Vivisection Quotes

• What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Philosophical, Animal, Thinking

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• Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Character, Animal, Evil

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• There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science, as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion.

  Kathryn Bigelow

  Animal, Names, Looks

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• I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Philosophical, Animal, Discovery

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.94, A&C Black

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• At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Alternatives, Looks

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Animal, Vegetarianism, Abuse

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• It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion toward our fellow creatures.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Prayer, Animal, Blessing

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• The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Animal, Rights, Hands

  An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation ch. 17 (1789)

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• The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wisdom, Peace, Kindness

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• If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wisdom, Struggle, Cutting

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• The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind.

  Paul McCartney

  Nice, Animal, Thinking

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• It is totally unconscionable to subject defenseless animals to mutilation and death, just so a company can be the first to market a new shade of nail polish or a new, improved laundry detergent. It's cruel, it's brutal, it's inhumane, and most people don't want it.

  Abigail Van Buren

  Animal, People, Abuse

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• Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.

  Mark Twain

  Honesty, Lying, Animal

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• Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.

  Brigid Brophy

  Fun, Mean, Compassion

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• Until we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is - whether its victim is human or animal - we cannot expect things to be much better in the world. There can be no double standard. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.

  Rachel Carson

  Peace, War, Heart

  "Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge", ed. Lisa H. Sideris and Kathleen Dean Moore Albany: State University of New York Press, (p. 102), 2008.

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• The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.

  Mark Twain

  Recovery, Animal, Intelligent

  Mark Twain (2009). “Mark Twain’s Book of Animals”, p.264, Univ of California Press

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• It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

  Mark Twain

  Nature, Animal, Men

  Mark Twain (2009). “Mark Twain’s Book of Animals”, p.304, Univ of California Press

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• The case against vivisection is the same as that against war and all other forms of cruelty - that violence does not produce long-term solutions.

  Jon Wynne-Tyson

  War, Animal, Long

  Jon Wynne-Tyson (1972). “The Civilised Alternative: A Pattern for Protest”

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• Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.

  Jon Evans

  Pain, Animal, Men

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• I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.

  Robert Browning

  Dog, Pain, Cat

  "The Complete Works of Robert Browning: The Agamemnon of Æschylus, La Saisiaz, etc".

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• I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures.

  Christiaan Barnard

  Animal Rights, Vegetarian, Animal Testing

  Christiaan Barnard (1979). “The best medicine”

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• ... the only argument against vivisection that will be seen to have lasting power - that we do not improve human society by means that debase human character.

  Jon Wynne-Tyson

  Character, Mean, Animal

  Jon Wynne-Tyson (1972). “The Civilised Alternative: A Pattern for Protest”

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• I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

  Mark Twain

  Pain, Animal, Vegetarianism

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• The horrors of Vivisection have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination, of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present use to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium ... -contemptibly small compared with the price paid for it in agony and torture.

  Henry Jacob Bigelow

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  "Surgical Anaesthesia: Addresses and Other Papers". P. 309. Book by Henry Jacob Bigelow, 1894.

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• I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures.

  Christiaan Barnard

  Heart, Sleep, Animal

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