The philosophy of ahimsa

Ancient Egyptian: Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do. The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

Hinduism: This is the sum of duty--do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1575

Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. Udana-Varga 5.18

Confucianism: One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct...loving-kindness. Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Confucius Analects 15.23

Taoism: Regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain, and your neighbour's loss as your own loss. T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, 213-218

Sikhism: I am a stranger to no one; and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all. Guru Granth Sahib, pg.1299

Sufism: The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven't the will to gladden someone's heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone's heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this. Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.

Christianity: In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus, Matthew 7:12

Shinto: The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.

Unitarianism: We affirm and promote respect for the independent web of existence of which we are a part. Unitarian principle

Native American Spirituality: Respect for all life is the foundation. The Great Law of Peace

Zoroastrianism: Do not do unto others whatever is injurious to yourself. Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29

Jainism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. Mahavira, Sutrakritanga

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. The Prophet Muhammad, Hadith

Yoruba: One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts. Native Nigerian Tradition

Baha'i Faith: Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for any one the things you would not desire for yourself. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings

Humanism: Don't do things you wouldn't want to have done to you. British Humanist Society

Wicca: An it harm no one, do what thou wilt (i.e. do what ever you will, as long as it harms nobody, including yourself). One's will is to be carefully thought out in advance of action. This is called the Wiccan Rede

Ancient Greece : Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you. Socrates

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Edison, American Inventor and Scientist

"Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." - Arthur Schopenhauer, German Philosopher

"We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form." - William Ralph Inge , British Author

"Living with animals can be a wonderful experience, especially if we choose to learn the valuable lessons animals teach through their natural enthusiasm, grace, resourcefulness, affection and forgiveness." - Richard H. Pitcairn, American Veterinarian, Pet Nutritionist and Author

"Murderers very often start out by killing and torturing animals as kids." - Robert K. Ressler , FBI Serial Killer Profiler

"Most people have forgotten how to live with living creatures, with living systems and that, in turn, is the reason why man, whenever he comes into contact with nature, threatens to kill the natural system in which and from which he lives." - Konrad Lorenz, Naturalist

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." - Pythagoras, Pre-Socratic Greek Philosopher

"I could not have slept tonight if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground." (Reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.) - Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States

"Love of animals is a universal impulse, a common ground on which all of us may meet. By loving and understanding animals, perhaps we humans shall come to understand each other." - Dr. Louis J. Camuti , first US veterinarian to devote his practice to felines only.

"He who harms animals has not understood or renounced deeds of sin. Those whose minds are at peace and who are free from passions do not desire to live at the expense of others." - from Acharanga Sutra - Jainism - Non-Vedic Religion of Old India

"Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research." - George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright and Critic

"Show me the enforced laws of a state for the prevention of cruelty to animals and I in turn will give you a correct estimate of the refinement, enlightenment, integrity and equity of that commonwealth's people." - L.T. Danshiell , Animal Rights Advocate

"The awful wrongs and sufferings forced upon the innocent, helpless, faithful animal race form the blackest chapter in the whole world's history." - Edward Freeman, English Historian and Commentator

"Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life." - Elizabeth Goudge , author of The Joy of the Snow

"If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant, German Philosopher

"I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs... [ they ] are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty." - James Herriot , English Veterinarian and Author

"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 , American Actor

"All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it." - Samuel Butler, British Author, Painter, Photographer, and Art Critic

"Ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering? Because government is not. Why not? Animals don't vote." - Paul Harvey, American Radio Commentator

"Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of low and base minds. Wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness; a mark which all the external advantages of wealth, splendor, and nobility, cannot obliterate. It is consistent neither with learning nor true civility." - William Jones, English Philologist and Jurist

"We are fellow passengers on the same planet, and we are all equally responsible for the happiness and the well-being of the world in which we happen to live." - Hendrick Van Loon

