#animals

I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being. ↗

— Rai Aren

#animals #compassion #equality #ethical-vegan #kindness

Not responding is a response--we are equally responsible for what we don't do. In the case of animal slaughter, to throw your hands in the air is to wrap your fingers around a knife handle. ↗

— Jonathan Safran Foer

#eating #meat #responsibility #slaughter #equality

Sounds become more like other sounds that neighbor them. That is why one congressman oinks, another moos, and another bleats. ↗

— Bauvard

#congress #funny #humor #funny

Never mind, said Hachiko each day. Here I wait, for my friend who’s late. I will stay, just to walk beside you for one more day. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#dog #dogs #friends #friendship #hachiko

So maybe the difference isn't language. Maybe it's this: animals do neither good nor evil. They do as they must do. We may call what they do harmful or useful, but good and evil belong to us, who chose to choose what we do. The dragons are dangerous, yes. They can do harm, yes. But they're not evil. They're beneath our morality, if you will, like any animal. Or beyond it. They have nothing to do with it. We must choose and choose again. The animals need only be and do. We're yoked, and they're free. So to be with an animal is to know a little freedom... ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#choice #good-and-evil #morality #freedom

Most animals show themselves sparingly. The grizzly bear is six to eight hundred pounds of smugness. It has no need to hide. If it were a person, it would laugh loudly in quiet restaurants, boastfully wear the wrong clothes for special occasions, and probably play hockey. ↗

— Craig Childs

#bear #funny #grizzly-bear #funny

Happiness is a warm puppy. ↗

— Charles M. Schulz

#dogs #happiness #humor #puppies #humor

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#friends #humor #vegetarianism #humor

For bighorns, topography is memory, enhanced by acute vision. They can anticipate the land's every contour--when to leap, where to climb, when to turn, which footholds will support their muscular bodies. To survive, this is what the band would have to do: make this perfect match of flesh to earth. ↗

— Ellen Meloy

#environment #imagination

For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. ↗

— Albert Schweitzer

#animals #compassion #death