Mohsin Hamid Quotes

Cruelty, as a fine art, has attained its perfect flower in the trained-animal world.

Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring joy, just as knowing animals and flowers and where they live.

Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are its tormented souls.

Now what is it moves our very hearts, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first, that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which makes their sufferings so especially touching.

We have to create more and more vegetarians, and help people to understand that it is not only the suffering of the animals (which is what made me vegetarian) but also the incredible harm to the environment, the tremendous amount of greenhouse gas created by the whole vast machinery of intensive animal farming.

He who only does not appreciate floral beauty is to be pitied like any other man who is born imperfect. It is a misfortune not unlike blindness.

Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe

It is in man's heart that the life of nature's spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems and that, in turn, is the reason why man, whenever he comes into contact with nature, threatens to kill the natural system in which and from which he live.

Finally he said that if men drink the blood of God yet they do not understand the seriousness of what they do. He said that men wish to be serious but they do not understand how to be so. Between their acts and their ceremonies lies the world and in this world the storms blow and the trees twist in the wind and all the animals that God has made go to and fro yet this world men do not see. They see the acts of their own hands or they see that which they name and call out to one another but the world between is invisible to them

Seriously, I think everybody needs to be more disciplined; nobody needs any meat. But from a perspective of how many animals suffer, it's probably better to kill and eat one whale than it is to eat fish, chickens, cows, lambs and eggs.

I'm always in love. If it's not with a man, it's something else. I love beauty. I love the sky I see outside the window. There's so much beauty in the world.

The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of the human spirit. All education should be directed toward the refinement of the individual's sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humans everywhere, but to all things whatsoever.

I'm sure you agree that animals should not be abused - whether they're cats or dogs or chickens - and that stopping this abuse should be your number one priority.

Sara could commit adultery at one end and weep for her sins at the other, and enjoy both operations at once.

I do love animals so much, and have a great respect for them emotionally and intellectually, because they are so different from human beings.

It is heartbreaking to see so many animals in distress through the Gulf Coast region. Many of them are frightened, confused, hungry, dehydrated and lost.

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

Everyone wants to understand art. Why don't we try to understand the song of a bird? Why do we love the night, the flowers, everything around us, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting, people think they have to understand.

Man is an intellectual animal, and therefore an everlasting contradiction to himself. His senses centre in himself, his ideas reach to the ends of the universe; so that he is torn in pieces between the two, without a possibility of its ever being otherwise.

I find it very annoying that so many animal advocates talk about the difficulty of being vegan. Many animal advocates are inclined to make the issue their suffering and not the animals' suffering, and I suppose that accounts for part of the reason that veganism is portrayed as such a "sacrifice." And many animal advocates are not vegans, or are "flexible vegans," which means that they do not observe veganism at all or not consistently, and emphasizing the supposed difficulty of veganism is part of justifying their own behavior.

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all species are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

People often ... have no idea how fair the flower is to the touch, nor do they appreciate its fragrance, which is the soul of the flower.