Quotations

Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us."
Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like us."
Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.

[Professor Charles R.Magel]

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality. All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

'And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over the earth, and over everything that creepeth upon the earth'.

“Dominion is an interesting word, and when I delved into its origin I found it does not mean, as some people believe, 'dominance over', but something quite different and very beautiful. It comes from the Hebrew verb 'yorade' which means 'to come down to: to have communion with and compassion for' which is what we are instructed to do with all living things in that passage in Genesis”.

[Excerpt from Bob Kerridge Auckland SPCA Newsletter 15.12.09]

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.

[Mahatma Gandhi. An Autobiography, the Story of My Experiments]

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.

[Isaac Bashevis Singer]

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.

[George Bernard Shaw]

The question is not, can they reason? Nor can they talk? But can they suffer?

[Jeremy Bentham]

If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

[Immanuel Kant]

If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbour follows a similar path, will we need to go to war against our neighbour to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbour will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason.

[Socrates 470-399 BC]

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

[Thomas Edison]

The greatness of a nation and it's moral progress, can be judged by the way it treats it's animals.

[Ghandi]

A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. And yet we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.

[Albert Einstein]

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

[Albert Einstein ]

To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.

[Ella W. Willcox]

In May (2009) the nation was shocked and disgusted to see the condition in which pigs are farmed in crates and sow stalls with the expose on the (TV) “Sunday” programme. What was revealed sickened all who saw it, and that this practice, which totally contravenes the Animal Welfare Act, is 'legal' because the 'code of welfare for pigs' allows it, makes a mockery of animal welfare…

[Bob Kerridge Executive Director Auckland SPCA]

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. And if enough individuals took action, it would become a national movement.

[Margaret Mead]

The penalty good men suffer for not getting involved in public affairs is being ruled by evil men.

[Plato]

There’s a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig—an animal easily as intelligent as a dog—that becomes the Christmas ham.

[The New York Times Magazine, “An Animal’s Place” by Michael Pollan]

I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat. It is only some carnivorous animals that have to subsist on flesh. Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.

[His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet]

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

[Alice Walker – American Author “The Colour Purple”]

There is little that separates humans from other sentient beings—we all feel pain, we all feel joy, we all deeply crave to be alive and live freely, and we all share this planet together.

[Gandhi]

If a man earnestly seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food.

[Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist & philosopher, (1829-1910)]

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

[Albert Einstein, physicist, 1921 Nobel Prize recipient]

It is my view that a vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

[Albert Einstein, physicist, 1921 Nobel Prize recipient]

It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet.

[Mahatma Gandhi, Hindu pacifist and spiritual leader, (1869-1948)]

I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live, I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species.

[Mahatma Gandhi, Hindu pacifist and spiritual leader, (1869-1948)]

All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?

[The Buddha, Indian avatar, (circa 563-483 B.C.)]

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.

[Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian sculptor, artist, inventor, (1425-1519)]

The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.

[Plutarch, Greek philosopher, (46-120 A.D.)]

Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food.

[Henry David Thoreau, American author, naturalist (1812-1862)]

My situation is a solemn one: life is offered to me on the condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed, not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures. It will be, without the exception of Noah's Ark, the most remarkable thing of its kind ever seen.

[George Bernard Shaw, Anglo-Irish author and playwright, 1925 Nobel Prize Recipient, (1856-1950)]

The average age (longevity) of a meat-eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still at work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die, but I simply cannot do it. A single beefsteak would finish me, but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.

[George Bernard Shaw, Anglo-Irish author and playwright, 1925 Nobel Prize Recipient, (1856-1950)]

The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds.

[Plato, Greek philosopher, (circa 428-347 B.C.)]

…There slowly grew up in me an unshakable conviction that we have no right to inflict suffering and death on another living creature, unless there is some unavoidable necessity for it.

[Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Alsatian philosopher and medical missionary, 1952 Nobel prize recipient, (1875-1965)]

When I was 88 years old, I gave up meat entirely and switched to a plant foods diet following a slight stroke. During the following months, I not only lost 50 pounds, but gained strength in my legs and picked up stamina. Now, at age 93, I'm on the same plant-based diet, and I still don't eat any meat or dairy products. I either swim, walk, or paddle a canoe daily and I feel the best I've felt since my heart problems began.

