Fur Protester: Do you know how many poor animals they had to kill to make that coat? Margo: Do you know how many rich animals... I had to fuck to get this coat?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of th...e law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Caracal lies on a shelf in its den in the Zoological Gardens quietly licking its fur. I go up and stand near it. It makes a fa...ce at me. I come a little nearer, it makes a worse face and raises itself up on its haunches. I stand and look. It jumps down from its shelf and makes as if it intended "going for" me. I move back; the Caracal has exerted a moral influence over me which I have been unable to resist. Moral influence means persuading another that one can make that other more uncomfortable than that other can make oneself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Never would it occur to a child that a sheep, a pig, a cow or a chicken was good to eat, while, like Milton's Adam, he would eager...ly make a meal off fruits, nuts, thyme, mint, peas and broad beans which penetrate further and stimulate not only the appetite but other vague and deep nostalgias. We are closer to the Vegetable Kingdom than we know; is it not for man alone that mint, thyme, sage, and rosemary exhale "crush me and eat me!"Mfor us that opium poppy, coffee-berry, teaplant and vine perfect themselves? Their aim is to be absorbed by us, even if it can only be achieved by attaching themselves to roast mutton.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense. An anthrop...omorphous ape, if he could take a dispassionate view of his own case, would admit that though he could form an artful plan to plunder a garden--though he could use stones for fighting or for breaking open nuts, yet that the thought of fashioning a stone into a tool was quite beyond his scope. Still less, as he would admit, could he follow out a train of metaphysical reasoning, or solve a mathematical problem, or reflect on God, or admire a grand natural scene. Some apes, however, would probably declare that they could and did admire the beauty of the coloured skin and fur of their partners in marriage. They would admit, that though they could make other apes understand by cries some of their perceptions and simpler wants, the notion of expressing definite ideas by definite sounds had never crossed their minds. They might insist that they were ready to aid their fellow-apes of the same troop in many ways, to risk their lives for them, and to take charge of their orphans; but they would be forced to acknowledge that disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man, was quite beyond their comprehension. Nevertheless, the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is one of degree and not of kind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I sleep with two cats and the touch of their fur brushing against my naked skin is among the most beautiful sensations I can think... of. They calm me, these animals who could be wild but choose not to be, who go outside to kill and lounge around, then come home every day for the food I provide and for my touch. They bridge me over to that animal country from which I came, a place in which the body poses no questions, only needs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cat-lovers will no doubt point out that the elegance and dignity of cats are the consequence of their sojourn in the temples of th...e gods, where their attitudes and movements were regarded as divine prognostications. Be that as it may, it is obvious that the cat's wealth of expressions make it an ideal candidate for such a role. Unlike the dog, which either wags its tail or does not wag its tail, the cat possesses a wide range of means to convey its emotions: It arches its back, makes its fur stand on end, meows, rubs itself against furniture and against humans, purrs, lashes its tail, spits, and hisses. The priests of Bacht, therefore, had ample material for interpretation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »