Looking at Things a Little Differently: Animals & Us

Sometimes there are words so powerful, so eloquently strung together and so capable of evoking change, that they have the power to alter even our most ingrained beliefs about the world and how it works. Similar to the way a breathtakingly beautiful sunset can stop us in our tracks with its enormous and overwhelming presence, causing us to shift our perspective on the day and contemplate our place in this world, words, too, possess this amazing gift. Sometimes words resonate with our core so deeply that, just like the beautiful sunset, they can stop us in our tracks and change our perspective on this perplexing thing called life. And, with that said, I offer these quotes that have resonated with me so deeply, as food for thought on this Saturday morning…

[Photo by @pjrapps]

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.” -Anais Nin

“Judge man by his questions rather than his answers.” -Voltaire

“The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but rather, ‘Can they suffer?'” -Jeremy Bentham

“If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit.” -Robert Brault

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” -Albert Einstein

“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.” -Moby

“Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife-birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes-by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. Then in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative, and fatal, health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these degenerative diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for ‘Peace on Earth’.”- C. David Coats, Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm

“Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I’ve discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory–disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.” -Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“150 years ago, they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery. 100 years ago, they would have laughed at you for suggesting that women should have the right to vote. 50 years ago, they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under the law. 25 years ago they would have called you a pervert if you advocated for gay rights. They laugh at us now for suggesting that animal slavery be ended. Some day they won’t be laughing.” -Gary Smith

“Do you know why so many survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It’s because they know what it’s like to be treated like an animal.” -Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

And finally…

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.” -Edward Everett Hale