I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.
James HerriotRead
I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.
Interpretation
Animals rely on humans for care and protection, much like children depend on adults.
James Herriot highlights the deep responsibility humans have towards animals, emphasizing their vulnerability and dependence similar to that of children. This quote challenges us to acknowledge the trust that animals place in us and calls for compassion and responsible stewardship in our relationship with them.
In practice
This quote can be used in an animal welfare campaign to emphasize the importance of caring for pets.
I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.
I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.
I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.
Let us not demean or belittle. Rather, let us be compassionate and encouraging.
God has identified himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not for clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few people give to the unknown; homelessness, not only just for a shelter made from stone but for that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.
Aside from doing everything possible to provide programs for people who are seriously ill, I want to do everything humanly possible to help create a more caring society so that we can begin to counter the painful loneliness and sense of helplessness which has engulfed too many of our people.
For arousing compassion, the nineteenth-century yogi Patrul Rinpoche suggested imagining beings in torment - an animal about to be slaughtered, a person awaiting execution. To make it more immediate, he recommended imagining ourselves in their place. Particularly painful is his image of a mother with no arms watching as a raging river sweeps her child away. To contact the suffering of another being fully and directly is as painful as being in the woman's shoes.
I want to express my closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been struck by a strong earthquake, and I invite you to pray for that dear nation, which in recent days has suffered different calamities.
Unless you have suffered and wept, you really don't understand what compassion is, nor can you give comfort to someone who is suffering. If you haven't cried, you can't dry another's eyes. Unless you've walked in darkness, you can't help wanderers find the way. Unless you've looked into the eyes of menacing death and felt its hot breath, you can't help another rise from the dead and taste anew the joy of being alive.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.