"There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science, as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion'."
Henry J. Bigelow, M.D., Professor of Surgery, Medical School Harvard University.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it... It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions... The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot... I am not interested to know whether experimentation produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further... In studying the traits and dispositions of the so-called lower animals, and contrasting them with man's, I find the result humiliating to me. Mark Twain (1835-1910).

Animal experimentation is the blackest of all the black crimes that a man is at present committing... I abhor experimentation with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence... The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Gandhi (1869-1948).

Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research... Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).

During my medical education at the University of Basel I found [animal] experimentation horrible, barbarous, and above all unnecessary.
Carl G. Jung (1875-1961).

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963).

Let none count themselves wise who have not with the nerves of their imagination felt the pain of the vivisected.
John Cowper Powys (1872-1963).

At present scientists do not look for alternatives simply because they do not care enough about the animals they are using.
Peter Singer (1946- ).

What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit for their cruelty... Man by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).

We must develop a better sense of responsibilty towards our total environment...this better sense cannot any longer exclude from revision the staples of our diet. The case against vivisection is the same as that against war and all other forms of cruelty - that violence does not produce long-term solutions...the only argument against vivisection that will be seen to have lasting power - that we do not improve human society by means that debase human character.
Jon Wynne-Tyson (1924- ).

I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, experimentation...I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.
Robert Browning (1812-1889).

How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?... Perhaps that voice or cry so nearly resembling the human, with which providence has endued so many different animals, might purposely be given them to move our pity, and prevent those cruelties we are too apt to inflict on our fellow-creatures.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744).

I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures.
Christian Barnard.

Is there any reason why we should be allowed to torment the[se animals]? Not any that I can see. Are there any why we should not be allowed to torment them. Yes several... The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).