[Benjamin Spock, M.D, the famous Dr. Spock pediatrician and author, (1903-1998)]

If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard.

[Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish Laureate of literature, 1978 Nobel Prize recipient, (1904-1991)]

My refusing to eat meat occasioned inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.

[Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, inventor, (1706-1790)]

The utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable.

[Sir Thomas More, Irish author and poet, (1478-1535)]

It is increasingly obvious that environmentally sustainable solutions to world hunger can only emerge as people eat more plant foods and fewer animal products. To me it is deeply moving that the same food choices that give us the best chance to eliminate world hunger are also those that take the least toll on the environment, contribute the most to our long-term health, are the safest, and are also, far and away, the most compassionate towards our fellow creatures.

[John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution]

People are the only animals that drink the milk of the mother of another species. All other animals stop drinking milk altogether after weaning. It is unnatural for a dog to nurse from a mother giraffe; it is just as unnatural for a human being to drink the milk of a cow.

[Michael Klaper, M.D., American author and international lecturer]

I think of veganism humbly and holistically. It's about taking personal responsibility in a world so full of needless suffering. It's challenging one's self to open one's eyes and question society's assumptions and habits. It's about critical thinking and compassion and how we would like to see the world evolve.

[Michael Greger, M.D., American medical doctor, author, lecturer]

We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.

[Rachel Carson, American author, Silent Spring (1907-1964)]

The Christian argument for vegetarianism is simple: since animals belong to God, have value to God and live for God, then their needless destruction is sinful.

[Reverend Dr. Andrew Linzey, Anglican priest, professor and author, Oxford University Chaplain]

When we dare to think of the environmental threats facing our planet: air pollution, water pollution, land contamination, soil erosion, wildlife loss, desertification (the turning of verdant land into a condition resembling natural desert), rain forest destruction and global warming, humankind's profligate consumption of animal products has made a significant contribution to all of these ills, and it stands as the leading cause of many of them. Certainly these problems wouldn't disappear overnight but no other lifestyle change could produce as positive an impact on these profound threats to our collective survival as the adoption of a plant-based diet.

[Howard Lyman, American author and international lecturer]

The vegan genuinely believes that “Thou Shalt Not Kill” means exactly what it says, no more no less. It certainly does not mean “Thou Shalt Not Kill, except for the pleasure of eating the bodies of the slain or drinking the milk intended by nature for the slaughtered calf; the vain desire to adorn the human body with fur, feathers, or skin of another animal; or because it is a very profitable business to breed or catch animals for the experimental laboratory where they will be starved, burned, gassed, poisoned or mutilated and otherwise tortured and then killed.

[Eva V Batt]

In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.

[Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines]

When I was old enough to realize that all meat was killed, I saw it as an irrational power, to take a weaker thing and mutilate it. It was like bullies would take control of younger kids in the school yard.

[River Phoenix]

Isn’t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes - by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal- health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for ‘Peace on Earth’.

[Coats, C. David from Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm]

Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.

[Tom Reagen, Author of ‘Empty Cages’]

I brainwashed youngsters into doing wrong. I want to say sorry to children everywhere for selling out to concerns who make millions by murdering animals.

[Geoffrey Guiliano, the main Ronald McDonald actor in the 1980's who quit and publicly apologized]

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.

[Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C.]

Animals have one right - the right not to be property.

[Gary Francione]

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]

Every time you chew down on a burger or swallow a glass of milk, an innocent animal is killed. You can end the suffering. You can choose life over death. You can go vegan.

[Sam Tucker at 13 years]

We don't know the spiritual advancements long-term veganism - over generations - would have for human life. It would be certainly a different civilisation, and the first one in the whole of our history that would truly deserve the title of being a civilisation.

[Donald Watson. 2002]

How can anyone with any intelligence, sensitivity and humanity believe that housing animals in a space barely bigger than they are is anything other than barbaric, cruel and totally unacceptable? Farmers who interpret what are clearly badly drafted and crazy rules in this way, are doing so for their own convenience and profit.

[Pat Booth, Columnist (Regarding factory farmed pigs 2009)]

Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,…and…the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

[Bible. Genesis 1 : 29,30]