Anna Sewell

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is? […] it is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doer to light.

My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple trees.

If you in the morning

Throw minutes away,

You can't pick them up

In the course of a day.

You may hurry and scurry,

And flurry and worry,

You've lost them forever,

Forever and aye.

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

If a thing is right, it can be done, and if it is wrong, it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.

[W]e call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

To my dear and honoured Mother, whose life, no less than her pen, has been devoted to the welfare of others, this little book is affectionately dedicated.

[T]hey always think they can improve upon nature and mend what God has made.

[I]f they strain me up tight, why, let 'em look out! I can't bear it, and I won't.

God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves, but He had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.

I am never afraid of what I know.

[W]e shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.