Peter Singer Quotes

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off.

He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.

Billy Graham talks about how he doesn't judge people. I don't either. Some people I am just pissed at.

In life and art, there are distinctions to be made between what an act of cruelty consists of.

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.

Everyone suffers some injustice in life, and what better motivation than to help others not suffer in the same way.

I don't hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people - and they're helpless with it.

When people said Africa would change me, I didn't understand what they meant. To see the poverty in the townships, for instance, is overwhelming. I found it heart-wrenching to see young children walking barefoot and hungry in the dirt. I'm the kind of person who wants to change the world right here and now, so I got frustrated.

I was sitting by Dr. Franklin who perceived that I was not insensitive to these mutilations.

The starting point is a passionate anger at something that does not work very well.

Empathy should not be contingent on our proximity to suffering or the likelihood of it happening to us. Rather, it should stem from a disdain that suffering is happening at all.

I cannot bear to live where there is so much injustice and I cannot do something about it. What kind of a torturous life is that?

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

If you’re not angry, then you’re just stupid, you don’t care. How else can you react when something’s so unfair?

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. One's very suffering gives one priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.

I can't stand cruel people. And if I see people doing something mean to somebody else just to make themselves feel important, it really gets me mad.

Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim.

I see myself in all the people in the world who are suffering and who are very badly treated and who are often made to feel that they have no place on this Earth.

If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you're supposed to help them. Why wouldn't you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person.

I was very sensitive to the environment around, and this disparity in people, seeing beggars and laborers not paid well, used to disturb me. So these emotions in these roles came very naturally to me.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.

Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American.

The cry of the oppressed has entered not only into my ears, but into my soul, so that while I live, I cannot hold my peace.

One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve.

Everyone has a responsibility towards this larger family of man, but especially if you're privileged, that increases your responsibility.