Jeremy Bentham Quotes

What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

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.

There is no doubt that there is a huge difference between human and nonhuman animals. But what we are overlooking is the fact that nonhuman animals are conscious beings, that they can suffer.

Ich glaube sogar, durch Leidensk a« mpfe k o« nnten dieTiere zu Menschen werden. I believe that by suffering even animals could be made human.

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.

Animals are thinking, feeling creatures. They're sensitive.

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

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

The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals.

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.

Growing up, the two things that made my blood boil were religious intolerance and animal cruelty. I’ve never understood it. I can’t stand to have an animal in pain.

Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals.

Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, 'Doesn't this guy have a dog?'

Every animal has his or her story, his or her thoughts, daydreams, and interests. All feel joy and love, pain and fear, as we now know beyond any shadow of a doubt. All deserve that the human animal afford them the respect of being cared for with great consideration for those interests or left in peace.

I just don't like killing creatures.

Animal welfare issues have always been important to me.

I wouldn't want to see any animal in pain, no matter what.

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

I grew up with lots of animals and I related more to them than I did to people. I feel a lot of empathy for them.

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

The animal rights cause is something close to my heart and something I truly believe in.

The belief that 'animals' are superior or inferior to humans because they live in an eternal now is untrue, because no being lives in a now.

I do not believe you can work with animals - certainly you cannot train them - without deciding that if humans have souls, dogs do, too.

For me, animals are not that much different from human beings.

Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?