Joaquin Phoenix Quotes

The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.

People who care about animals tend to care about people. They don't care about animals to the exclusion of people. Caring is not a finite resource and, even more than that, it's like a muscle: the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.

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.

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way." ... "Surely a better time must be drawing nigh when godlike human beings will become truly humane, and learn to put their animal fellow mortals in their hearts instead of on their backs or in their dinners.

Surely we ought to show them (animals) great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves.

Compassion and mercy are important, period. It doesn't matter who's at our receiving end, but we need to be flexing those muscles. It's not mutually exclusive: If you have compassion for children starving in Africa, it doesn't mean you can't have compassion for adults in Africa or animals that are being tortured and abused.

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

I'd like to think I'm a caring human being.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

Whoever saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind

The most important thing on Earth is for all of us to make this sentence true: Compassion is what people do.

Humanity is more important to me than talent... if there's a choice to make, I'll go humanity over talent every time.

Were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures.

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

Humanity, perhaps, that quality of benevolence that humans have, without irony, named after themselves.

We are often more merciful to our animals than we are to each other.

All the big words -virtue, justice, truth, ...- are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness

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.

The guiding motive of mankind should be charity towards men, charity towards all animals.

Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind.

If a chimp who has been abused horribly by humans can help a human friend in a time of need, how much more should we help the animals - and other people for that matter - in their time of need?

Lissa knelt down, compassion on her face. I wasn't surprised, since she'd always had a thing for animals. She'd lectured me for days after I'd instigated the infamous hamster-and-hermit-crab fight. I'd viewed the fight as a testing of worthy opponents. She'd seen it as animal cruelty.

It may be suggested by some books that it is not a sin to kill an animal, but it is written in our own hearts - more clearly than in any book - that we should take pity on animals in the same way as we do on humans.

Although I can't stop all cruelty to living creatures on the planet, I can be kinder to every living creature in my life.

When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.