Marc Bekoff Quotes

All animals, including humans, have a right to lives of dignity and respect, without forced intrusions.

Animals are not property or "things" but rather living organisms, subjects of a life, who are worthy of our compassion, respect, friendship, and support.

Dominion does not mean domination. We hold dominion over animals only because of our powerful and ubiquitous intellect. Not because we are morally superior. Not because we have a "right" to exploit those who cannot defend themselves. Let us use our brain to move toward compassion and away from cruelty, to feel empathy rather than cold indifference, to feel animals' pain in our hearts.

Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them LESS than us

Often, the greater our ignorance about something, the greater our resistance to change.

Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet

Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws.

When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals' emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.

Humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature.

Compassion begets compassion, cruelty begets cruelty. What we give we will ultimately receive. Nonhumans help make us human. They teach us respect, compassion, and unconditional love. When we mistreat animals, we mistreat ourselves. When we destroy animal spirits and souls, we destroy our own spirits and souls.

Hunting and fishing involve killing animals with devices (such as guns) for which the animals have not evolved natural defenses. No animal on earth has adequate defense against a human armed with a gun, a bow and arrow, a trap that can maim, a snare that can strangle, or a fishing lure designed for the sole purpose of fooling fish into thinking they have found something to eat

Without close and reciprocal relationships with other animal beings, we're alienated from the rich, diverse, and magnificent world in which we live.

Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of "us" and "them" creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering. It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethic, religious, political, and social conflicts.

Lacking a shared language, emotions are perhaps our most effective means of cross-species communication. We can share our emotions, we can understand the language of feelings, and that's why we form deep and enduring social bonds with many other beings. Emotions are the glue that binds.

Many animals experience pain, anxiety and suffering, physically and psychologically, when they are held in captivity or subjected to starvation, social isolation, physical restraint, or painful situations from which they cannot escape. Even if it is not the same experience of pain, anxiety, or suffering undergone by humans- or even other animals, including members of the same species- an individual's pain, suffering, and anxiety matter.

A reduction of meat consumption by only 10% would result in about 12 million more tons of grain for human consumption. This additional grain could feed all of the humans across the world who starve to death each year- about 60 million people!

It's bad biology to rob nonhuman animals of their emotional lives.

Animals are not resources or property with whom we can do what we please, their lives matter very much, and they should be firmly entrenched in our moral community. Accepting the notion of ‘animal guardian’ to replace ‘pet owner’ will go a long way towards making the lives of our companions much better and richer.

We must remain hopeful that a universal ethic of courage, caring, sharing, respect, radical compassion, and love will make a difference even if we do not see the positive results of our efforts... We can never be too generous or too kind.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Some people say they love animals and yet harm them nonetheless; I'm glad those people don't love me.

These enthusiasts often like to hang signs that say "Gone Fishin'" or "Gone Huntin'". But what these slogans really mean is "Gone Killing.

I would like to believe that it is, and will continue to be, human compassion for other beings that will result in our giving them the protection they deserve, because of who they are, not because of what they can do for us or because some law tells us what we have to do.