA
Nothing will benefit human health or increase the chances for survival of life on earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. - Albert Einstein
I never thought much of the courage of a lion-tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people. - George Bernard Shaw
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Mark Twain
The lives of animals are woven into our very being -closer than our own breathing-and our souls will suffer when they are gone. -Gary Kowalski
nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own. - Robert Louis Stevenson
One robin caged and Heaven's mad! But when to just that one you add vast flocks of battered battery birds and half starved calves in crated herds and multitudes of tethered sows in narrow stalls - these horrors rouse all Heaven to a rage so wild it's formrer rage seems a wonderous mild. - Patrick Allen
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by it's purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind. - Albert Einstein
The truck was filled with cows, their eyes desperate while mine were sad. - Holly Palmer Turner
We fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of fear and pain. - Robert Louis Stevenson
All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. -Buddha
You have identified the key issue in the question of whether animals have rights. I believe that animals should be treated as humanely as possible (I support medical use of animals but oppose testing cosmetics on rabbit's eyes, for example). But that is not because of their rights (they have none) but because of our obligations to them.
When I encounter someone who believes in animal rights, I ask them to imagine that every vestige of humanity was magically removed from this planet leaving everything else intact. Would animals then have rights? Would the little fish have a right to be left alone by the big fish? Would the antelope have a right to insist that the lion leave him alone? Even if they had some theoretical rights, they have no capacity to claim or defend those rights, or even the capacity to understand the concept of rights. In this scenario, the notion of animal rights is ridiculous. Adding humanity to the scene does not endow animals with rights that they would otherswise not have.
I do accept, however, the biblical concept of treating animals humanely. That makes the treatment of animals a matter of my obligations, not their rights.
It easy to understand his love of rats. Anyone who would make such a statement is on the same level.
"Just say a word and the boys will be right there
With claws at your back to send a chill through the night air.
"Is it so frightening to have me at your shoulder?
Thunder and lightning couldn't be bolder.
I'll write on your tombstone, "I thank you for dinner."
This game that we animals play is a winner.
"Well, let's - well, that's all right by me. Yes!
I'm a tiger when I want love, but I'm a snake if we disagree.
"The rivers are full of crocodile nasties
And He who made kittens put snakes in the grass.
He's a lover of life but a Player of Pawns -
Yes, the King on His Sunset lies waiting for dawn
To light up His Jungle as play is resumed.
The monkeys seem willing to strike up the tune.
--Jethro Tull
With every bite of meat I honor their memory.
We Wisconsinites would just say "yes".
The guy grinned and said, "I'm glad you asked. That's my pig and he's the greatest pig in the world. Once, my wife and I were sleeping and the house caught fire. The pig broke out of his pen and banged his snout on our window until we woke up. He saved our lives! Another time, the tractor rolled over and I was trapped underneath. The pig broke loose, ran into the field and dug under me until he could pull me out from under the tractor with his teeth. He saved my life."
"Okay. Okay. It's a great pig. But what about the leg?"
The guy laughed. "Are you kidding? Great pig like that, you don't eat him all at once!"
Funniest response in some time.
I have to bite tongue on this thread or I'll be banned from FR for life.
You'll love these TB.
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