#animals

Cat rescue is like a virus," says Des placidely about the cat obsession that has taken over his life. "And once you're infected, it's incurable. ↗

— Denise Flaim

#cats #rescue #life

All zoos, even the most enlightened, are built upon the idea both beguiling and repellent—the notion that we can seek out the wildness of the world and behold its beauty, but that we must first contain that wildness. Zoos argue that they are fighting for the conservation of the Earth, that they educate the public and provide refuge and support for vanishing species. And they are right. Animal-rights groups argue that zoos traffic in living creatures, exploiting them for financial gain and amusement. And they are right. Caught inside this contradiction are the animals themselves, and the humans charged with their well-being. ↗

— Thomas French

#wildness #zoo #beauty

Wer kann es sagen, wer nur ahnen, wie weit das Geistesvermögen der Tiere geht! ↗

— Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann

#intelligence #intelligence

My life is flashing lights and pointing fingers and uninvited visitors. Inches away, humans flatten their little hands against the wall of glass that separates us. The glass says you are this and we are that and that is how it will always be. ↗

— Katherine Applegate

#humanity #life

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. ↗

— Anatole France

#love #pets #love

Besides love and sympathy, animals exhibit other qualities connected with the social instincts which in us would be called moral. ↗

— Charles Darwin

#love #morality #sympathy #love

Some people say they love animals and yet harm them nonetheless; I'm glad those people don't love me. ↗

— Marc Bekoff

#consistency #ethics #love

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don't trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#love #love

The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviors. What they call 'free choice' is, in fact, the result of a narrowly obstructed set of options that have been chosen for them. They don't realize, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of nonhuman life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species' preference for survival. ↗

— Melanie Joy

#carnism #meat #norms #veganism #life

Do you not believe that animals know grief and fear and pain? The world of men is not an easy one for them. ↗

— Lloyd Alexander

#men