Animal Planet Quotes & Sayings

You can speak. What other animal on the planet can speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. — Miguel Ruiz

An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal. — Richard E. Leakey

As a human being on Earth, you can't imagine friendship not being important in some other solar system or some other planet, or some other context of beings that are conscious. We even see it in animals. It is important for people on Earth to reach out or reach into someone. — Steve Martin

If you think humans are meat-eaters then try eating the animal raw like every other meat-eater on the planet. If something is not palatable in its raw state then you probably shouldn't be eating it. — David Wolfe

I started following the news and seeing what was happening around the world with the polar ice caps melting and temperatures breaking records. I became concerned as an animal on this planet but also as a father. — Don Cheadle

Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural land, and a whopping 30% of the land surface of the planet. As a result, farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning the world's forests. — Kathy Freston

What makes me feel alive is community, connectedness. Certainly family, parenting, relationships, friendship. All the way into colleague relationships and relationship with spirit, relationship with one's own self and inner child, and animals, earth, planet. Fostering and nurturing and really focusing on connection - connection in relationship with other and my own self and God. When I don't feel connected in all those three areas, life is not very good. — Alanis Morissette

Animals are as deserving of a place on this planet as we are, and the difference between us is that humans have a voice they can use to help the animal cause, and it is up to all of us to use it to make a positive difference! — Jane Goodall

We are animal. We are Earth. We are water. We are a community of human beings living on this planet together. And we forget that. We become disconnected, we lose our center point of gravity, that stillness that allows us to listen to life on a deeper level and to meet each other in a fully authentic and present way. — Terry Tempest Williams

The raising of animals for food and all that it entails is the single most destructive force impacting our planet's fragile ecosystems. Our planet simply cannot sustain the greed of billions of human beings who are eating other animals. — Sharon Gannon

By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation too. — Peter Singer

We are living in a moment where we have broken the equilibrium of the planet. We are not paying attention to our intuitive side. We only pay attention to our reason. We have become an urban animal — Sebastiao Salgado

Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man. The wind sows the seed; the sun evaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapor to the field; the ice, on the other side of the planet, condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds the animal; and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

After making insulting remarks about Mexicans, Donald Trump has been kicked off of NBC and Univision. On the bright side, Trump's hair has a new show on Animal Planet. — Conan O'Brien

If we want to consider the sanctity of life in deciding what to eat, the choice is clear. Eating a plant based diet causes less harm, to ourselves, to the other animals, to the planet. — Sharon Gannon

When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, he exposed the world to a momentous discovery . For the first time in history, human beings were seen not as creatures of divine origin, but instead, as a product of nature, an animal like every other on the planet. Imagine yourself back in that amazing year. The day before Darwin's book was published, you wake up thinking yourself the image of God; the next morning you realize you have the face of a monkey. Not everybody immediately embraced this rude demotion from god to goat. — Jeff Schweitzer

In the old days, people told their kids stories about the big, bad wolf, and men who were especially cruel and horrible were said to be like animals, maybe werewolves. But the things ordinary men do every day are a million times worse than anything a wolf would do. A wolf would never torture another animal to death, or lock it up. They kill out of instinct, in order to survive, because they have to - not because they just feel like it, not because they're evil. Not like us. Man is the scariest animal on the planet, but from the beginning of time, the wolf has gotten the bad rap. We've tried to pretend that evil is out there, lurking inside animals beyond the campfire, and not where it really is, in here.' He [Cody] tapped his chest. — Lisa Tuttle

There seems to be at least one common denominator to all intelligent life: it was bipedal and bimannual. Four legs was the most practical number for any animal on any planet, and it seems that nature has nothing else to work with. When she decided to give intelligence to a species, she taught him to stand on his hind legs, freeing his forefeet to become tools of his intellect. And she usually taught him by making him use his hands to climb. As a Cophian biologist had said, Life first tries to climb a tree to get to the stars. When it fails, it comes down and invents the high-C drive. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience pain sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, firsthand foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us they express degrees of emotion. In short like us, they are alive. — Joaquin Phoenix

Animals are, like us, endangered species on an endangered planet, and we are the ones who are endangering them, it, and ourselves. They are innocent sufferers in a hell of our making. — Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

If the age of the Earth were a calendar year and today were a breath before midnight on New Year's Eve, we showed up a scant fifteen minutes ago, and all of recorded history has blinked by in the last sixty seconds. Luckily for us, our planet-mates
the fantastic meshwork of plants, animals, and microbes
have been patiently perfecting their wares since March, an incredible 3.8 billion years since the first bacteria ... After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. — Janine Benyus

It's not a requirement to eat animals, we just choose to do it, so it becomes a moral choice and one that is having a huge impact on the planet, using up resources and destroying the biosphere. — James Cameron

Men swagger around calling themselves "cattlemen" but abuse their grass like a rapist. And abuse their cattle with concrete fecal feedlots without any regards to rumen function. Vegetable growers plow thousands of acres, planting monocrops of annuals in a never-ending tillage routine that totally annihilates carbon wealth. Why? Why are we so enamored of things that destroy carbon and disrespect the animals under our care? Grass. Lowly grass. It just gets no respect. And yet it is the lifeblood of the planet. — Joel Salatin

Those who consume animals not only harm those animals and endanger themselves, but they also threaten the well-being of other humans who currently or will later inhabit the planet ... It is time for humans to remove their heads from the sand and recognize the risk to themselves that can arise from their maltreatment of other species. — Michael Greger

We're interested in things that have big teeth, and you can see the evolutionary value of that, and you can also see the practical consequences by watching 'Animal Planet.' You notice they make very few programs about gerbils. It's mostly about things that have big teeth. — Seth Shostak

I've heard it said that the most dangerous animal on the planet is the adolescent male. — Jacqueline Novogratz

It's extremely important that, as writers, we give a voice to those who don't have voices, including the other animals that we share the planet with and the places that are endangered or being lost. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

The consumption of animals - whether you're wearing them or eating them - is extraordinarily damaging to the planet. There are over a billion animals killed a year for food, half of which don't even get eaten. And there's over 50 million animals killed just for fashion. — Stella McCartney

Well I think on a simple ecological level that the diversity of this planet is important for our survival, that all of our different cultures, people are important to the health of the whole the same way that a species of animal should be saved and at a simple ecology level. — Richard Gere

There is no 'need' for us to eat meat, dairy or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet. — Gary L. Francione

Consider the situation. There you are, forehead like a set of balconies, worrying about the long-term effects of all this new 'fire' stuff on the environment, you're being chased and eaten by most of the planet's large animals, and suddenly tiny versions of one of the worst of them wanders into the cave and starts to purr. — Terry Pratchett

Lastly, anyone who believes in the possibility of total animal liberation while billions of humans continue to inhabit and decimate the planet is delusional. Only when most humans have died off will there be a chance to returning to a society that values all beings for who they are. — Jerry Vlasak

As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love, and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness. — Richard Gere

The pair of them were staring at the computer screen like two dogs watching animal planet: very focused, but incapable of turning up the volume or changing the channel.
-Manny and Butch — J.R. Ward

There were two Republican responses to the State of the Union. So if you watched the whole night, it was kind of evolution in reverse. You have Obama, then Paul Ryan, and then Michele Bachmann. Then Animal Planet had a squirrel monkey give his take. — Bill Maher

I probably have reported, probably more about the unusual animal death stories then anyone else on this planet. — Linda Moulton Howe

The ability to see yourself as a temporary expression of intention and to see yourself in all of humanity is a characteristic of the holy relationship. It's the ability to celebrate and honor in all others, the place where we're all one ... establish a holy relationship with your Source, the world community, your neighbors, acquaintances, family, the animal kingdom, our planet, and yourself. — Wayne Dyer

It is not just contemporary industrial society that is dysfunctional; it is civilization itself. We humans are born to be creatures of the land and the sea and the stars; we are relations to the animals, cohorts to the plants. Our well being, and the well-being of the very planet depend on our pursuance of our given place within the natural world. — Chellis Glendinning

When you're in elementary school, you get these amazing assignments, like to come up with your own animal, come up with your own city, come up with your own planet, what do the people look like; you're very much encouraged to be as imaginative as possible. — Tony DiTerlizzi

