Quotes & Sayings About Vivisection

I once believed in Jenner; I once believed in Pasteur. I believed in vaccination. I believed in vivisection. But I changed my views as the result of hard thinking. — Walter Hadwen

Of all the black crimes that humanity is committing against the great Creation, vivisection is the blackest. — Mahatma Gandhi

When we say that humans have a "right" not to be used for these purposes, this means simply that the interest of humans in not being used as non-consenting subjects in experiments will be protected even if the consequences of using them would be very beneficial for the rest of us. The question, then, is why do we think that it is morally acceptable to use nonhumans in experiments but not to use humans?

Vivisection, Part Two: The Moral Justification of Vivisection | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach — Gary L. Francione

Science and vivisection make no appeal to a theological idea, much less a political one. You can argue with a theologian or a politician, but doctors are sacrosanct. They know; you do not. Science has its mystique much more powerful than any religion active today. — Brenda Ueland

I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection ... I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretense of sparing me a twinge or two. — Robert Browning

The only argument against vivisection that will be seen to have lasting power - that we do not improve human society by means that debase human character. — Jon Wynne-Tyson

Could it be possible, I thought, that such a thing as the vivisection of men was carried on here? The question shot like lightning across a tumultuous sky; and suddenly the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid realisation of my own danger. — H.G.Wells

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence. — Mahatma Gandhi

There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection ... It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country. — Queen Victoria

I started a PhD in English at the University of Chicago because I loved poetry-which I now realize is like saying I studied vivisection because I loved dogs. — Michael Donaghy

There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science, as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion. — Kathryn Bigelow

The Queen has done all she could on the dreadful subject of vivisection, and hopes that Mr. Gladstone will speak strongly against such a practice which is a disgrace to humanity ... — Queen Victoria

A 'civilization' that makes such a ridiculous fuss about alleged 'war crimes' - acts of violence against the actual or potential enemies of one's cause - and tolerates slaughterhouses and vivisection laboratories, and circuses and the fur industry (infliction of pain upon creatures that can never be for or against any cause), does not deserve to live. — Savitri Devi

Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days. — Stephen Fry

If the circulation of blood theory could not have been discovered without vivisection, the human kind could well have done without it. — Mahatma Gandhi

I don't approve of mixing ideologies," Ivanov continued. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community
which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible. — Arthur Koestler

The case against vivisection is the same as that against war and all other forms of cruelty - that violence does not produce long-term solutions. — Jon Wynne-Tyson

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further. — Mark Twain

Throughout the late '80s, me and a handful of friends just like you people here, we started to break windows, we started to slash tires, we started to rescue animals from factory farms and vivisection breeders, and we graduated to breaking into laboratories . As long as we emptied the labs of animals, they were still easily replaced. So that's when the ALF in this country, and my cell, started engaging in arson. — Rod Coronado

Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction. — Jon Evans

He had the compassion of a vivisectionist. — Storm Constantine

There are two main goals behind ALF actions. The first is obviously to remove as many animals as possible from fur farms, vivisection labs, and other areas of abuse. The second is to cause as much economic damage to these industries and persons as possible. — Jerry Vlasak

I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil. — Charles Mayo

The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals - humanised animals - triumphs of vivisection. — Jeffery Deaver

What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty. — Leo Tolstoy

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character. — George Bernard Shaw

Thinking is the subtlest form of self-polemics, the art of a certain finesse in psychological self-vivisection and self-crucifixion (Hegel of course called the path of self-disillusion the via dolorosa or "highway of despair," in Baillie's fine and florid rendering, like Jesus' route to Golgotha). — Kenny Smith

But those who are incapable of
pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men.
A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces
laying bare
the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with
forceps
would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women
for the gratification of his curiosity. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Gradually I became aware that professing English because I loved poems was like practicing vivisection because I loved dogs. — Michael Donaghy

