Their Souls Touch My Soul

I sometimes wonder if I’m the same species as those that would cause ANY animal to suffer.
Just horrifying the things people do! 
( Mark Catlin )

Until we have the courage to recognise cruelty for what it is.
Whether its victim is human or animal.
We cannot expect things to be much better in this world.
( Rachel Carson )

Animals in circuses represent the domination and oppression we have fought against for so long.
They wear the same chains and shackles.
( Dick Gregory )

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks.
Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
( Linda Hogan )

All things share the same breath.
The beast, the tree, the man.
The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
( Chief Seattle )

I do not see a delegation for the four-footed.
I see no seat for the eagles.
We forget and we consider ourselves superior.
( Chief Oren Lyons )

When I look into the eyes of some animals, I can feel their anguish, and loss of freedom.
Their souls touch my soul.
( Anthony Douglas Williams )

The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will.
( Theodore Roosevelt )

Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless, is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.
( Albert Schweitzer )

We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are our fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves.
( Cesar Chavez )

I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.
( Mahatma Gandhi )

With the qualities of cleanliness, affection, patience, dignity, and courage that cats have, how many of us, I ask you, would be capable of becoming cats?
( Fernand Mery )

Those who describe animals as not having any thoughts or feelings come closer to that description than the animals they are trying to describe.
( Edward Alberola )

There is no environment ‘out there’ separate from us.
The environment is embedded in us.
We are as much a part of our surroundings as the trees and birds and fish, the sky, water and rocks.
( David Suzuki )

They are not just living things, they are beings with lives.
Next time you are outside, notice the first bird you see.
You are beholding a unique individual with personality traits, an emotional profile, and a library of knowledge built on experience.
What you are witnessing is not just biology, but a biography.
( Jonathan Balcombe )

Most people who eat meat have no idea that they are behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviours.
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 realise, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of non-human life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species’ preferences for survival.
( Melanie Joy )

Right Now Animals Are…
Being beaten in a circus.
Burned and poisoned in laboratories.
Having their throat cut in slaughterhouses.
Electrocuted on a fur farm.
Caged for life in zoos.
And denied freedom and all that is natural to them.

Those who have no empathy with animals will have no empathy with anyone.
( Doris Fellow )

If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.
( William Wilberforce, 1759-1833 )

Animals can’t beg for mercy.
They can’t say “stop”.
We must be their voice.

Animals cannot speak, but can you and I not speak for them and represent them?
Let us all feel their silent cry of agony and let us all help that cry to be heard in the world.
( Rukmini Devi Arundale )

Studies show that killing animals for pleasure is psychologically linked to psychopaths, child molesters, sociopaths, sexual dysfunction, and an inability to integrate socially.

We are the earth, made of the same stuff.
There is no other, no division between us and ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ forms of being.
( Estella Lauder )

Planet Earth is a graveyard for murdered animals.

Eating for me is how you proclaim your beliefs three times a day.
That is why all religions have rules about eating.
Three times a day, I remind myself that I value life and do not want to cause pain to, or kill, other living beings.
That is why I eat the way I do.
( Natalie Portman )

People see oppression and suffering clearly when they are the victims, but victimise animals blindly without thought or feeling.

As a trick at conferences I sometimes list (their) attributes, without mentioning chickens, and people think I’m talking about monkeys.
( Dr Chris Evans )

We must not refuse to see with our eyes what they must endure with their bodies.
( Gretchen Wyler )

Pigs in tiny crates suffer beyond anything most of us can easily imagine.
These extremely social and intelligent animals lose their minds from being denied any social or psychological stimulation at all.
( Ryan Gosling )

Since we all inhabit the earth, all of us are considered earthlings.
( Joaquin Phoenix )

In our ‘humane’ slaughterhouses, we ‘humanely’ cut the throats of cattle, and ‘humanely’ let them bleed out.
( Halal, Kosher )

A reduction of meat consumption by only 10% would result in about 12 million more tons of grain for human consumption.
This additional grain could feed all of the humans across the world who starve to death each year.
( Marc Bekoff )

People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices.
( Gary L. Francione )

Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy.
And the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.
( Farley Mowat )

Humans, you need me, I don’t need you.
So tread lightly.
( Mother Nature )

Whether hunting is right or wrong, a spiritual experience, or an outlet for the killer instinct, one thing it is not is a sport.
Sport is when individuals or teams compete against each other under equal circumstances to determine who is better at a given game or endeavour.
Hunting will be a sport when deer, elk, bears, and ducks etc are given 12-gauge shotguns.
Bet we’d see a lot fewer drunk yahoos (live ones, anyway) in the woods if that happened.
( R. Lerner )

If you must kill an animal today, just remember this:
They wanted to live.

Take care of all living things.
From the largest ocean to the smallest living creatures.
( Anthony Douglas Williams )

If you haven’t already done so, watch one of the many slaughterhouse videos.
It will reveal to you a dark side of humanity you never knew existed.

We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.
How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?
( George Bernard Shaw )

Our world is infested with devils disguised as humans.
We recognise them by the way they treat animals.

To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins.
Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.
( Jane Goodall )