The most polluted animal on the planet today is the modern human. — Steven Magee

Sometimes I think that the only effective and productive method of destroying speciesism would be for each uncaring human to be forced to live the life of a cow on a feedlot, or a monkey in a laboratory, or an elephant in the circus, or a bull in a rodeo, or a mink on a fur farm. Then people would be awakened from their soporific states and finally understand the horrors that are inflicted on the animal kingdom by the vilest species to ever roam this planet: the human animal! — Gary Yourofsky

Basically, the intersection between the animal world and the plant world is where life regenerates itself over and over, billions of times each day. It's the foundation of life on our planet. — Louie Schwartzberg

Welcome to Hollywood, a land just off the coast of planet Earth. I am never quite certain if I am visiting the zoo, or if I'm one of the animals in a cage. — Elinor Glyn

You want to talk? Fine. Talk. Tell me something you've never told anybody else.'
I thought for a moment. 'Turtles have the second-largest brains of any animal on the planet.'
It took Isabel only a second to process this. 'No, they don't.'
'I know that's why I've never told anybody that before. — Maggie Stiefvater

Wildness in animals is a curious thing to us humans. Isn't that why people watch Animal Planet? Escape. Maybe that's why we watch. Animal behavior is elemental. It takes us back to a simpler time. — Barbara Delinsky

We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act. — William Winwood Reade

The universe bursts into existence from life, not the other way around as we have been taught. For each life there is a universe, its own universe. We generate spheres of reality, individual bubbles of existence. Our planet is comprised of billions of spheres of reality, generated by each individual human and perhaps even by each animal. — Robert Lanza

If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals? — George Bernard Shaw

If you do not have a loving concern for the environment ... it will no longer sustain you - you will not be worthy of it. You will not be destroying the planet, you see. You will not be destroying the birds, or the flowers, or the grain, or the animals ... they will be destroying you. — Seth

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure
will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage
and his noble essential decency.
This I believe with all my heart. — Robert A. Heinlein

I came to realize that no thing on Earth can properly be considered a single entity, but I am and you are composed of multiple life-forms, from different kingdoms of life, all working in concert to be me or you. And every bird (and the tree it lives in) is an ecosystem that participates in an ecosystem that eventually scales up to the planet. This notion has totally upended my idea of what an individual is, be it plant or animal or fungus, or person or place. In light of the new science, the singular noun "I" is obsolete because in reality, "I" is a community. — Eugenia Bone

Nature will be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are here because there are things that need our help. Like the planet. Like each other. Like animals. The world is like a garden, and we are its protectors. — B.B. King

My own view is that being a vegetarian or vegan is not an end in itself, but a means towards reducing both human and animal suffering and leaving a habitable planet to future generations. — Peter Singer

We are all here on this planet, as it were, as tourists. None of us can live here forever. The longest we might live is a hundred years. So while we are here we should try to have a good heart and to make something positive and useful of our lives. Whether we live just a few years or a whole century, it would be truly regrettable and sad if we were to spend that time aggravating the problems that afflict other people, animals, and the environment. The most important things is to be a good human being. — Dalai Lama

Every animal on the planet attracts mates with the goal of reproduction. Frogs swell their bodies. Male gorillas beat their chests. Have you ever watched a male lobster rise up on the tips of his legs and snap his claws, demanding female attention? Attraction is the first element of all animal reproduction, humans included. — Becca Fitzpatrick

Vegetarianism preserves live, health, peace, the ecology, creates a more equitable distribution of resources, helps to feed the hungry, encourages nonviolence for the animal and human members of the planet, and is a powerful aid for the spiritual transformation of the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. — Gabriel Cousens

For millions of years, on average, one species became extinct every century ... We are now heaving more than a thousand different species of animals and plants off the planet every year. — Douglas Adams

Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when? — Jonathan Safran Foer

I'm an animal rights activist because I believe we won't have a planet if we continue to behave toward other species the way we do. — James Cromwell

The earth is not a mechanism but an organism, a being with its own life and its own reasons, where the support and sustenance of the human animal is incidental. If man in his newfound power and vanity persists in the attempt to remake the planet in his own image, he will succeed only in destroying himself - not the planet. The earth will survive our most ingenious folly. — Edward Abbey