Forbid the day when vivisection shall be practised in every college and school, and when the man of science, looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway than his, shall exult in the thought that he has made of this fair earth, if not a heaven, at least a hell for animals. — Lewis Carroll

Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the brain? — Bram Stoker

What is more, as J. R. R. Tolkien reminds us in his great essay on Beowulf, there is a danger that attends rational and scientific description: "a plain pure fairy story dragon" can be ruined at the hands of a logical analysis. The interpreter, "unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and, what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected. — Gregory Alan Thornbury

The honor of your presence is requested at the vivisection of your sister. Black heart optional. — Jeff Lindsay

The horrors of Vivisection have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination, of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present use to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium ... -contemptibly small compared with the price paid for it in agony and torture. — Henry Jacob Bigelow

And I don't think you'd have to kill
assassinate
too many vivisectors before you would see a marked decrease in the amount of vivisection going on. And I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human animals. — Jerry Vlasak

The love of a dog for his master is notorious; in the agony of death he has been known to caress his master, and everyone has heard of the dog suffering under vivisection, who licked the hand of the operator; this man, unless he had a heart of stone, must have felt remorse to the last hour of his life. — Charles Darwin

If three hundred years of chainsaws, CFCs, depleted uranium, automobiles, genetic engineering, airplanes, routine international trade, computers, plastics, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, vivisection, internal combustion engines, feller bunchers, dragline excavators, televisions, cell phones, and nuclear (and conventional) bombs are not enough to convey the picture, then that picture will never be conveyed. — Derrick Jensen

Based on my time living with rats and mice in Washington, D.C., I have always assumed that animals will escape such fires, since their senses of smell, wariness of such dangers, and ability to move through almost invisible holes is so impressive, but I think that we should not dismiss the possibility that they, also, will be harmed. These reflections do not, of course, rule out burning meat trucks. And they don't mean that when the next slaughterhouse or vivisection lab burns down, I will denounce those who carried out the burning, or that I will feel anything other than joy in my heart ... — Bruce Friedrich

How I Would Like to Kill My Brother,
Version Sixteen
By Olivia Bevelstoke
No. really, what was the point? She could hardly top Version Fifteen, which had featured both vivisection and wild boar. — Julia Quinn

Voltaire responded that, on the contrary, vivisection showed that the dog has the same organes de sentiment that a human has. "Answer me, you who believes that animals are only machines," he wrote. "Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all? — Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account, they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere 'things,' mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun! — Arthur Schopenhauer

During my medical education at the University of Basle I found vivisection horrible, barbarous and above all unnecessary — Carl Jung

Oh, and Juliet," he said. I turned back. Half of his face was thrown in deep shadow, while the whites of his teeth gleamed in the distant lights from the salon. "I'll be working in the laboratory late tonight. I've a good start on the new specimens. Don't be alarmed if you're awoken. The animals - they scream, you know. An unfortunate effect of vivisection. It keeps the whole household up."
For a breath, the world seemed to freeze. And then the clouds rolled again, the wind howled again. I realized that he had charmed me, just like he charmed everyone. I'd thought I was so clever. I thought I could see past his manipulations. But I'd heard only what I wanted to.
He'd never said the accusations were untrue. Just unfair. — Megan Shepherd

Why should I let anything stand in the way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of vivisection? I — Jeff Lindsay

Why does this always happen?" Royce asked. "Why are we always hanging on a wall, waiting to die by slow vivisection? I just want to point out that this was your idea - again."

"I've been waiting for that. But I believe I told you not to come." Hadrian shifted in his chains and sighed. "I don't suppose there's much chance of a beautiful princess coming in here and saving us again."

"That card's been dealt. — Michael J. Sullivan

Vivisection is not the same thing as scientific progress. There is such a thing as scientific progress. But this wholesale dedication of scientists to vivisection, which is the easy and cheap way, actually prevents them from scientific progress, for true progress is difficult and requires genius and imagination in its devoted workers. — Brenda Ueland