c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Some quotes from Standing Stark:“The mind is the charioteer of experience, while the body is the vehicle that carries out the orders of its driver. The gift we have been given is the one called possibility, whose intent offers to tie all together, creating strands of a whole life rather than a disintegrated one.”“It is our own microcosmic journey that gives life meaning and weaves us into the macrocosm of existence. Life does begin with each of us. It then expands outward to touch others with how we live.”“At some time in our lives, we receive a signal to arouse from a deep sleep. If we answer the cue, we set out on a journey toward authenticity that takes us into the unknown. We begin to separate from the selves we thought we were and search for who we are.”“Set your intent and let it go. Your intent is your beginning. Worrying about the details detracts from the intent. In your strong intent, the attraction will take care of the details.”“The conscious realization I offer now is that when we learn to trust, we will be led to all we ever need. Our only job is to be awake and follow the lead.”“We can gauge the measure of truth in our lives by the lightness of our body, emotions and energy. We need only be aware in any given moment of the state of our being, and be guided. This is what we are asked to do on the spiritual path. We aren’t headed for a continuing chaotic free fall, but an order of divine nature.”“After all, if we’re on the spiritual path, we can trust that there is much we don’t know. These mysteries are hidden from us until we are ripe. The paradox is that we frantically attempt to know in order to surrender to the place of not knowing! The other paradox is that there are no mysteries because the cues are surrounding us all the time. We’re just too tied up to recognize them.”“There comes a time when we are knowingly left with the ramifications of the choices we make. While it would be comforting to think that the progressions we undertake will be painless and smooth, any change involves conflict between what was and what will be. Therein lies the opportunity for learning and alignment to an authentic life.”“Words are the shell. They feed intellectual knowledge. What lies in the middle of words is the seed that, if presented and embraced in a certain way, will take us to the place we seek.
— Carla Woody, Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.
— Mark Twain
Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem.
— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
— Josh Billings
All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.
— Charles M. Schulz
Four legs good, two legs bad.
— George Orwell, Animal Farm
If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
— Woodrow Wilson
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.
— Leonardo da Vinci
You think those dogs will not be in heaven! I tell you they will be there long before any of us.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer.
— Dean Koontz, False Memory
Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
You know, sometimes the world seems like a pretty mean place.' 'That's why animals are so soft and huggy.
— Bill Watterson, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink": A Calvin and Hobbes Collection
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: The Death-Bed Edition
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.
— Theodor W. Adorno
If you don't own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.
— Roger A. Caras
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian.
— Linda McCartney, Linda's Kitchen: Simple and Inspiring Recipes for Meals Without Meat
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
— Willie Nelson
The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.
— Martin Luther
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.
— Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
Lots of people talk to animals...Not very many listen though...that's the problem.
— Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
The dog’s agenda is simple, fathomable, overt: I want. “I want to go out, come in, eat something, lie here, play with that, kiss you. There are no ulterior motives with a dog, no mind games, no second-guessing, no complicated negotiations or bargains, and no guilt trips or grudges if a request is denied.
— Caroline Knapp
An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.
— Martin Buber
Never break a promise to an animal. They're like babies—they won't understand.
— Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic
Whoever said you can't buy Happiness forgot little puppies.
— Gene Hill
We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.
— Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
— Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
— George Eliot, Mr Gilfil's Love Story
Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.
— Betty White, If You Ask Me
Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.
— Milan Kundera
Discipline isn't about showing a dog who's boss
—  it's about takingresponsibility for a living creature you have brought into your world.
The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.
— Paula Poundstone
I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.
— David Sedaris
To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.
— Isaac Bashevis Singer
Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
Do you eat chicken because you are familiar with the scientific literature on them and have decided that their suffering doesn't matter, or do you do it because it tastes good?
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
...only someone who'd never been an animal would put up a sign saying not to feed them....
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby
People who really appreciated animals always asked their names.
— Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern
When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals' emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.
— Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
— Robert Benchley
Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.
— Stephen King, The Waste Lands
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 is deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
— Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Romance of Leonard da Vinci
Every dog must have his day.
— Jonathan Swift
The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.
— James Thurber
Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning.
— Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others
This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
Platypus? I thought it was pronounced platymapus. Has it always been pronounced platypus?
— Jessica Simpson
I could end this with a moral,as if this were a fable about animals,though no fables are really about animals.
— Margaret Atwood, The Tent
Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man --spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort-- may become a dog's Master without consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God.
— Albert Payson Terhune, Lad: A Dog
We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog has made an alliance with us.
— Max DePree
As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds? … It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.
— Plutarch, Moralia
Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?'No,' I said.People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.
— Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl
Cat hate reflects an ugly, stupid, loutish, bigoted spirit. There can be no compromise with this Ugly Spirit.
— William S. Burroughs, The Cat Inside
Hi! handsome hunting manFire your little gun.Bang! Now the animalis dead and dumb and done.Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again,Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!
— Walter de la Mare, Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People
The rooms of his apartment were full with the dog home again, convalescing. He was satisfied to know, even when she was out of sight, that somewhere in the apartment she was sleeping or eating or sitting watchfully. It was family, he guessed, more or less. Did most people want a house of living things at night, to know that in the dark around them other warm bodies slept?Such a house could even be the whole world.
— Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream
I can give or take elephants
—  I never can find the cheetah-but the zebras captivate me. They'd be one of the few things that would fit if we were lucky enough to live in a world that's black or white.
Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.
— Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals
A killer with the manners of a rabbit - this is the most dangerous kind.
— Frank Herbert, Dune
We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.
— Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
I hated cats. I was a dog lover," Des says with a shrug. "What's the point of a cat? They're not affectionate. But that's because it's not my cat. I mean, your wife wouldn't jump on my lap. That's because she's your wife, not mine. Until you have your own cat, you really don't understand.
— Denise Flaim, Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck,and a Few Turtles
He said that people who loved [animals] to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.
— Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviors. What they call 'free choice' is, in fact, the result of a narrowly obstructed set of options that have been chosen for them. They don't realize, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of nonhuman life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species' preference for survival.
— Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others
We were restless for ages...After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.
— Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
For centuries poets, some poets, have tried to give a voice to the animals, and readers, some readers, have felt empathy and sorrow. If animals did have voices, and they could speak with the tongues of angels--at the very least with the tongues of angels--they would be unable to save themselves from us. What good would language do? Their mysterious otherness has not saved them, nor have their beautiful songs and coats and skins and shells and eyes. We discover the remarkable intelligence of the whale, the wolf, the elephant--it does not save them, nor does our awareness of the complexity of their lives. Their strength, their skills, their swiftness, the beauty of their flights. It matters not, it seems, whether they are large or small, proud or shy, docile or fierce, wild or domesticated, whether they nurse their young or brood patiently on eggs. If they eat meat, we decry their viciousness; if they eat grasses and seeds, we dismiss them as weak. There is not one of them, not even the songbird who cannot, who does not, conflict with man and his perceived needs and desires. St. Francis converted the wolf of Gubbio to reason, but he performed this miracle only once and as miracles go, it didn’t seem to capture the public’s fancy. Humans don’t want animals to reason with them. It would be a disturbing, unnerving, diminishing experience; it would bring about all manner of awkwardness and guilt.
— Joy Williams, Ill Nature
Everybody is born so that they can learn to live a good life-like loving everybody and being nice, right? Well animals already know how to do that, so they don't have to live so long
— Robin Downing
Most people would say they love animals, but the reality is, if your using animals for food, clothing, or entertainment, you're only considering the lives of certain animals, typically those of cats and dogs.
— Melisser Elliott, The Vegan Girl's Guide to Life: Cruelty-Free Crafts, Recipes, Beauty Secrets and More
We strive for a world where every earthling has the right to live and grow. That's why we don't eat animals.