What do you mean? Why do you think you like them? That's all you and I did together when you were little. Don't you remember? I. Don't. Remember. I remember, It's a sink-or-swim world, Noah. I remember, Act tough and you are tough. I remember every heart-stomping look of disappointment, of embarrassment, of bewilderment from him. I remember: If your twin sister wasn't my spitting image I'd swear you came about from parthenogenesis. I remember the 49ers, the Miami Heat, the Giants, the World Cup. I do not remember Animal Planet. — Jandy Nelson

There is, however, a moral basis for the vegetarian diet for which the indeterminate value of an animal's life takes on irrelevance. And that moral basis is a concern for the environment, a value as absolute as the value we all place on human life, since humanity will not survive for long on a poisoned planet. To be an environmentalist who happens to eat meat is like being a philanthropist who doesn't happen to give to charity. — Howard Lyman

A glad welcome to this affirmation by a group of psychologists that the self does not stop at the skin nor even with the circle of human relationships but is interwoven with the lives of trees and animals and soil; that caring for the deepest needs of persons and caring for our threatened planet are not in conflict. — Mary Catherine Bateson

What a difference that extra 120 ppm has made for plants, and for animals and humans that depend on them. The more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more it is absorbed by plants of every description - - and the faster and better they grow, even under adverse conditions like limited water, extremely hot air temperatures, or infestations of insects, weeds and other pests. As trees, grasses, algae and crops grow more rapidly and become healthier and more robust, animals and humans enjoy better nutrition on a planet that is greener and greener. — Paul Driessen

It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you just look at the history of extinctions, we've killed off an awful lot of animals - and I don't think we're doing a very good job of looking after the planet. — Bill Bryson

I really believe that we have a responsibility, almost a sacred responsibility, to the animals that share this planet with us. — Emmylou Harris

It is a fact that the ecological devastation of the planet can be traced to the consumption of meat and dairy, which contributes to water, soil, and air pollution as well as global warming and the mass extinction of many species of plant and animal forms. — Sharon Gannon

You ever watch animal planet? Women are kind of like a herd of elephants. They stick together for protection. And if one sense danger? They all stampede. — Emma Chase

When God made the planet, he made the plants, he made the animals, he made the Sun and the Moon, and he made us, and we're all interconnected, and when we disregard, disrespect, or damage any part of it, we do violence against creation. — Naomi Oreskes

Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that - that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth. — Michele Bachmann

On this planet are every kind of deadly animal from across the stars. The only people that come here are hunters looking for the most dangerous of trophies. No rescue. You either get your prize or you die. — RoChe Montoya

HELPED are those whose ever act is a prayer for harmony in the Universe, for they are the restorers of balance to our planet. To them will be given the insight that every good act done anywhere in the cosmos welcomes the life of an animal or a child. — Alice Walker

Pigs eat more tuna than all the planet's sharks combined. — Paul Watson

Being vegan or vegetarian isn't just about compassion for animals. Most of the destruction of the planet is the result of all the clear-cutting, groundwater contamination, grain production, fuel consumption, greenhouse gas, viral proliferation - the direct result of livestock production. — William McNamara

A somewhat casual observer from outer space might well deduce that the course of evolution in this planet had produced a species of large four-wheeled bugs with detachable brains; peculiar animals which rested when they sent their brains away from them but performed in rather predictable manner when their brains were recalled. — Kenneth E. Boulding

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them. — Martin Luther King Jr.

A lamb was a young animal which was legendary for sleeping well on the planet Earth. — Kurt Vonnegut

We should never feel like we're going too far in breaking the law, because whatever laws you break to liberate animals or to protect the environment are very insignificant compared to the laws that are broken by that parliament of whores in Washington. They are the biggest lawbreakers, the biggest destroyers, the biggest mass-murderers on this planet right now. — Paul Watson

We humans, one species of animal amongst millions, have now become the de facto guardians of the planet's climate stability. — Mark Lynas

Becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. — Chris Hedges

There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics. — Bertrand Russell

