Animal

We are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.

Opie, you haven't finished your milk.  We can't put it back in the cow, you know.

To save a life, any life, be it animal, vegetable or human  is an act on behalf of The Lord.

The best things in life are those that please the primate/animal in us, not the intellect/computer, such as smiles, hugs, warmth, tasty food and love.

Faith is a quality of being: of being in touch with oneself, with life, and with the universe. It is a sense of belonging to one’s community, to one’s country and to the earth. Above all it is a feeling of being grounded in one’s body, in one’s humanity, and in one’s animal nature. It can be all of these things because it is a manifestation of life, an expression of the living force that unites all beings. It is a biological phenomenon and not a psychic creation.

The animals of this world did not go into a Christian heaven, a Moslem heaven or a Hindu paradise. They did not claim any God as their own.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

Welcome to the herd. You are now following the lead bull.

It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.

You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind.  He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.