A Quote by Jonathan Balcombe

We have to realize that treating animals well is in our best interests, too. Cruelty is indivisible; when you are cruel to an animal, you are training yourself to be cruel to people, too (and vice versa).

Jonathan Balcombe

Quote Topics

Animal Animals Best Best Interests Cruel Cruelty Eating Animals Indivisible Interests Our People Realize Too Training Treating Versa Vice Vice Versa Well Yourself

Quote Author

Jonathan Balcombe
Scientist
Born: February 28, 1959

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

This world,' she said. 'Do you really like it?' What a question! Farid never asked himself such things. He was glad to be with Dustfinger again and didn't mind where that was. It's a cruel world, don't you think?' Meggie went on. 'Mo often told me I forget how cruel it is too easily.' With his burned fingers, Farid stroke her fair hair. It shone even in the dark. 'They're all cruel,' he said. 'The world I come from, the world you come from, and this one, too. Maybe the people don't see the cruelty in your world right away, it's better hidden, but it's there all the same.

Cornelia Funke

You know, we all oppose animal cruelty. But sometimes we forget that animals on farms suffer and feel pain like all other animals. They, too, deserve to be protected from harm and cruelty.

Charlotte Ross

We have to be aware of our fragilities as human beings - when we see cruelty, to understand that in certain conditions, we could be cruel, too.

Ingrid Betancourt

Bullfights are a very cultural thing. I know many people think it's cruel, but so many things are cruel. Hunting, the electric chair, wars. These are all cruel things as well.

Fernando Botero

People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

One can't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.

Henry James

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.

Thomas Paine

Everyone is afraid of you and when folk are afraid of a person it usually means the person is cruel in some way, and I think you are cruel, Miss Marquess, but please don’t punish me for saying it. I think you know you’re cruel. I think you like being cruel. I think calling you cruel is the same as calling someone else kind. And I don’t want to run errands for someone cruel.

Catherynne M. Valente

But Peter had seen too much, knew too well that men-kind didn't need an excuse to be cruel and murder one another.

Brom

If animals are no longer quite outside the moral sphere, they are still in a special section near the outer rim. Their interests are allowed to count only when they do not clash with human interests. If there is a clash - even a clash between a lifetime of suffering for a nonhuman animal and the gastronomic preference of a human being - the interests of the nonhuman are disregarded. The moral attitudes of the past are too deeply embedded in our thought and our practices to be upset by a mere change in our knowledge of ourselves and of other animals.

Peter Singer

Cruelty was the devil, and most people were, in one way or another, cruel. Tyranny, suppression, persecution, torture, slavery, war, neglect - all were cruel. The world was acid and sour with hate, fat with greed, yellow with the triumph of the strong and the rich.

Rose Macaulay

Ellen had said that her mother was afraid of the ocean, that it was too cold and too big. The sky was, too, thought Annemarie. The whole world was: too cold, too big. And too cruel.

Lois Lowry

Often, I think bullying - especially in its adult, verbal forms - is the sort of thing you don't realize till the end of the day, and it's a horrible feeling to realize something wasn't just a bland statement but was actually cruel. But then, we're all capable of things that are breathtakingly cruel.

Liane Moriarty

Often I think bullying - especially in its adult, verbal forms - is the sort of thing you don't realize till the end of the day, and it's a horrible feeling to realize something wasn't just a bland statement, but was actually cruel. But then we're all capable of - of things that are breathtakingly cruel.

Liane Moriarty

There are certain crimes that are simply too cruel, too sadistic, too hideous to be forgiven.