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The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
--
"American Literature — Dr. Channing," Edinburgh Review, (October 1829), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)

 

William Hazlitt

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And therefore, even though animals are in pain, they aren't aware of it. They don't have this third order pain awareness. They are not aware of pain, and therefore they do not suffer as human beings do. Now, this is a tremendous comfort to those of us who are animal lovers, like myself, or to pet owners. Even though your dog or your cat may be in pain, it isn't really aware of being in pain, and therefore it doesn't suffer as you would when you are in pain.

 

William Lane Craig

 

I suppose not many people dress up with insults to go out. We, the homosexuals, have no other choice. Insults are for us almost an epistemological variable: we have learned to know our fellow beings -for, as much as it surprises us, they are our fellow beings- through their insults, and they, on the other hand, have learned to know us in spite of the exhausting job -a hard duty impossed by society- of insulting us.

 

Miss Shangay Lily

 

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.

 

Helen Keller

 

English is a language of mass destruction. Lady Macbeth is a queen of mass destruction. Lear is a king of mass destruction. Hamlet is a prince of mass destruction. Shakespeare is a bard of mass destruction. And Moby Dick is a whale of mass destruction. Why are you a culture of death and destruction? Why do you obliterate villages, cities, and civilizations with your language of mass destruction? Is the destruction worth the destruction? For what purpose did you destroy my language? To impose the sovereignty of your rule of law with weapons of mass destruction—to then say: --I offer you my lifesaver. Now, we can communicate in the same language. English only, please.

 

Giannina Braschi

 

How far down the evolutionary scale shall we go? Shall we eat fish? What about shrimps? Oysters? To answer these questions we must bear in mind the central principle on which our concern for other beings is based...the only legitimate boundary to our concern for the interests of other beings is the point at which it is no longer accurate to say that the other being has interests. To have interests, in a strict, nonmetaphorical sense, a being must be capable of suffering or experiencing pleasure. If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for disregarding that suffering, or for refusing to count it equally with the like suffering of any other being. But the converse of this is also true. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of enjoyment, there is nothing to take into account.

 

Peter Singer