Balcombe Quotes

#1. I sense that, without sensitivity to physical pain and pleasure, man would not have known self-interest, and consequently know just or unjust acts. Thus, physical sensitivity and self-interest are the authors of all justice.

Jonathan Balcombe

#2. If we are not given the option to live without violence, we are given the choice to center our meals around harvest or slaughter, husbandry or war. We have chosen slaughter. We have chosen war. That's the truest version of our story of eating animals.
Can we tell a new story?

Jonathan Safran Foer

#3. I think we're insecure about our self-imposed spot at the top of the pyramid of life. New studies are continually undermining our superiority complex and forcing us to reconsider our relationship to animals.

Jonathan Balcombe

#4. Anyone who's lived with companion cats or dogs knows that they are unique individuals with their own personalities. I think animals' secret to getting along is that they are not burdened by an ego.

Jonathan Balcombe

#5. The logical conclusion to a compassionate and respectful relationship to sentient animals is that we stop eating them.

Jonathan Balcombe

#6. Everyone gets scared, like it's some big profound statement?

Elizabeth Scott

#7. We have to realize that treating animals well is in our best interests, too. Cruelty is indivisible; when you are cruel to an animal, you are training yourself to be cruel to people, too (and vice versa).

Jonathan Balcombe

#8. Humbling as it may be, for all our vaunted brain power, humans emerge as nothing special in the sensory sweepstakes. Our senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch are middling, at best.

Jonathan Balcombe

#9. From my earliest memories I was fascinated by animals. I would explore my backyard for insects and gaze at anthills until my elbows became sore. When I was 8, my mother bought me a book of North American birds and I've been keen on birdwatching since.

Jonathan Balcombe

#10. I write romance because I love to read romance.

Rachel Gibson

#11. I guess the more you start to love someone, the more you ache when they're gone, and maybe it's that middle ground that hurts the most, when you can see them and still not feel like you're near enough. So close and yet so far.

Robin Benway

#12. The more we learn, the more questions arise.

Jonathan Balcombe

#13. When I watch animals, I realize I am watching individual with lives that matter, to them. It isn't just another chicken or another mouse. She is that particular hen, autonomous and unique. He is that particular mouse with a unique life and social identity.

Jonathan Balcombe

#14. A cultivation of the powers of one's personality is one of the greatest needs of life.

Randolph Bourne

#15. Humankind won't find peace as long as we're treating feeling animals as if they were so many blocks of wood.

Jonathan Balcombe

#16. Studies show that people who abuse animals are far more likely to engage in interpersonal violence. Violent crime rates tend to be higher in areas where slaughterhouses are related, even when controlling for other variables.

Jonathan Balcombe

#17. In the expression of the emotions, originality merits the first consideration ... The words used, however, should be old ones.

Fujiwara No Teika

#18. Now nearly all the mysteries have gone, and there is scarcely an unknown country left to peer at.)

Jan Morris

#19. People don't like change when it comes to changing their own lifestyle habits.

Jonathan Balcombe