- “If you consume animal derived foods or use other animal derived products you are by no stretch of the imagination an “environmentalist.” You are a rank hypocrite.” ― Will Hazlitt
- “Without pushing an agenda (okay, maybe I’ve pushed a bit), I’ve spread a little veganism wherever I’ve gone. I’ve become friends with chefs at the meatiest restaurants you can imagine, and shown them a few things that opened their minds (and their menus) to vegan options. It’s easy to be convincing when the food is delicious. It doesn’t feel like a sacrifice–it feels like a step up.” ― Tal Ronnen, The Conscious Cook: Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change the Way You Eat
- “Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue…? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending the ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels and terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible?” ― Peter Singer
- “When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is really hideous, and “compassionate” or “certified humane” or whatever, which *may* be *slightly* less hideous. But it’s all torture. It’s all wrong. These “happy” gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don’t buy the propaganda of “happy” exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism.” ― GaryLFrancione
- “The length of the life of the consumer of the product is, to the vast majority of food manufacturers, not nearly as important as the product’s shelf life.” ― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
- “Everyone has it within their heart to be vegan, but each time they eat anything from an animal they deny that this is so, they deny that they have enough love in their hearts to show these animals mercy and free them from our tyranny.This is a blatant lie that they keep telling themselves, time and time again. They would rather argue that they don’t care about animals and find excuses to justify and continue harming them, than acknowledge any ‘sissy’ ability they might have to feel compassion for them.What they don’t understand is, that they hurt themselves by not acknowledging this latent ability within their hearts though, and with this they deny themselves love too, for what is given out always comes back multifold.” ― Mango Wodzak
- “For every ten tuna, sharks, and other large predatory fish that were in our oceans fifty to a hundred years ago, only one is left.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
- “If one cares about the earth—if one respects nature—it is better to consume vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains. If you care about the planet and wish to adopt an earth-friendly lifestyle, it is advisable to focus only secondarily on the car that you drive, or recycling, or turning off lights and turning down heat, and primarily on what you buy at the grocery store. What we eat has a much greater impact on the environment.” ― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions
- “The idea that damage has to be pain is mistaken. We feel pain because we have specific types of receptors called nociceptors which are programmed to respond to pain, not to touch. People can have genetic malfunctions where they feel pressure but never feel pain because they don’t have pain receptors.” ― Daniel Chamovitz, What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses
- “Many people say to me, “Should I be a vegetarian or shouldn’t I?” “Should I have sex or shouldn’t I?” “Should I meditate forty minutes or shouldn’t I?” People that meditate exactly the right number of minutes, eat exactly the right food, do all the things perfectly, can also be caught in the chain of gold, in the chain of righteousness and ritual. This is not liberation. But eventually one does perform the spiritual practices, not out of obligation, not out of guilt, but because we’ve got to do it. Because it’s demanded of us by us. We end up going through hell in meditation to quiet our minds, not because someone says, “You ought to quiet your mind,” but because our agitated minds are driving us up the wall, and it’s keeping us from getting on with it. We’ll learn how to pray, and read holy books, and practice devotional acts and chants, opening our hearts and asking Christ to fill us with love, not because we’re good, but because with a closed heart we know we cannot come into the flow of the universe.” ― Ram Dass, Grist for the Mill
- “Our deeply-rooted beliefs about the wholesomeness of milk and dairy products should be re-considered under careful, scientific evaluation.Given the tumor promotor effect of IGF-1, patients with tumorous disease should restrict consumption of milk and milk protein. The same applies to patients with coronary heart disease and with a family history of neurodegenerative disease. Milk consumption has already been identified as an aggravating factor in the acne “epidemic” among adolescents, and preliminary successes have been reported with reduced milk consumption. It is even more important that excessive milk consumption can promote diseases commonly associated with a Western lifestyle” ― Bodo Melnik
- “I treat vegetarianism as a phase that might any second end without warning.” ― Amit Chaudhuri, Friend of My Youth
- “Poor animals, how jealously they guard their bodies, for to us is merely an evening’s meal, but to them is life itself.” ― T. Casey Brennan