They are near the bottom of the food chain - a meal for fish and birds - while humans eat from the top of the food chain, consuming an astonishing array of what lies on the planet. But eventually, even we become food for the worms. Shakespeare saw this connection, writing in Hamlet, "A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of a fish that hath fed of that worm. — Amy Stewart

Yet soil is miraculous. It is where the dead are brought back to life. Here, in the thin earthy boundary between inanimate rock and the planet's green carpet, lifeless minerals are weathered from stones or decomposed from organic debris. Plants and microscopic animals eat these dead particles and recast them as living matter. In the soil, matter recrosses the boundary between living and dead; and, as we have seen, boundaries-edges-are where the most interesting and important events occur. — Toby Hemenway

Power is, in nature, the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had nixed the idea of having children when I was myself a child, having learned in the 1960s that human overpopulation was literally crowding other species off the planet. Why create another mouth to gnaw at the overburdened earth? — Sy Montgomery

No, child," Nona said. "We were victims of the faeries' pride and greed."
"Victims? Sorry, but most of you don't seem very victimish to me. What about hags, and fossegrims, and redcaps, and all the other sharp-toothed nasties" - I looked pointedly at the dragon - "in your group? I don't feel very bad for anything that's spent all those centuries preying on innocent people."
"It makes sense," Arianna said, her voice soft but thoughtful.
"What?"
"When you introduce an alien species into a new environment, it has to adapt or die out. And usually the way it adapts it by preying on the native species. Look at the dodo birds. They were fine until people came to their island with cats and dogs and pigs, then they became prey."
"You do realize you just compared our entire race to dodo birds."
She shrugged. "If they were never meant to be here in the first place, it's not their fault they had to become predators."
"Thank you, Animal Planet. — Kiersten White

It makes you realize how basically everything we do comes down to a) mating or b) competing for resources. It's just like Animal Planet, only we've got Cover Girl and Victoria's Secret instead of colored feathers and fancy markings, and the violence occurs at the Nordstrom's Half-Yearly Sale. — Deb Caletti

Umm ... So I just realized Ive been peeling bananas wrong my entire life. Thank you animal planet. — Miles Teller

I plan to write more songs of my own, especially on behalf of the animals we needlessly raise for food, at their great expense, and at great expense to our precious, deteriorating planet. — Susan Schneider

In the Gaia theory air, water, and soil are major components of one central organism, planet Earth. What we typically think of as life - the plants and animals that inhabit the earth - has evolved merely to regulate the chemistry of the biosphere. Humans are insignificant participants, far less important to the life cycle than termites. Even the imbalance that we have created by adding massive quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere may be brought back to acceptable levels by other organisms functioning in their capacity to correct excesses. — David Easton

As poets, we don't accept oppression; we are about a freedom of spirit, or whatever you want to call it. I think environmental concerns have to go to the deep place, so we speak from a place of great empathy for the planet - for the disadvantaged people, animals, places, cultures. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

I was watching the Animal Planet. Did you know that the male seahorse has the baby? Why don't they just call that one the female? — Jim Gaffigan

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation.
Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel.
Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world.
It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation. — Peter Joseph

We don't give a damn what you or anybody else on this planet thinks. We didn't sink those ships for you. We did it for the whales. — Paul Watson

Factory farming is terrible for the environment - not to mention that it's gross. The best thing you can do, if you think about it, is to become a vegetarian and just spread the word. The world would change for the better for animals, humans, and the planet if everyone took that step. — Christofer Drew

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril ... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen. — Alice Walker

Not that it isn't sometimes fun to mention things for no reason. The platypus, for example, is not actually a terrestrial animal but a bioengineered probe designed to blend in amongst the planet's other creatures, sent to Earth by aliens who did not do enough research. There's no reason at all to mention that right now, but wasn't it fun? Don't make that face; it's rude. — Michael G. Munz

Our human responsibility for animal rights, plant rights, and the rights of the earth to its health and wholeness is self-evident. Whatever our beliefs about the hereafter we are the temporary custodians of the here-and-now, and if we neglect our obligations or abuse our powers then we abrogate any rights to a further share in this planet's delights. — Densey Clyne

The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that we really are the selfish tyrants that the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said we are? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible? The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it. — Peter Singer