"This rage - I have never forgotten it - contained every anger, every revolt I had ever felt in my life - the way I felt when I saw the black dog hunted, the way I felt when I watched old Uncle Henry taken away to the almshouse, the way I felt whenever I had seen people or animals hurt for the pleasure or profit of others." - Ellen Glasgow, American Author

"When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble." - Buddha Siddhartha Gautama , Indian founder of Buddhism Religion and Philosophy

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity." - George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright and Critice

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights Leader

"Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives." - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Edison, American Scientist and Inventor

"To inflict cruelties on defenseless creatures, or condone such acts, is to abuse one of the cardinal tenets of a civilized society - reverence for life." - Dr. Jon Evans, England

"Human liberation will begin when we understand that our evolution and fulfillment are contingent on the recognition of animal rights and on a compassionate and responsible stewardship of nature." - Dr. Michael W. Fox, Animal Activist

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans." - James Herriot , English Veterinarian and Author

"The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life." - Albert Einstein, American Theoretical Physicist

"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom." - George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright and Critic

"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead, American Anthropologist

"I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth." - John Ruskin, English Author and Critic

"Our treatment of animals is important to our own internal state. If we are to expand our horizons, to grow to understand what the relatedness of each and every thing means, then our love and appreciation of all life is essential. Our respect and reverence for all living things will be reflected in our own living." - Bill Schul , Author of The Psychic Power of Animals

"Many people have learned through relating to animals what it is to care for and accept responsibility for another being." - Richard H. Pitcairn, American Veterinarian, Pet Nutritionist and Author

"It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life. Towards this end, experiments on living animals in classrooms should be stopped. To encourage cruelty in the name of science can only destroy the finer emotions of affection and sympathy, and breed an unfeeling callousness in the young towards suffering in all living creatures." - Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the United States of America

"Love is what extended her life. She had to give it as much as receive it to be happy. Dogs (indeed, all animals) extend our lives, if the truth be known." - Diane Bethel, Web Developer of Stuff'n Such productions speaking of Charmin, her American Eskimo who lived 15 years.

"It is not just that animals make the world more scenic or picturesque. The lives of animals are woven into our very being - closer than our own breathing - and our souls will suffer when they are gone." - Gary Kowalski, Author of The Souls of Animals

"They say he's a sociopath because they don't know what else to call him. He has some of the characteristics of what they call a sociopath. He has no remorse or guilt at all. And he had the first and worst sign - sadism to animals as a child." - Thomas Harris, Author of Red Dragon (other related books by Harris are The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal )

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it." - Author Unknown

"If a man aspires toward a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals." - Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist and Philosopher

"Our treatment of animals will someday be considered barbarous. There cannot be perfect civilization until man realizes that the rights of every living creature are as sacred as his own." - Dr. David Starr Jordan, American Biologist and Educator

"We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature." - Rachel Carson, American Author and Marine Biologist

"Every year tens of thousands of animals suffer and die in laboratory tests of cosmetics and household products, despite the fact that the test results do not help prevent or treat accidental or purposeful misuse of the products. Please join me in using your voice for those whose cries are forever sealed behind the laboratory doors." - Woody Harrelson, Actor

"The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and consequently endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case the cruelty of torment is greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to when enduring the last extreme pain." - Thomas Chalmers, Scottish Religious Leader

"True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation." - Joseph Addison, English Poet

"Life is life's greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life's scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest." - Lloyd Biggle Jr.

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as well as that of his fellowman, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help." - Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he's the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot." - Mark Twain, American Novelist

"My doctrine is this: that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and we do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt." - Anna Sewell, English Novelist

"Providing food and shelter is not proving love for your pet. Those too, but proper care and protection from harm make the truest sense of responsible pet ownership." - John D. Carraway , DVM, enscribed hanging office plaque of his professional motto, FancyBoy and JoJo's Vet

