Brigid Brophy Quotes

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

I really believe that we have a responsibility, almost a sacred responsibility, to the animals that share this planet with us.

Life is no way to treat an animal.

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.

If people were superior to animals, they'd take good care of them," said Pooh.

My most firmly held value is what Albert Schweitzer termed 'reverence for life.' I take this seriously; many would say that because I extend it to nonhumans, I take it too far.

At PETA, we often say that the issue of how animals are treated isn't just about them; it's about us, how we behave.

I'm always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.

Fear and pain and suffering is not OK for any being to feel intentionally at the hands of us.

If experiments on animals were abandoned on grounds of compassion, mankind would have made a fundamental advance.

We are beginning to learn that each animal has a life and a place and a role in this world. If we place compassion and care in the middle of all our dealings with the animal world and honor and respect their lives, our attitudes will change.

If an animal has any rights at all, it's got the right not to be eaten.

Mankind's real moral test, a test so radical and so deep that it escapes our gaze, is probably the one of its relations with those that are the most at its mercy; the Animals.

You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.

Without the perfect sympathy with the animals around them, no gentleman's education, no Christian education, could be of any possible use.

Animals are not here for us to do as we please with. We are not their superiors, we are their equals. We are their family. Be kind to them.

I was always empathetic with animals. It's a terrible and self-involved point of view that we do something because someone else is exploitable.

We have to be aggressive when those we stick up for have no voice. I don't consider it radical to say cruelty is wrong and that animals should be respected. I consider it radical to eat corpses, put electrodes in animals' heads, make elephants live in chains in the circus, and poison animals we consider a nuisance.

We are all God's creatures-that we pray to God for mercy and justice while we continue to eat the flesh of animals that are slaughtered on our account is not consistent.

I have developed a deep respect for animals. I consider them fellow living creatures with certain rights that should not be violated any more than those of humans.

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.

Having respect for animals makes us better humans.

Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence.

Human cruelty knows no limits and that one needs immense courage and a will of iron to help others understand that animals are made of flesh and blood like us, that they suffer the same pains as us, that they deserve the same respect as us and that their continuous slaughter should not be part of human entertainment.