A Quote by J. M. Coetzee

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

J. M. Coetzee

Quote Topics

Legal Animals Change Change Of Heart Heart Interest Legal Rights Rights Speaking Strictly Towards

Quote Author

J. M. Coetzee
South African - Novelist
Born: February 9, 1940

Rights give rise to legal claims. Ultimately, the more rights animals are granted, the greater the legal lien exercised on their behalf against the liberty and property of people.

Ilana Mercer

We're one of the only animals in the world that don't really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

Richard Branson

I wish people were more like animals. Animals don't try to change you or make you fit in. They just enjoy the pleasure of your company. Animals aren't conditional about friendships. Animals like you just the way you are. They listen to your problems, they comfort you when you're sad, and all they ask in return is a little kindness.

Bill Watterson

When I started Ashes and Snow in 1992, I set out to explore the relationship between man and animals from the inside out. In discovering the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards restoring the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals.

Gregory Colbert

A bear and a deer are both wild animals. We allow the deer to roam in our backyard but we do not give the same right to the bear. It is because the bear is dangerous. Neither the bear nor the deer have rights. We humans give them rights. Taking in account our own security, we give to some animals some rights and deny the same to other animals.

Ali Sina

I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice - and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.

Brigid Brophy

There are a few animals that have won themselves a bad reputation even though they have little or no effect on man. They have won their rating through man's interpretation of their attitude towards lower animals. These animals have been seen feeding in what appears to be a savage manner. But this behavior may perhaps be comparable to a man tearing the flesh off a chicken leg with his teeth.

Jacques Yves Cousteau

We can't change the world for animals without changing our ideas about animals. We have to move from the idea that animals are things, tools, machines, commodities, resources here for our use to the idea that as sentient beings they have their own inherent value and dignity.

Andrew Linzey

We have all this Paleolithic art that suggests that our ancestors really venerated animals and that they depended on wild animals to survive - as opposed to domesticated animals that we depend on. Would it radically change things if we had more rhinos in our midst? I kind of suspect it would.

Elizabeth Kolbert

Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.

Tom Regan

God created animals. And they’re loving; they’re beautiful. I feel the way (anthropologist) Jane Goodall does or any of those naturalists. I don’t find my interest in animals weird or strange at all.

Michael Jackson

The animal liberation movement is saying that where animals and humans have similar interests - we might take the interest in avoiding physical pain as an example, for it is an interest that humans clearly share with other animals - those interests are to be counted equally, with no automatic discount just because one of the beings is not human.

Peter Singer

We know we cannot defend to be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them - exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.

Cesar Chavez

Gays have rights, lesbians have rights, men have rights, women have rights, even animals have rights. How many of us have to die before the community recognizes that we are not expendable?

Octavia St. Laurent

To be 'for animals' is not to be 'against humanity.' To require others to treat animals justly, as their rights require, is not to ask for anything more nor less in their case than in the case of any human to whom just treatment is due. The animal rights movement is a part of, not opposed to, the human rights movement. Attempts to dismiss it as anti human are mere rhetoric.

Tom Regan

Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.