"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness or ablities that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
~William Penn

"We should be able to refuse to live if the price of living be the torture of sentient beings."
~Mahatma Gandhi

"Let us pray that our food should not be colored with animal blood and human suffering."
~Chitrabhanuji

"Animals are our younger brothers and sisters, also on the ladder of evolution but a few rungs lower. It is an important part of our responsibilities to help them in their ascent, and not to retard their development by cruel exploitation of their helplessness."
~Lord Dowding

"The misery we inflict on sentient beings slackens our human evolution."
~Dr. Annie Besant

"Cruelty is the obvious cancer of modern civilization."
~Rev. A. D. Beldon

"I think that sacrifices of animals in the name of religion are barbarous and they degrade the name of religion."
~Jawaharlal Nehru

"Anything that can feel pain should not be put to pain."
~R.M. Dolgin

"No nation is truly free until the animal, man's younger brother is free and happy."
~T.L. Vaswani

"Which religion gives the greatest joy to God? That which inspires human beings to practice Ahimsa and compassion to all creatures."
~Vallabha Acharya

"If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because...its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling -- killing."
~Leo Tolstoy

"I wish no living thing to suffer pain."
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

"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

"The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

"The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn't work, it has no scientific value and every good scientist knows that."
~ Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.

"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them."
~ Linus Pauling, PhD

"Give me the helpless, the lost, the homeless little ones struggling just to live, the innocent refuse of an uncaring land. Send these, the weak abandoned lives to me - I offer hope, care, warmth & love."
~ The Pledge of a Rescue Worker

"Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question: Does this path have a heart? If the path does, it is good. If not, it is of no use."
~ Carlos Castenada

"In the long run it is the cumulative effect that matters. One can do much. And one and one and one and one can move mountains."
~ Joan Ward-Harris

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."
~ James Herriot

"Everyone wants to understand painting. Why is there no attempt to understand the song of the birds?"
~ Pablo Picasso

"Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage..."
~Sri Aurobindo

"The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer?"
~ Jeremy Bentham

"We can not have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature"
~ Rachel Carson

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"
~ Immanuel Kant

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men"
~ St. Francis of Assisi

"Humanity advances only as it becomes more humane"
~ Dr.Frank Crane

"Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes!"
~Theophile Gautier

"I could not have slept to-night if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground." (reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.)
~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

"I am sometimes asked "Why do you spent 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

"He who harms animals has not understood or renounced deeds of sin ...Those whose minds are at peace and who are free from passions do not desire to live at the expense of others."
~ Acharanga Sutra (Jainism)

"All beings seek for happiness; so let your compassion extend itself to all."
~ Mahavamsa

"The love of animals, like the love of our neighbor, is not a gift to be condescendingly bestowed, but a profound and humble acceptance of their kinship."
~ Robert R. Logan

"Any society which does not insist upon respect for all life must necessarily decay."
~ Albert Einstein

"We cannot discount the lives of sensitive and intelligent creatures merely because they assume non-human form."
~ Gary Kowalski

"The love for all living creatures is the noblest attribute of man."
~Charles Darwin

"I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs ...[they] are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty."
~James Herriot

"The awful wrongs and sufferings forced upon the innocent, helpless, faithful animal race form the blackest chapter in the whole world's history."
~Edward Freeman

"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times."
~Isaac Bashevis

"He is very imprudent, a dog; he never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in the right or the wrong, never asks whether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are his pal. That is enough for him."
~Jerome K. Jerome

"True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathises with the distress of every creature capable of sensation."
~Joseph Addison

"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the devil in human form."
~William Ralph Inage

"Cruelty has cursed the human family for countless ages. It is almost impossible for one to be cruel to animals and kind to humans. If children are permitted to be cruel to their pets and other animals, they easily learn to get the same pleasure from the misery of fellow-humans. Such tendencies can easily lead to crime."
~Fred A. McGrand

"Healing the relationship between humans and animals is crucial to restoring the health of the world."
~Susan Chernak McElroy

"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"
~Buddha

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men."
~Alice Walker

"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it."
~Mark Twain

"The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men."
~Emile Zola