"First they went after the Communists, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Communist. Then they went after the homosexuals and infirm, and I did not stand up, because I was neither. Then they went after the Jews, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Jew. Then they went after the Catholics, and I did not stand up, because I was Protestant. Finally, they went after me, and there was no one left to stand up for me." - Martin Neimoller , German Pastor who spent 8½ years in a Nazi Concentration Camp

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant, German Philosopher

"Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms." - George Eliot, Female English Novelist (Mary Ann Evans)

"We cannot glimpse the essential life of a caged animal, only the shadow of its former beauty." - Julia Allen Field (1937- )

"The awful wrongs and sufferings forced upon the innocent, helpless, faithful animal race, form the blackest chapter in the whole world's history." - Edward Freeman, English Freelance Historian and Journalist

"The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality." - Arthur Schopenhauer, German Philosopher

"A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives." - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"Cherish the wonderful ways our animals are models of living life to the fullest, loving unconditionally, embracing the passion within, and being completely in the present moment." - Susan White

"I have always felt that the way we treat animals is a pretty good indicator of the compassion we are capable of for the human race." - Ali McGraw, American Actress

"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." - Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Musician, Engineer, and Scientist

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi, Indian Statesman and Philosopher

"You have to love animals for what they are or leave them alone. The best thing you can do if you love them is leave them alone and see that other people do too." - Pat Derby (1942- )

"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected." - Chief Seattle American Indian Duwamish Tribe

"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it." - Milan Kundera , Czech Novelist

"If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution - and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity." - Jane Goodall , Author of Reason for Hope

"It is totally unconscionable to subject defenseless animals to mutilation and death, just so a company can be the first to market a new shade of nail polish or a new, improved laundry detergent. It's cruel, it's brutal, it's inhumane, and most people don't want it." - Abigail 'Dear Abby' Van Buren Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in support of the Consumer Products Safe Testing Act, March 1988

"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is...whether its victim is human or animal...we cannot expect things to be much better in this world...We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity." - Rachel Carson, American Biologist and Novelist

"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace." - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow." - Dr. Diane Fossey , Woman in the Mists (Dr. Fossey was killed by someone who killed animals yesterday.)

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men." - Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of humanity." - George Bernard Shaw, Irish Playwright and Critic

"Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury." - Alexander Von Humbolt , German Naturalist

"The quiet conscience is the invention of the devil. No one of us may permit any preventable pain to be inflicted even though the responsibility for that pain is not ours. No one may shut his eyes and think that the pain which is therefore not visible, is nonexistent." - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"You cannot do a kindness too soon, because you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist and Philosopher

"It is as if life had said, 'I am going to send you into a world of cruelty. I shall make you sensitive to pain, fear, heat , cold, hunger and starvation. In this world of cruelty, I shall make you defenseless. In addition, I shall strike you dumb.' This is the kind of world that animals are born into." - Grace Johnson, Animal Activist

"All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action." - James Russell Lowell, American Poet and Essayist

"Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time will come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come." - Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian Theologian, Musician, and Medical Missionary

"To close your eyes will not ease another's pain." - Chinese Proverb

"The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation, and misery on this earth." - George Eliot, Female English Novelist (Mary Ann Evans)

"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." - Dr. Charles Mayo, Founder of the Mayo Clinic

"These birds and animals and fish cannot speak, but they can suffer, and our God who created them, knows their sufferings, and will hold him who causes them to suffer unnecessarily to answer for it. It is a sin against their Creator." - George Q. Cannon, Animal Activist

"Cruelty to dumb animals is one of the distinguishing vices of the lowest and basest of the people - wherever it is found, it is a certain mark of ignorance and meanness." - Jones of Nayland

"The Animals of the planet are in desperate peril and they are fully aware of this. No less than human beings are doing in all parts of the world, they are seeking sanctuary." - Alice Walker, "Selected Writings," Living by the Word

"Love of animals is a universal impulse, a common ground on which all of us may meet. By loving and understanding animals, perhaps we humans shall come to understand each other." - Louis J. Camuti , D.V.M., First American vet to devote his practice exclusively to cats.