— Ruby Roth, That's Why We Don't Eat Animals: A Book About Vegans, Vegetarians, and All Living Things
I always hated those classic kid movies like Old Yeller or The Yearling where the beloved pet dies. What would be so wrong with having those damn kids learn their lessons about mortality from watching Grandpa kick? Then at least the dog would be around to comfort them.
— Merrill Markoe, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago. 
— Walt Whitman
If frogs had side pockets, they'd carry hand guns.
— Dan Rather
The animals are those things that God likes but doesn't love.
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
One disadvantage of being a hog is that at any moment some blundering fool may try to make a silk purse out of your wife's ear.
— J.B. Morton
The bee is domesticated but not tamed.
— William Longgood
A few alligators are naturally of the vicious type and inclined to resent it when you prod them with a stick. You can find out which ones these are by prodding them.
— Will Cuppy
People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It’s wrong. They feel their slaughters. It’s wrong, and people know it’s wrong. They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.
— Jonathan Safran Foer
Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people
— Jonathan Franzen, Freedom
He didn’t like to see animals in captivity. When he looked into their eyes, something in their eyes looked back at him.
— Rick Yancey, The Infinite Sea
If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it could be a really ugly swan.
— Timmothy Radman
I watched bulls bred to cows, watched mares foal, I saw life come from the egg and the multiplicative wonders of mudholes and ponds, the jell and slime of life shimmering in gravid expectation. Everywhere I looked, life sprang from something not life, insects unfolded from sacs on the surface of still waters and were instantly on prowl for their dinner, everything that came into being knew at once what to do and did it, unastonished that it was what it was, unimpressed by where it was, the great earth heaving up bloodied newborns from every pore, every cell, bearing the variousness of itself from every conceivable substance which it contained in itself, sprouting life that flew or waved in the wind or blew from the mountains or stuck to the damp black underside of rocks, or swam or suckled or bellowed or silently separated in two.
— E.L. Doctorow, Lives of the Poets: A Novella and Six Stories
If a person fights, that's their own choice," Angel says. "But getting two roosters to fight or two dogs like pit bulls to fight, the animals don't have a choice there. They can't decide not to fight.
— Denise Flaim, Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck,and a Few Turtles
Cats are there to be indulged. That's their function: to receive the love we never fully gave our parents. Not like dogs. Dogs are there to give us the love and devotion our children will never fully give us.
— Alex Shakar, The Savage Girl
Taken together, the narratives of how the animals ended up at Lowry Park revealed as much about Homo sapiens as they revealed about the animals themselves. The precise details—how and where each was born, how they were separated from their mothers and taken into custody, all they had witnessed and experienced on their way to becoming the property of this particular zoo—could have filled an encyclopedia with insights into human behavior and psychology, human geopolitics and history and commerce. Lowry Park’s very existence declared our presumption of supremacy, the ancient belief that we have been granted dominion over other creatures and have the right to do with them as we please. The zoo was a living catalogue of our fears and obsessions, the ways we see animals and see ourselves, all the things we prefer not to see at all. Every corner of the grounds revealed our appetite for amusement and diversion, no matter what the cost. Our longing for the wildness we have lost inside ourselves. Our instinct to both exalt nature and control it. Our deepest wish to love and protect other species even as we scorch their forests and poison their rivers and shove them toward oblivion.All of it was on display in the garden of captives.
— Thomas French, Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
Why we should believe in wolf children seems somehow easier to understand than the ways we distinguish between what is human and what is animal behavior. In making such distinctions we run the risk of fooling ourselves completely. We assume that the animal is entirely comprehensible and, as Henry Beston has said, has taken form on a plane beneath the one we occupy. It seems to me that this is a sure way to miss the animal and to see, instead, only another reflection of our own ideas.
— Barry López, Of Wolves and Men
Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them LESS than us
— Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
A kitten is, in the animal world, what a rosebud is in the garden.
