Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
From the physical point of view, a man is nothing more than a system of cells, or from the mental point of view, than a system of representations; in either case, he differs only in degree from animals.
I was a part of that Beanie Babies generation. I had, like, 400 of them... OK, maybe not that many, but I had a lot of little stuffed animals that I liked to make talk. I was a big dork, and I still am.
The case for exploiting animals for food, clothing and entertainment often relies on our superior intelligence, language and self-awareness: the rights of the superior being trump those of the inferior.
It simply feels right to me to blend the glittery delights of New York City with a largely raw vegan diet - with the soul-deep conviction that animals are not ours to eat, wear, exploit or experiment on.
The white man's blood and bones have begotten this bronze race, and bequeathed to it in some degree qualities, tendencies, capabilities, such as are the inheritance of the highest order of human animals.
Moreover, it thus follows that not a great deal of time was needed for the large animals of the three major parts of the world to become known to the people who spent time on the coasts of those regions.
As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone - to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew.
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.
Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.
Basically, the reason I'm vegan is because when I was about 16 or 17 years old, I began to understand that we don't need to contribute to the killing and exploitation of animals to feed our bodies correctly.
When western culture developed, we became detached from nature, detached from our relationship with the animals. We saw animals perhaps as only the rhino horn, the elephant's tusk, we saw it as making money.
We, as a people, we have a strong need to categorize everything. We put labels on everything and it's a totally understandable need because we are animals and we need to understand order and where to fit in.
Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals, and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone's home.
Walking in the mountains helps me unwind, but it also reminds me in a painful way that the real beauty in life is nature and animals, and that the human race, in all its arrogance, is intent on destroying it.
I laughed when Steven Spielberg said that cloning extinct animals was inevitable. But I'm not laughing anymore, at least about mammoths. This is going to happen. It's just a matter of working out the details.
If you're going to love animals and have a life with them, the odds are you're going to lose them. It's helpful when you get a dog to accept the fact that this dog is not going to be with you your whole life.
I love long-range rifle shooting. I like anything that deals with precision. I also find that with archery. On my ranch, I have my own range with 3-D targets of animals and hay bales from different distances.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island.
Nevertheless most of the evergreen forests of the north must always remain the home of wild animals and trappers, a backward region in which it is easy for a great fur company to maintain a practical monopoly.
It's funny what actors take issue with. Some won't do parts where animals are in jeopardy; some won't ever play anyone remotely unlikable - 'Heroes only, please.' Some won't do violence. I have no such qualms.
I was so sad from losing two of my dogs and my mother. I had this vision of all these animals sitting behind bars. They had no control and were scared. That's why I got into fostering and adopting animals out.
I have agreed to lend my voice to Nature's Guard, an animated series which hopefully will go into production in the near future. The characters are all animals. My voice will be for a character named Longtail.
Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinary because God, who created them, compensated for the deficiency of reason by the superiority of their senses.
Even as a child, I felt very guilty about eating animals and never knew that there was something to do about it. And as I got older, it became clearer that there are things that I can do and choices I can make.
Whatever life may really be, it is to us an abstraction: for the word is a generalised term to signify that which is common to all animals and plants, and which is not directly operative in the inorganic world.
I love animals. I just don't want to have a pet. That's OK, right? I would take a dog over a cat, at least to interact with you. I feel like cats just stare you down all the time. Cats have, like, bad attitudes.
Animals aren't any better equipped to survive an emergency than humans are. Few people missed the fact that after Hurricane Katrina, people died because buses and emergency shelters wouldn't allow their animals.
Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
Now that I know how supermarket meat is made, I regard eating it as a somewhat risky proposition. I know how those animals live and what's on their hides when they go to slaughter, so I don't buy industrial meat.
We like to take picnics and sandwiches, driving through the green lanes. My wife loves the house, the dogs, and the animals we have around us, the deer and the fox that comes and pokes his head through the hedge.
I'm very caring with animals. I think patience is a big deal, because animals are always jumping around. I love to take care of people, so I think I'd be a good vet. I always wanted to be a vet when I was little.
I remember the evacuee children from towns and cities throwing stones at the farm animals. When we explained that if you did that you wouldn't have any milk, meat or eggs, they soon learned to respect the animals.
I've dressed thousands of actors, actresses and animals, but whenever I am asked which star is my personal favorite, I answer, 'Grace Kelly.' She is a charming lady, a most gifted actress and, to me, a valued friend.
They took their meals together; and it was remarked on such occasions, when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test, that they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit with each other.
There will always be vain, obsessive people who want to own rare and extraordinary things whatever the cost; there will always be people for whom owning beautiful, dangerous animals brings a sense of power and magic.
When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be.
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
Working with children is a whole other ball game. They're like little animals. You have to keep the camera turned on them all the time. Sometimes it takes a 41-minute take to get one sentence out in a believable way.
We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have children, and develop a rich social, sexual, and intellectual life, but we know almost nothing about our surroundings.
I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?
There is something really mysterious about lions. They could rip you apart if they wanted to, but at the same time they look so cuddly. Can you imagine what humans look like to animals? They must think we're so weird.
It more or less has the shape of a love song, but 'Crescent Moon' reflects more my longing for an ancient romantic context that includes wild animals, fire, danger of death, stellar navigation, and seasonal intuition.
Although I agree that wild horses are a symbol of the American West, I also believe that it is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that these animals are managed, protected, and controlled in an effective manner.
It was always understood that plants and animals, though completely contrasted in their higher representatives, approached each other very closely in their lower and simpler forms. But they were believed not to blend.
In a way, Strandbeests have turned into migration animals, and the step counter gives them an idea of where they are. While counting their steps, they know more or less where they are between Kijkduin and Scheveningen.
Nature promotes mutualism. The flower nourishes the bee. The river waters quench the thirst of all living beings. And trees provide a welcoming home to so many birds and animals. There is a rhythm to this togetherness.
One of the reasons I like living in Bangkok is that, although it's a megacity, it's very saturated with nature - the vast and brooding skies, the sudden storms and rains, the vegetation and even the animals that abound.
For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history.
I became a vegetarian out of compassion for animals and to live as healthy as possible. I realized soon after that I was truly concerned with nonviolent consumption and my own health, a vegan diet was the best decision.
From some dilatory reading in the early 1960s, I knew enough about viruses and their association with tumors in animals to understand that they might provide a relatively simple entry into a problem as complex as cancer.