If an animal does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.
—Will Cuppy
There is not one world for man and one for animals; they are part of the same one and lead parallel lives.
—Rigoberta Menchú
Most pets display so many humanlike traits and emotions it’s easy to forget they’re not gifted with the English language and then get snubbed when we talk to them and they don’t say anything back.
—Stephenie Geist
If cats could talk, they wouldn’t.
—Nan Porter
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
—Samuel Butler
I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.
—Mahatma Gandhi
I am sometimes asked, “Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?” I answer, “I am working at the roots.”
—George T. Angell
Practice love first on animals; they are more sensitive.
—George Gurdjieff
Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you—and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained.… 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
There are mystical, unbreakable bonds between all members of the natural world including humans and animals. Whether or not we remember or acknowledge this relatedness, it still exists.
—Elizabeth S. Eiler
I believe that animals have been talking to human beings ever since we were all made and put into this world.
—Barbara Woodhouse
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.
—A. Whitney Brown
My mother thought it would make us feel better to know that animals had no souls, and thus their deaths were not to be taken seriously. But it didn't help, and when I think of some of the animals I have known, I wonder. The only really "soulful" eyes in the world belong to the dog or cat who sits on your lap or at your feet, commiserating when you cry.
—Liz Smith
Animals give us their constant, unjaded faces, and we burden them with our bodies and civilized ordeals.
—Gretel Ehrlich