— Robert Sowthey
Animals! the object of insatiable interest, examples of the riddle of life, created, as it were, to reveal the human being to man himself, displaying his richness and complexity in a thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities, each of them brought to some curious end, to some characteristic exuberance.
— Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles
Because we have viewed other animals through the myopic lens of our self-importance, we have misperceived who and what they are. Because we have repeated our ignorance, one to the other, we have mistaken it for knowledge.
— Tom Regan
All zoos, even the most enlightened, are built upon the idea both beguiling and repellent—the notion that we can seek out the wildness of the world and behold its beauty, but that we must first contain that wildness. Zoos argue that they are fighting for the conservation of the Earth, that they educate the public and provide refuge and support for vanishing species. And they are right. Animal-rights groups argue that zoos traffic in living creatures, exploiting them for financial gain and amusement. And they are right. Caught inside this contradiction are the animals themselves, and the humans charged with their well-being.
— Thomas French, Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
There are 2,500 kinds of sponges, all of them consist largely of holes.
— Will Cuppy
In this image-driven age, wildlife filmmakers carry a heavy responsibility. They can influence how we think and behave when we’re in nature. They can even influence how we raise our kids, how we vote and volunteer in our communities, as well as the future of our wildlands and wildlife. If the stories they create are misleading or false in some way, viewers will misunderstand the issues and react in inappropriate ways. People who consume a heavy diet of wildlife films filled with staged violence and aggression, for example, are likely to think about nature as a circus or a freak show. They certainly won’t form the same positive connections to the natural world as people who watch more thoughtful, authentic, and conservation-oriented films.
— Chris Palmer, Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom
I have never heard anyone say, 'Oh, ick! A horse!
— Elinor Goulding Smith
When I got started again, I drove slower and felt smaller. I think it does us all good to get looked at like that now and then by a wild animal.
— Bailey White, Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living
I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.
— Mark Twain, Eve's Diary
Who would not prefer animals to these people who prefer animals to people?
— Wendy Doniger
Protecting the weak is the whole fucking basis for civilization. If you're not protecting the weak, you're not civilized. You're fucking animals.
— Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, Vol. 26: Call to Arms
The fate of animals is of far greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous.
— Émile Zola
Every living creature on the earth is special. You want to be the one that puts an end to one of them?
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.
— Irene M. Pepperberg, Alex  Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process
You can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
— James Beverly
Animals are the bridge between us and the beauty of all that is natural. They show us what's missing in our lives, and how to love ourselves more completely and unconditionally. They connect us back to who we are, and to the purpose of why we're here.
— Trisha McCagh, Stories from the Animal Whisperer: What Your Pet Is Thinking and Trying to Tell You
I never fancied cats much till I found the First Mate," he remarked, to the accompaniment of the Mate's tremendous purrs. "I saved his life, and when you've saved a creature's life you're bound to love it. It's next thing to giving life.
— L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams
If a man aspires to a righteous life, his first act of abstinence if from injury to animals.
— Leo Tolstoy
There is no question that I am the only thing standing between these animals and the business practices of August and Uncle Al, and what my father would do--what my father would want me to do--is look after them, and I am filled with that absolute and unwavering conviction. No matter what I did last night, I cannot leave these animals. I am their shepherd, their protector.
— Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants
This was like being in one of those National Geographic magazines. We were among the natives now.
— Brandi Salazar, Faerie Tales: The Misfortune of a Teenage Socialite
Every animal is a tradition, and together they are a vast part of our heritage as human beings. No animal completely lacks humanity, yet no person is ever completely human. By ourselves, we people are simply balls of protoplasm. We merge with animals through magic, metaphor, or fantasy, growing their fangs and putting on their feathers. Then we become funny or tragic; we can be loved, hated, pitied, and admired. For us, animals are all the strange, beautiful, pitiable, and frightening things that they have ever been: gods, slaves, totems, sages, tricksters, devils, clowns, companions, lovers, and far more.
