Vivisection Quotes - Page 2

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

  Mark Twain

  Honesty, Lying, Animal

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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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• 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 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 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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• 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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• Of all the black crimes that humanity is committing against the great Creation, vivisection is the blackest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Humanity, Black, Creation

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• A 'civilization' that makes such a ridiculous fuss about alleged 'war crimes' - acts of violence against the actual or potential enemies of one's cause - and tolerates slaughterhouses and vivisection laboratories, and circuses and the fur industry (infliction of pain upon creatures that can never be for or against any cause), does not deserve to live.

  Savitri Devi

  Life, Pain, War

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• The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life.

  Charles Darwin

  Dog, Heart, Animal

  "The Descent of Man". Book by Charles Darwin, volume I, chapter II: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals", p. 40, darwin-online.org.uk. 1871.

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• Based on my time living with rats and mice in Washington, D.C., I have always assumed that animals will escape such fires, since their senses of smell, wariness of such dangers, and ability to move through almost invisible holes is so impressive, but I think that we should not dismiss the possibility that they, also, will be harmed. These reflections do not, of course, rule out burning meat trucks. And they don't mean that when the next slaughterhouse or vivisection lab burns down, I will denounce those who carried out the burning, or that I will feel anything other than joy in my heart.

  Bruce Friedrich

  Moving, Heart, Mean

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• Science and vivisection make no appeal to a theological idea, much less a political one. You can argue with a theologian or a politician, but doctors are sacrosanct. They know; you do not. Science has its mystique much more powerful than any religion active today.

  Brenda Ueland

  Powerful, Science, Animal

  Brenda Ueland (1993). “Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings”, Holy Cow Press

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• I once believed in Jenner; I once believed in Pasteur. I believed in vaccination. I believed in vivisection. But I changed my views as the result of hard thinking.

  Walter Hadwen

  Thinking, Views, Vaccines

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• Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace. But it's a small link. There are lots of other issues: apartheid , vivisection, political prisoners, the arms race. There's so much going on in this world today, so much ignorance among people. That's not to say I'm not standing amongst everybody. But the point is, what can we do now? That's the thing about vegetarianism; it's an individual's decision and it's something you have control over. How many things do we really have control over?

  River Phoenix

  Ignorance, Race, Vegetarianism

  "Vegetarian Times", 1988.

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• If the circulation of blood theory could not have been discovered without vivisection, the human kind could well have done without it.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Blood, Done, Kind

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

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• Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account, they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere 'things,' mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Christian, Horse, Struggle

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• I started a PhD in English at the University of Chicago because I loved poetry-which I now realize is like saying I studied vivisection because I loved dogs.

  Michael Donaghy

  Dog, Chicago, Phds

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• Gradually I became aware that professing English because I loved poems was like practicing vivisection because I loved dogs.

  Michael Donaghy

  Dog

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• vivisection is not the same thing as scientific progress. There is such a thing as scientific progress. But this wholesale dedication of scientists to vivisection, which is the easy and cheap way, actually prevents them from scientific progress, for true progress is difficult and requires genius and imagination in its devoted workers.

  Brenda Ueland

  Animal, Dedication, Imagination

  Brenda Ueland (1993). “Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings”, Holy Cow Press

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• There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection…It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country.

  Queen Victoria

  Christian, Country, Queens

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• And I don't think you'd have to kill -- assassinate -- too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human animals.

  Jerry Vlasak

  Animal, Thinking, Decrease

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