Inspiring Animal Quotes: A Heartwarming Collection to Uplift Your Spirit

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Anatole France

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his."

- John Grogan

"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

"Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them."

- John Grogan

"You cannot share your life in a meaningful way with any animals such as a dog, cat, rabbit, bird, rat, pig, horse and so many more and not know that we are not the only sentient and sapient beings on the planet."

- Jane Goodall

"Animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticism."

- George Eliot

"We don’t own the planet Earth, we belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife."

- Steve Irwin

"It’s not enough to love animals; we must actively protect and preserve them. It’s our duty and responsibility as custodians of this planet."

- Daphne Sheldrick

"Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way."

- John Muir

"The animal does not question life. It lives. Its very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes life."

- Ray Bradbury

"An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language."

- Martin Buber

"You can learn so much from animals. They have this wonderful quality of being in the moment, and they help you spend time there."

- Emmylou Harris

"Perhaps the greatest gift an animal has to offer is a permanent reminder of who we really are."

- Nick Trout

"There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

- Rachel Carson

"Pets are humanizing. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life."

- James Cromwell

"Your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain."

- Albert Einstein

"Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man."

- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet."

- Colette

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

- Anatole France

"A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself."

- Josh Billings

"Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man."

- Mark Twain

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

- John Muir

"Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem."

- A.A. Milne

"We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves"

- Peter Singer

"Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet"

- Marc Bekoff

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

- Albert Einstein

"If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love."

- Steve Irwin

"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties. The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery."

- Charles Darwin

"True compassion is showing kindness towards animals, without expecting anything in return."

- Paul Oxton

"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

"We must remember that our actions towards animals reflect our humanity. It is our responsibility to be compassionate and kind."

- Velma Bronn Johnston

"We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves."

- Cesar Chavez

"Animals are not property or “things” but rather living organisms, subjects of a life, who are worthy of our compassion, respect, friendship, and support."

- Marc Bekoff

"Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind’s capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don’t; because they all stand unequal and powerless before us. Animals are so easily overlooked, their interests so easily brushed aside. Whenever we humans enter their world, from our farms to the local animal shelter to the African savanna, we enter as lords of the earth bearing strange powers of terror and mercy alike."

- Matthew Scully

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."

- Alice Walker

"Animals are a gift from above for they truly define the words unconditional love."

- Heather Wolf

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."

- Roger Caras

"Of all the special things we choose to do for our planet, let one of them to be of service to animals."

- Paul Oxton

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

- Anatole France

"If we’re going to have animals around we all have to be concerned about them and take care of them."

- Bob Ross

"Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms."

- George Eliot

"Brutality to an animal is cruelty to mankind – it is only the difference in the victim."

- Alphonse de Lamartine

"The best friend a man can have is an animal—they are so agreeable, they don’t hate on you and they embrace you without passing any criticism."

- Shenita Etwaroo

"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."

- Francis of Assisi

"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."

- Charles Darwin

"Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms."

- George Eliot

"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

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be."

- Konrad Lorenz

"Animals are the bridge between us and the beauty of all that is natural. They show us what's missing in our lives, and how to love ourselves more completely and unconditionally."

- Trisha McCagh

"The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants."

- Johnny Depp

"Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends."

- George Bernard Shaw

"The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals."

- Theophile Gautier

"For an animal person, an animal-less home is no home at all."

- Cleveland Amory

"Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem."

- Benjamin Hoff

"The greatness of animals is that they are just themselves."

- Alice Walker

"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language."

- Martin Buber

"Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That's the problem."

- A.A. Milne

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."

- Immanuel Kant

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent."

- Milan Kundera

"Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do."

- Betty White

"One small cat changes coming home to an empty house to coming home."

- Pam Brown

"Before you get a dog, you can’t quite imagine what living with one might be like; afterward, you can’t imagine living any other way."

- Caroline Knapp

"I don’t understand people that don’t love animals. The more I spend time experiencing animals and nature, the more I contemplate human existence."

- Sarah Silverman

"Disinterested love for all living creatures, the most noble attribute of man."

- Charles Darwin

"Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer."

- Dean Koontz

"Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to."

- Alfred A. Montapert

"The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, ‘What good is it?’"

- Aldo Leopold

"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."

- Albert Schweitzer

"The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat."

- Jules Renard

"Animals are my friends…and I don’t eat my friends."

- George Bernard Shaw

"The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs."

- Charles de Gaulle

"I call my horses ‘divine mirrors’—they reflect back the emotions you put in. If you put in love and respect and kindness and curiosity, the horse will return that."

- Allan Hamilton

"There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham."

- Anna Sewell

"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does."

- Christopher Morley

"If we’re going to have animals around, we all have to be concerned about them and take care of them."

- Bob Ross

"People don’t get the big picture—animals matter, people matter, and animals in the lives of people matter."

- Noel Fitzpatrick

"The animal world shows us the potential we can unfold. But to learn from them, we must first learn to speak with them."

- Ted Andrews

"Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals ‘love’ them. But those who respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more."

- Edwin Way Teale

"People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"I really don’t think I could consent to go to Heaven if I thought there were no animals there."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Animals are like people because people are animals."

- Barbara T. Gates

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."

- Hippolyte Taine

"As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human mind."

- Cleveland Amory

"All animals are distrustful of man, and with reason, but when once assured he does not mean to injure them, their confidence becomes so great that he must be worse than a barbarian who abuses it."

- Jean Jacques Rousseau

"Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul."

- Pitagora

"Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms."

- George Eliot

"Cats are angels with fur."

- Sark

"There is no doubt that plants and animals have minds, emotions, feelings, and survival instincts. This means that we must also consider a new heaven for these creatures."

- Mwanandeke Kindembo

"Human beings are distinguished from animals by their spirit and their moral values; but when they become immoral, they are wildest even more than animals."

- Bruce Mbanzabugabo

"Animals will attack if provoked, to protect their family or just to put food on the table, yet man still hasn’t learned these simple basics of life. Somehow I don’t think we are the intelligent species after all."

- Anthony T. Hincks

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."

- Proverbs 12:10

"Money can buy you a fine dog, but only love can make him wag his tail."

- Kinky Friedman

"But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you."

- Job 12:7

"Time spent with cats is never wasted."

- Sigmund Freud

"Be the person your dog thinks you are."

- C.J. Frick

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

"In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this."

- Terry Pratchett

"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function."

- Garrison Keillor

"Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later."

- Mary Bly

"She was a wild, free-spirited creature."

- Atticus

"Man is the cruelest animal."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man."

- Fëdor Dostoevskij

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."

- George Orwell

"Only animals were not expelled from Paradise."

- Milan Kundera

"In their haunted eyes, I catch a glimpse of what they left behind."

- Amanda Stocks

"Four legs good, two legs bad."

- George Orwell

"Saving one animal won't change the world, but it will change the world for that one animal."

"Just a squirrel being squirrelly and nutty as always."

"Living that FOMO life - Fear of Missing Mice!"