— Boria Sax, The Mythical Zoo: An Encyclopedia Of Animals In World Myth, Legend, And Literature
Think how nature makes things compared to how we humans make things." We talked about how animals don't just preserve the next generation; they typically preserve the environment for the ten-thousandth generation. While human industrial processes can produce Kevlar, it takes a temperature of thousands of degrees to do it, and the fiber is pulled through sulfuric acid. In contrast, a spider makes its silk - which per gram is several times stronger than steel - at room temperature in water.
— William Powers, Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream
Cat rescue is like a virus," says Des placidely about the cat obsession that has taken over his life. "And once you're infected, it's incurable.
— Denise Flaim, Rescue Ink: How Ten Guys Saved Countless Dogs and Cats, Twelve Horses, Five Pigs, One Duck,and a Few Turtles
Sometimes i think you were a dolphin in a previous life,
— Ben M. Baglio, Into the Blue
Whales are silly once every two years. The young are called short-heads or baby blimps. Many whale romances begin in Baffin's bay and end in Procter and Gamble's factory, Staten Island.
— Will Cuppy, How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes
As llamas have never heard of oxygen, they do not miss it.
— Will Cuppy
The keepers would give the gorillas an assortment of fruits and vegetables each afternoon, and on this particular occasion, Judy Sievert tossed Nina an apple, which rolled away. Instead of going to get it, Nina just 'sat there sadly,' in Judy's words. Judy continued her rounds, handing out yams and apples to the other gorillas, but Nina sat there looking appleless and downtrodden. Taking pity, Judy tossed her another apple. As soon as Nina had it, she got up and went over to where the first apple had rolled away, taking it too.
— Eugene Linden, The Parrot's Lament, and Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity
Life is but a flash of time, a momentous flicker-- in the life that we know and space we live in on earth.© VW
— Virginia Wright, Buzzzzzzzz...: What Honeybees Do
I remember sitting in this cabin in Alaska one evening reading over the notes of all these encounters, and recalling Joseph Campbell, who wrote in the conclusion to 'Primitive Mythology' that men do not discover their gods, they create them. So do they also, I thought, looking at the notes before me, create their animals.
— Barry López, Of Wolves and Men
The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding-in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life's ramshackle return.
— Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife
And it’s thought by many neuroscientists such as Rodolfo Llinas of New York University that such goal-directed active movement, a biological property known as “motricity,” is a requirement for the development of the nervous system.
— Karen Shanor, Bats Sing, Mice Giggle: The Surprising Science of Animals' Inner Lives
bonobos, related to chimpanzees and native to the Congo, have been found to engage in French kissing.
— Karen Shanor, Bats Sing, Mice Giggle: The Surprising Science of Animals' Inner Lives
What they discovered was that not only fish, but spiders and many insects can taste their food by the structures that are most likely to first come in contact with the food. And this in many invertebrate species turns out to be the feet.
— Karen Shanor, Bats Sing, Mice Giggle: The Surprising Science of Animals' Inner Lives
at least a fifth of all mammalian species are bats.
— Karen Shanor, Bats Sing, Mice Giggle: The Surprising Science of Animals' Inner Lives
All those windows, and not a cat in them. All that light to bask in, wasted.
— Lissa Warren The Good Luck Cat
More often than not, what animals require our protection from is not hurricanes or fires, but abuse at the hands of other people".
— Julie Klam, Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself
Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead
The carnistic schema, which twists information so that nonsense seems to make perfect sense, also explains why we fail to see the absurdities of the system. Consider, for instance, advertising campaigns in which a pig dances joyfully over the fire pit where he or she is to be barbecued, or chickens wear aprons while beseeching the viewer to eat them. And consider the Veterinarian's Oath of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 'I solemnly swear to use my...skills for the...relief of animal suffering,' in light of the fact that the vast majority of veterinarians eat animals simply because they like the way meat tastes. Or think about how poeple won't replace their hamburgers with veggie burgers, even if the flavor is identical, because they claim that, if they try hard enough, they can detect a subtle difference in texture. Only when we deconstruct the carnistic schema can we see the absurdity of placing our preference for a flawless re-creation of a textural norm over the lives and deaths of billions of others.
— Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others
The ten billion animals that are killed every year for meat and the virulent consequences of contemporary animal agricultural practices remain conspicuously absent from public discourse. How often have you seen media exposés on the violent treatment of farm animals and the corrupt practices of carnistic industry? Compare this with the amount of coverage afforded fluctuating gas prices or Hollywood fashion blunders. Most of us are more outraged over having to pay five cents more for a gallon of gas than over the fact that billions of animals, millions of humans, and the entire ecosystem are systematically exploited by an industry that profits from such gratuitous violence. And most of us know more about what the stars wore to the Oscars than we do about the animals we eat.
— Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others
For a human to win, it is not necessary for a horse to lose. You should not have to take things away from a horse or break him in fragments in order to train him; rather you should add to the horse. The goal should be making, not breaking.
— Cherry Hill, Making, Not Breaking: The First Year Under Saddle
I ask Laurie if it's possible to get trained fish. Lindsay says this is how we know I've never produced a movie.
— Emma Thompson, The Sense and Sensibility Screenplay and Diaries: Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position themselves in front of their young. Giraffes stare over treetops, their huge brown eyes blinking, then lope away in seeming slow motion. But no elephants.
— Thomas French, Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives
Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' " He crowed these words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edvin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart.The monk laughed himself: "Ay, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: 'Ubi, ubi, ubi.' "But the goat bleated, and said: 'Betlem, Betlem, Betlem.' "And the sheep so longed to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: 'Eamus, eamus!' "And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. 'Volo, volo, volo!' it said.
— Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter
The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position
— Christine Stevens
I follow suit, said the lion, vacating his coat of arms and movie logos; and the eagle said, Get me off this flag.
— Margaret Atwood, The Tent
When it comes to looking after all the species that are already endangered, there's such a lot to do that sometimes it might all seem to be too much, especially when there are so many other important things to worry about. But if we stop trying, the chances are that pretty soon we'll end up with a world where there are no tigers or elephants, or sawfishes or whooping cranes, or albatrosses or ground iguanas. And I think that would be a shame, don't you?
— Martin Jenkins, Can We Save the Tiger?
It would seem that marsupials are poor imitations of full-fledged mammals. Their inadequacy gives them a certain appeal
—  we’re touched by it.
The dogs were really keening now, like Irish widows.
— Thomas Keneally, Victim of the Aurora
I spent my summers at my grandparents’ cabin in Estes Park, literally next door to Rocky Mountain National Park. We had a view of Longs Peak across the valley and the giant rock beaver who, my granddad told me, was forever climbing toward the summit of the mountain. We awoke to mule deer peering in the windows and hummingbirds buzzing around the red-trimmed feeders; spent the days chasing chipmunks across the boulders of Deer Mountain and the nights listening to coyotes howling in the dark.
— Mary Taylor Young, The Guide to Colorado Mammals
We drove out of New Paltz heading due north. Squeezed into my tiny hatchback, among our boxes and bags, were my dog, Nico, the hens, and the humming hive of bees, its openings covered over with tape. The dog eyed the hive, the chickens eyed the dog, and if the bees weren't nervous they were the only ones.
— Kristin Kimball, The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love
Without close and reciprocal relationships with other animal beings, we're alienated from the rich, diverse, and magnificent world in which we live.
— Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy - and Why They Matter
Infant wart hogs resemble both sides of the family.
