The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.
The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.
Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.
The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and consequently endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case the cruelty of torment is greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to when enduring the last extreme pain.
Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe
That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madness… He said books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes.
Those who die, merely suffering the woes of life like cats and dogs, are they human beings? The worthy are those who, even when agitated by the sharp interaction of pleasure and pain, are discriminating and, knowing them to be of an evanescent nature, become passionately devoted to the Atman. This is all the difference between human beings and animals.
There is no marriage, yet, for human beings and animals. I never thought that I would fall in love like this with a cat.
To our way of thinking the Indians' symbol is the circle, the hoop. Nature wants to be round. The bodies of human beings and animals have no corners. With us, the circle stands for togetherness of people who sit with one another around the campfire, relatives and friends united in peace while the sacred pipe passes from hand to hand. To us this is beautiful and fitting, symbol and reality at the same time, expressing the harmony of life and nature.
or simply:
