Albert Schweitzer Quotes

Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.

Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it.

It made me feel particularly sickened to know that this kind of callous attitude toward animals is repeated again and again in laboratories around this country.

The fact that there are bigger injustices and wrongs doesn't make it right to sacrifice an innocent monkey. It doesn't alter the case at all.

Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

. . . Now you see . . . they' re not fit for humans . . ." "Put them on me.

Every year tens of thousands of animals suffer and die in laboratory tests of cosmetics and household products...despite the fact that the test results do not help prevent or treat accidental or purposeful misuse of the products. Please join me in using your voice for those whose cries are forever sealed behind the laboratory doors.

There could conceivably be circumstances in which an experiment on an animal stands to reduce suffering so much that it would be permissible to carry it out even if it involved harm to the animal... [even if] the animal were a human being.

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

Most of the time, those who use animals in experiments justify that use by pointing to alleged benefits to human and animal health and the supposed necessity of using animals to obtain those benefits.

Scientists should not do animal testing if there is any alternative, but subject to that, I would support it on grounds of the medical benefits.

It is an incontrovertible fact that if we want to make progress in basic areas of medicine and biology, we are going to have to use animals.

It is time my colleagues got real. All British universities doing worthwhile research use animals, and, instead of hiding, they should be boasting of their achievements.

Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

Scientific men are under definite obligation to experiment upon animals so far as that is the alternative to random and possibly harmful experimentation upon human beings, and so far as such experimentation is a means of saving human life and of increasing human vigor and efficiency.

The Queen has done all she could on the dreadful subject of vivisection, and hopes that Mr. Gladstone will speak strongly against such a practice which is a disgrace to humanity.

If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts.

The more we learn of the true nature of non-human animals, especially those with complex brains and corresponding complex social behavior, the more ethical concerns are raised regarding their use in the service of man - whether this be in entertainment, as "pets," for food, in research laboratories, or any of the other uses to which we subject them.

I hate the thought of animals being killed just for our pleasure...

We take these animals and completely violate who they are. We use them, abuse them, and deprive them all their lives…then we cut their throats, shred them and eat them! Morally, I’m against it, ethically, I can’t justify it, and ecologically, it’s just insane. The thought of meat-eating makes me shudder. As far as wearing fur is concerned, it is the rudest, most inconsiderate, selfish and sick façade I can imagine.

Of all the black crimes that humanity is committing against the great Creation, vivisection is the blackest.

Research performed on animals is, by definition, scientifically unsound.

There has been opposition to experimenting on animals for a long time. This opposition has made little headway because experimenters, backed by commercial firms that profit by supplying laboratory animals and equipment, have been able to convince legislators and the public that opposition comes from uninformed fanatics who consider the interests of animals more important than the interests of human beings.

Cats have nine lives. Makes them ideal for experimentation.