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Yet, like all God’s wonderful gifts to us, this great gift of pain can be turned into a horrible curse. Just in proportion as God’s love provides the possibility of good, so our vice or ignorance makes the possibility of evil. The abuse of God’s gift of pain may be the cause of the most terrible of evils, and we call it cruelty.

— William Brown Our Lesser Brethren (1919)

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More quotes by William Brown

When we really understand what pain has to teach us, we shall in large measure have abolished suffering.

Our Lesser Brethren (1919)

There are paths to knowledge which must be forever closed to us, and the way of vivisection is one of those paths. It is made possible only because of our cowardice and fears.

I have observed cats and dogs, horses, cattle and sheep under every kind of pain, and I do unhesitatingly say that they suffer as we suffer.

While some animals are protected by law, far too many still remain outside the pale of such protection. And so, I ask: should not their capacity to suffer be the measure of their right to be protected? This is not a plea for charity but for justice—a right that must be claimed.

Have you a right to torture animals for your pleasure? Have you a right to make their lives amid terror and misery in order to derive some measure of gratification from what are called the pleasures of the chase?

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Brown (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.