# Quote — Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, When Elephants Weep

> Rats and mice are not generally regarded as pets, but as pests; they have few defenders. Yet the pain a rat or a mouse feels is every bit as real as that of any pet. In laboratories, they suffer, as anybody who has heard them moan, cry, whimper and even scream knows. The experimenters dissimulate about this by insisting that they are merely vocalising. Descartes lives on.

- Author: [Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson.md)
- Book: [When Elephants Weep](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep.md)
- Page: 217
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson#When_Elephants_Weep_(1994)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/rats-and-mice

## More from this book

> Animals cry. At least, they vocalise pain or distress, and perhaps call for help. Most people believe, therefore, that animals can be unhappy and also that they have such feelings as happiness, anger and fear. But there is a tremendous gap between the common sense viewpoint and that of official science on this subject. The ordinary layperson readily believes that his dog, her eat, their parrot or horse, feels. They not only believe it but have constant evidence of it before their eyes. All of us have extraordinary stories of animals we know well. Yet, by dint of rigorous training and great efforts of the mind, most modern scientists — especially those who study the behaviour of animals — have succeeded in becoming almost blind to these matters.

p. 11 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/animals-cry-at-least.md)

> The professional and financial interest in continuing animal experimentation helps to explain at least some resistance to the notion that animals have a complex emotional life and are capable of experiencing the higher emotions, such as love, compassion, altruism, disappointment and nostalgia. To acknowledge such a possibility implies certain moral obligations. If chimpanzees can experience loneliness and mental anguish, it becomes more wrong to use them for experiments in which they are isolated and anticipate daily pain.

p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/the-professional-and.md)

> It is often said that if slaughterhouses were made of glass, most people would be vegetarians. If the general public knew what went on inside animal experimentation laboratories, they would be abolished. However, the parallel is not exact. Slaughterhouses are invisible because the public wants them that way. Everyone knows what goes on inside them; they simply do not want to be confronted with it. Most people do not know what goes on with animal experimentation. Slaughterhouses allow visits. Laboratories where animal experiments are performed are secretive. Perhaps those who conduct the experiments know they would be stopped if what they do were known even by other scientists. Perhaps they are ashamed.

p. 216 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jeffrey-moussaieff-masson/when-elephants-weep/it-is-often.md)