The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.
—H. L. Mencken
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English—up to fifty words used in correct context—no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.
—Carl Sagan
There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig—an animal easily as intelligent as a dog—that becomes the Christmas ham.
—Michael Pollan
When it comes to having a central nervous system and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.
—Ingrid Newkirk
If one person is unkind to an animal, it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.
—Ruth Harrison
Humans—who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals—have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them—without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret.
—Carl Sagan
Animals have two functions in today's society: to be delicious and to fit well.
—Greg Proops
A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane.
—Jackie Kennedy
God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man.
—Arthur Young
Cockroaches really put my "all creatures great and small" creed to the test.
—Astrid Alauda
Nothing to be done really about animals. Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn't in us. It's almost as if we're put here on earth to show how silly they aren't.
—Russell Hoban
How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids, its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures, the croaking things with wings that hang on rocks and soar through the fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas.
—Edward Abbey
Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their
wills.
—Voltaire
It's a lot like nature. You only have as many animals as the ecosystem can support and you only have as many friends as you can tolerate the bitching of.
—Randy K. Milholland