- “The reason why many people remain on the bottom is because they play to ‘not lose’, as opposed to playing to win at all costs.” ― Brandi L. Bates, Remains To Be Seen
- “Embrace compassion without exception.” ― Dr. Janice Anderson & Kiersten Anderson
- “A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.” ― George Bernard Shaw
- “Choose a compassionate frame of mind. Always choose love. Always be kind.” ― Beth Arnold, Always Be Kind
- “It shouldn’t be the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s cruel and what’s kind, what’s environmentally destructive and what’s sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don’t need the option of buying children’s toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don’t need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
- “Animals are property. There are laws that supposedly protect animal interestsin being treated “humanely,” but that term is interpreted in large part to mean that we cannot impose “unnecessary” harm on animals, and that is measured by what treatment is considered as necessary within particular industries, and according to customs of use, to exploit animals. The bottom line is that animals do not have any respect-based rights in the way that humans have, because we do not regard animals as having any moral value. They have only economic value. We value their interests economically, and we ignore their interests when it is economically beneficial for us to do so.At this point in time, it makes no sense to focus on the law, because as long as we regard animals as things, as a moral matter, the laws will necessarily reflect that absence of moral value and continue to do nothing to protect animals. We need to change social and moral thinking about animals before the law is going to do anything more.” ― Gary L. Francione
- “We report the unusual occurrence of eight cases of vitamin D intoxication that appear to have been caused by excessive vitamin D fortification of dairy milk… All eight patients drank milk produced by a local dairy in amounts ranging from 1/2 to 3 cups (118 to 710 ml) daily…Analysis of the dairy’s vitamin D—fortified milk revealed concentrations of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) that ranged from undetectable to as high as 232,565 IU per quart (245,840 IU per liter). An analysis of the concentrate that was used to fortify the milk, labeled as containing vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), revealed that it contained vitamin D3.” ― Claire Jacobus
- “This touches on the issue of how vegans should handle the caveman argument. Many of us are tempted to strain credulity and torture the evidence to ‘prove’ humans are ‘naturally’ vegan. This is a trap, and one into which carnists (especially paleo-dieters) would love us to fall; the evidence isn’t on our side. There’s no doubt that hominids ate meat…. The argument for veganism has always been primarily ethical, and ought to remain that way. It’s based on a concern for the future, not an obsession about the past.” ― Jack Norris
- “The theory behind vegetarian eating as the highest form of purity led me to campaign tirelessly for animal rights. Many times I considered animal rights to be more important than human priorities. I didn’t realize until years later that I was developing an attitude towards animals I had rejected growing up in India. Some animals were becoming sacred in my eyes. And I was placing their value well above that of human beings.” ― Caryl Matrisciana
- “I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
- “Yet complicated people were getting wet – not only the shepherds. For instance, the piano-tuner was sopping. So was the vicar’s wife. So were the lieutenant and the peevish damsels in his Battlesden car. Gallantry, charity, and art pursued their various missions, perspiring and muddy, while out on the slopes beyond them stood the eternal man and the eternal dog, guarding eternal sheep until the world is vegetarian.” ― E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey
- “Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.” ― GaryLFrancione
- “Nobody can possibly be so hungry that they need to take a life in order to feel satisfied – they don’t after all, take a human life, so why take the life of an animal? Both are conscious beings with the same determination to survive. It is habit, and laziness and nothing else.” ― Morrissey, Autobiography
- “Something I’ve never been able to adapt to, to understand, is how they can lavish such love and care on the animals and then see them sold for slaughter.” ― Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
- “Vegetarians and especially vegans have a significantly lower prevalence of obesity than meat eaters. Differences in macronutrient intakes (protein, fat, carbohydrate, dietary fibre, sugars, alcohol) accounted for about half the difference in mean body mass index (BMI) between vegans and meat eaters.” ― Emil Ginter
- “Morally it may be better to not kill any creature for their flesh, but biologically, meat was one of the greatest factors involved in the rise of the psychology of thinking humanity.” ― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
- “Now, I’m sure you are thinking, were they really children, or were they adults who hadn’t eaten protein or calcium in so many years that their bone structure was actually in an advanced state of atrophy and they appeared much smaller than people who eat food?” ― Laurie Notaro, It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy