Posted by PS on October 02, 2005 at 01:16:25:
Albert Schweitzer
(1875-1965)
"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."
"We must never permit the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man."
"The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.....It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind." - Nobel Peace Prize Address, "The Problem of Peace in the World Today"
"The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give every will-to-live the reverence for life that he gives his own.
"Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy."
"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 must come wherein humanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come. The quiet conscience is an invention of the devil. Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man."
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A PRAYER FOR ANIMALS
Albert Schweitzer
Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals, especially for animals who are suffering; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that will be put to death. We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity, and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessings of the merciful.
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"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." - St. Francis of Assisi
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“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
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"I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." - Abraham Lincoln
"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." - Abraham Lincoln
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"Cruelty to animals is as if humans did not love God." - Cardinal John Henry Newman
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"Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!" - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
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Enlarge Within Us a Sense of Fellowship
St. Basil (300? - 375 A.D.)
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things; with our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us.
We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of travail.
May we realize that they live not for us alone, but for themselves, and for Thee, and that they love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve Thee in their place better than we in others.
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AN INVOCATION
Rev. Henry Primat, D.D.
Anglican Priest - 1772
Let me entreat thee, O Christian reader, by all that is good and kind and
just; let me entreat thee for God's sake, for Christ's sake, for man's
sake, for the sake of the animals - Yea and for thine own sake.
Make it your business, esteem it your duty, believe it to be the ground of
your hope and know that it is that which the Lord doth require of thee: "to
do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."
See that no animal of any kind, whether entrusted to thy care, or coming
across thy path, suffer through thy neglect or abuse.
Let no hope of profit, no compliance with custom, and no fear of the
ridicule of the world, ever tempt thee to the least act of cruelty or
injustice to any creature whatsoever.
Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
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ALPHA AND OMEGA
May Tripp, a founder of Animal Christian Concern
Christ Jesus
You are the beginning and the end.
In You all things were created
and in You all things are redeemed.
Take now to Your open arms
our grief for Your creation;
for Your wildlife, struggling against extinction;
for the hunted and the trapped;
for the abandoned and the homeless;
for Your animals, unnaturally imprisoned,
transported and slaughtered in terror;
for Your animals cruelly used
as laboratory tools.
Christ Jesus
In us You live as Risen Lord.
Our hearts plead with You now to carry the pain
of Your suffering creatures,
even to the least of these.
The darkness of the world binds them
as it binds us, O Lord,
and only Your love can free us
to live in Your light.