— Will Cuppy, How to Attract the Wombat
For several thousand years man has been in contact with animals whose character and habits have been deformed by domestication. He has ended by believing that he understands them. All he means by this is that he is able to rely on certain reflex actions which he himself has implanted in them. He will flatter himself at times on the grasp of animal psychology which has brought him the love of the dog and the purr of the cat
—  and on the strength of such assumptions he approaches the beasts of the jungle. The old tag about nature being an open book is just not true. What nature offers on a first examination may appear to be simple but it is never as simple as it appears.
When I can't ride anymore, I shall keep horses as long as I can hobble around with a bucket and a wheelbarrow. When I can't hobble, I shall roll my wheelchair out to the fence of the field where my horses graze and watch them. Whether by wheelbarrow or wheelchair, I will do likewise to keep alive-as long as I can do as best I can-my connection with horses.
— Monica Dickens, Talking of Horses
One morning she happened upon a bit of cloth decorated with pictures of little red squirrels carrying small, brown,nutsacks,and she nearly fainted away.
— Cynthia Rylant
Audiences see personalities on shows interacting with wild animals as if they were not dangerous or, at the other extreme, provoking them to give viewers an adrenaline rush. Mostly, the animals just want to be left alone, so it’s not surprising that these entertainers are seriously hurt or even killed on rare occasions. On one level, it’s that very possibility the shows are selling.
— Chris Palmer, Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom
We have the power to build a new consensus, which rejects killing as a method for achieving results. And we can look forward to a time when the wholesale slaughter of animals in shelters is viewed as a cruel aberration of the past. We have a choice.
— Nathan Winograd
I believe that Human Kindness, Compassion and Caring towards all life, will always prevail. No matter how cruel the night, the dawn will break and Africa will still be here along with all its wild beauty.
— Paul Oxton
We should not need to have a "Save an Animal Day", Save from what?, It is in fact "Save from who". It is Human Kindness, Compassion and Caring that so desperately needs to be saved.
— Paul Oxton
to treat a human being as an animal - as a mere space-binder - because humans have certain animal propensities, is an error of the same type and grossness as to treat a cube as a surface because it has surface properties.
— Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity
It seems everything in nature that has beauty, also has a price.Let the value of our planets wildlife be to nature and nature alone.
— Paul Oxton
There's a bit of kitten in all of us.
— Anthony T. Hincks
Vegan is just pure love. Love for animals, love for the planet, and love for yourself.
— Mischa Temaul
I like animals because they are not consciously cruel and don't betray each other.
— Taylor Caldwell
If we have learned anything from the liberation movements, we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of the ways in which we discriminate until they are forcefully pointed out to us. A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable.
— Peter Singer, Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement
Wolves are the witches of the animal world.
— Katherine Rundell, The Wolf Wilder
I used to think how dangerous the world would have been if these ants were the size of dogs. They would have cut the humans in two halves just by a single strike of their flippers.
— Abhishek Leela Pandey, The Man with Five Heads
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today -- all without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone that unwelcome. I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals.
— Mark Twain, The Diary of Adam and Eve
You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch.
— Theodore Roosevelt, Letters to His Children
Animals are good human beings and human beings are bad animals
— Akif Pirinçci
Dams also tend to be built in remote areas which are the last refuge for species that have been displaced by development in other regions.
— Patrick McCully, Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams: Enlarged and Updated Edition
Big cities comforted me: the cover, the chaos, the hollow sympathy of the architecture, the Tube lines snaking underground. London could swallow you up, in a good way. There were times when I'd been broken and being subsumed into a city had made me feel part of a whole again.
— Emma Jane Unsworth, Animals
Most frequently asked question at my AI talks: Will robots be conscious? We slaughter 60 billion animals/year, but are concerned for robots?
— Piero Scaruffi
Dogs are like that, I guess—they know how to fix you without ever saying a word.
— Caroline George, The Vestige
Humans which imprison the animals can never be called as humans!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
Two friends are ordering lunch. One says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger,' and orders it. The other says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger,' but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and orders something else. Who is the sentimentalist?
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals