Veganism Quotes

If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit's eyes, they should throw it in Charles Manson's eyes and ask him if it hurts. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

In California, the state's huge dairy herd produces twenty-seven million tons of manure a year, the particulates and vapors from which have helped to make air quality in the argiculturally intensive San Joaquin Valley worse than it is Los Angeles. ~ Paul Roberts

The mass of the population before the modern era rarely ate meat as the mass of the peasantry rarely do in underdeveloped countries today. In Europe, in the Middle Ages, meat, especially red meat, was associated with aristocracy, landed gentry and their militaristic and hunting culture. It was this, also, that tended to strengthen the association of meat with power and aggression. ~ Malcolm Hamilton

When we have a choice it is always best to choose kindness. Veganism is simply the kinder choice. ~ Sharon Gannon

From the Buddhist point of view, all living beings -- that is, beings with feelings, experiences, and sensations -- are considered equal. Human beings can live without eating meat. As human beings, I think that deep down our nature tends towards vegetarianism and leads us to do everything in our power to prevent harming other species. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Veganism is beneficial to the wellbeing of all. ~ Lynda Mullaly Hunt

There is nothing extreme about ethical veganism.

What is extreme is eating decomposing flesh and animal secretions.

What is extreme is that we regard some animals as members of our family while, at the same time, we stick forks into the corpses of other animals.

What is extreme is thinking that it is morally acceptable to inflict suffering and death on other sentient creatures simply because we enjoy the taste of animal products or because we like the look of clothes made from animals.

What is extreme is that we say that we recognize that "unnecessary" suffering and death cannot be morally justified and then we proceed to engage in exploitation on a daily basis that is completely unnecessary.

What is extreme is pretending to embrace peace while we make violence, suffering, torture and death a daily part of our lives.

What is extreme is that we excoriate people like Michael Vick, Mary Bale and Sarah Palin as villains while we continue to eat, use, and consume animal products.

What is extreme is that we say that we care about animals and that we believe that they are members of the moral community, but we sponsor, support, encourage and promote "happy" meat/dairy labeling schemes. (see 1, 2, 3)

What is extreme is not eating flesh but continuing to consume dairy when there is absolutely no rational distinction between meat and dairy (or other animal products). There is as much suffering and d ~ Gary L. Francione

Clearly the current system has failed. Why not give peace and compassion a chance? There is a terribly tragic folly behind desires for world peace, while still demanding the mass murder of animals for food. ~ Mango Wodzak

Elsewhere the paper notes that vegetarians and vegans (including athletes) 'meet and exceed requirements' for protein. And, to render the whole we-should-worry-about-getting-enough-protein-and-therefore-eat-meat idea even more useless, other data suggests that excess animal protein intake is linked with osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones in the urinary tract, and some cancers. Despite some persistent confusion, it is clear that vegetarians and vegans tend to have more optimal protein consumption than omnivores. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Despite my deep unease about animal advocates working for things we don't want and asking for changes we don't believe in, I am not an "abolitionist." First, the abolition of animal slavery will no more end speciesism by itself than the abolition of American slavery ended racism. To change the world, I think we should aim higher. Second, I'm increasingly convinced that no matter who uses the term, it hides a slur. When used to refer to others, it connotes zealotry and obstructionism, and when taken as self-definition, it is seen as an attack by anyone who does not apply it to herself. Yes, it's a highly defensible moral philosophy, right up there with Peter Singer's application of Utilitarianism to animal liberation, and Tom Regan's Theory of Rights, but like those other intellectual concepts, it's useful only so far as it engenders right action. ~ Sarahjane Blum

Vegan is just pure love. Love for animals, love for the planet, and love for yourself. ~ Mischa Temaul

Getting calcium from plants might seem a little strange in a society that is so focused on dairy foods as a source of calcium, but some research suggests that even omnivores get as much as 40 percent of their calcium from plant foods. While a strong dairy lobby has convinced many consumers that milk and other dairy foods are essential for a healthy diet, the ability to drink milk into adulthood is not the norm throughout the world. Normal development throughout most of the world involves a gradual loss of the enzyme needed to digest milk sugar after children are weaned from breast milk. We refer to the lack of this enzyme as "lactose intolerance." But that's definitely a western bias since this "intolerance" is not a lack or an abnormality; it's part of normal human development in most people. ~ Jack Norris

The sixteen hundred dairies in California's Central Valley alone produce more waste than a city of twenty-one million people-that's more than the populations of London, New York, and Chicago combined. ~ Gene Baur

Freedman and Barnouin reveal the truth in Skinny Bitch, but they encase the truth in lies
women must be skinny to be attractive and being attractive should be a priority
via the typical verbiage of female disempowerment. ~ Kim Socha

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

For better or worse, humans or our descendants will be responsible for life on Earth for the indefinite future. Despite the initially daunting technical challenges, the biggest obstacle to compassionate stewardship of the world's free-living nonhuman animal population is not technical or even financial but ideological. ~ David Pearce

Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism. ~ Gary L. Francione

If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love. ~ Gary L. Francione

I don't believe vegans (or vegetarians) who still get their (packaged, preservative/chemical-ridden) food from industrial food systems have any righteous ground to stand on, nor do I think a deep look at the sentient life of plants or the true environmental impact of agriculture permits them any comfortable distance from cruelty. Everything in this world eats something else to survive, and that something else, whether running on blood or chlorophyll, would always rather continue to live rather than become sustenance for another. No animal wants to be penned up and milked, or caged and harvested, and you've never seen plants growing in regimented lines of their own accord. ~ Brian Awehali

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

Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

I have been a vegetarian for forty-two years. I did it because I didn't want animals to die so I could eat. Then, eight to ten years ago, when I found out the life of a dairy cow is way worse than the life of a beef cow, I understood I had to switch to complete veganism. Otherwise, I would be very inconsistent in my beliefs that animals shouldn't be abused for food. ~ Sam Simon

Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory
disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Human beings are important only to the survival of the human race. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The horse and the cow, the rabbit and the cat, the deer and the hare, the pheasant and the lark, please us better as friends than as meat. ~ Elisee Reclus

Human beings have capitalized on the silence of animals, just as certain human beings have historically imposed silence on certain other human beings by denying slaves the right to literacy, denying women the right to own property, and denying both the right to vote. ~ Gary Steiner

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

Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If we keep the calves away from their mothers there is a real risk that dairy production will go out of business in markets where animal welfare is a priority for the consumers. ~ Sigrid Agenäs

Whenever somebody challenges me with the notion that killing carrots is no different to killing cows, I make a point of pointing out how different they would feel if they spent the day weeding in the garden, or the day slaughtering chickens. Just to make it clear how ridiculous they are being, because there can be no doubt, their argument is ridiculous, there isn't a person out there who given both scenarios would look at them and say "yes they are the same". I like to state this clearly, because I understand that even if the person challenging me refuses to acknowledge the difference, others who come along later and read the conversation will see both sides to the argument and maybe it will help these new people to not start presenting the same kind of ridiculous logic in opposition towards compassionate living. ~ Mango Wodzak

Violence begins with the fork. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

It's not that there are no differences between human and non-human animals, any more than there are no differences between black people and white people, freeborn citizens and slaves, men and women, Jews and gentiles, gays or heterosexuals. The question is rather: are they morally relevant differences? This matters because morally catastrophic consequences can ensue when we latch on to a real but morally irrelevant difference between sentient beings. ~ David Pearce

If your meals consistently revolve around corpse multiple times daily, you might become one sooner than you planned. ~ Kris Carr

We cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes. ~ Gary L. Francione

When pressed, hunters who claim that they just want "to be out in the wilderness," will admit that the kill is essential - or at least the hope of a kill. As it turns out, there is no correlation between hunting and hiking, climbing, backpacking, kayaking, or any other outdoor activity. Hunters do not purposefully linger in the woods after a kill, but quickly begin the process of preparing to head home with the corpse. For hunters, the kill is the climax - the most important moment. They are not driving into the woods (or sometimes actually walking) for the sake of beauty, but in the hope of a kill. ~ Lisa Kemmerer

But it was not the poor who ate the zoo animals in Paris. ~ Ceridwen Dovey

I am a vegan because I don't want to support the cruel industry that goes on on farms everyday. ~ Zoe Rosenberg

Cruelty: Not only the willful causing of unnecessary suffering, but the indifference to it. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Animal welfarism is a blatant lie. Anyone who truly cares for the welfare of another, would never dream of exploiting them. For just as when slavery is deeply set into the psyche of a nation, those crying for slave welfare and not abolitionism, argue in favour of slavery and exploitation, and thus push eventual abolitionism further into the future. ~ Mango Wodzak

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

I wouldn't touch a hot dog unless you put a condom on it! You realize that the job of a hot dog is to use parts of the animal that the Chinese can't figure out how to make into a belt? -timecode 1:11:10 ~ Bill Maher

Animal welfare - yes. Animal rights - don't make me laugh. I'm not an animals rights activist. I certainly do not love animals. In fact, I secretly mistrust all four-legged / furry / two-winged / feathered / shelled ar scaly brothers and sisters. If I were them, I would by now be plotting ultimate revenge on a scale previously unknown to man. ... I stick to a vegan diet only for reasons of self-preservertion. Call it insurance. When the time of the great animal uprising comes, I may have a small chance of escaping ... ~ Sharon Dodua Otoo

While most people love certain species to pieces (e.g. cats and dogs), others are more loved in pieces (e.g. cows and pigs) ~ Mango Wodzak

Choose a compassionate frame of mind.
Always choose love. Always be kind. ~ Beth Arnold

Although man has included meat in his diet for thousands of years, his anatomy and physiology, and the chemistry of his digestive juices, are still unmistakably those of a frugivorous animal. ~ Herbert M. Shelton

Research shows that what works and is healthy for adults also works well for children, if adjusted to be age-appropriate. Children, like adults, do not suffer from a deficiency of white sugar, white flour, junk food, or processed foods. A growing child as well as an adult is hurt by junk foods and benefited by healthy foods. ~ Gabriel Cousens M.D.

Our lives are a meaningful stand against injustice, and we can make meaningful choices every day. Your food choices are far more powerful than you imagine. Veganism offers a daily way to enact your values while helping to protect the environment and enhance your health. It becomes a daily reminder that change is possible.

Social change is not just something we must work for; it's something that constantly asks us to change. ~ Carol J. Adams

There's no comparison. Veganism is the single most important thing that one can do today. ~ Lee Hall

What you have to say matters! Post anything about why you chose veganism using the hastag #2Bvegan4 (to be vegan for). ~ Martin Blais

Ethical vegetarians eat only plant-based food in order to show compassion toward animals and other humans and to benefit the planet. ~ Sharon Gannon

Welfare reforms and the whole "happy" exploitation movement are not "baby steps." They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction. ~ Gary L. Francione

He made the rest of us look complacent, lazy, indulgent, and apathetic, in the same way that vegans' conscientious diets can't help but indict carnivores' as callous. The impulse is to write such people off as self-righteous and shrill (which, conveniently, they often are) so that you can stop thinking about slaughterhouses and keep eating scrapple. ~ Tim Kreider

Baby rats need rat milk, baby cats need cat milk, baby dogs need dog milk, baby humans need human milk, baby cows need cow milk, baby chimps need chimp milk.. Would anyone believe it if someone claimed adult giraffes need elephant milk? or adult horses need squirrel milk? or adult possums need goat milk? or adult humans need cow milk? oh, wait, no, that last one makes total sense.. NOT ~ Mango Wodzak

When weight loss is conflated with veganism, it falls into dangerous area of body shaming and misogyny. Mainstream media loves to make women feel inferior when it comes to their bodies and unfortunately veganism has recently become another weapon and this sexist war on our society. Thin white women are used to sell veganism as a quick fix to a more desirable body at the expense of anyone who doesn't fit the cookie cutter idea of female perfection. In addition, these images and messages work to oppress women of colour and people living with disabilities. Selling veganism as anything other than caring for animals often leads to oppression, plain and simple. We need to resist this approach to promoting veganism by drawing the fight back to animals. Every single time. ~ Sean O'Callaghan

Animals who are exploited for "organic" foods are raised, maintained, transported, and slaughtered just like their nonorganic" counterparts: They are debeaked, dehorned, detoed, castrated, and/or branded, and they are kept, transported, and slaughtered in the same deplorable conditions. ~ Lisa Kemmerer

As the rates of obesity rise, it is increasingly important to find diets that produce effective weight loss and that can continue to produce weight loss or weight loss maintenance over the long-term. In this study, a vegan diet was associated with a greater weight loss at both 1 and 2 years post-intervention, compared with a more conventional, low-fat diet (NCEP). ~ Gabrielle M. Turner-McGrievy

In the 1980's, vegetarianism was considered to be "radical" by most people; just a handful of restaurants, stores, and food companies catered to the community. PETA was promoting GO VEGETARIAN, Vegetarian Times was the go-to magazine for recipes and lifestyle information, and veggie burgers contained eggs and cheese. I don't know why it took so long for Veganism to catch on, or why I didn't make the connection, myself, and change sooner, but I guess in some weird way I was part of a wave of consciousness. ~ Anji Bee

Violence takes on many forms, sadly violence is such an everyday part of our lives that we have mostly become oblivious to it. It goes on behind closed doors, far away from our vision. Screams that go unheard by the masses. Yet the butchered remains of miserable lives land with a sizzle on our dinner plates, and are rarely fully recognised for what they really are. ~ Mango Wodzak

The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviors. What they call 'free choice' is, in fact, the result of a narrowly obstructed set of options that have been chosen for them. They don't realize, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of nonhuman life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species' preference for survival. ~ Melanie Joy

A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But if you will contend that you were born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. But do it yourself, without the help of a chopping-knife, mallet or axe, as wolves, bears, and lions do, who kill and eat at once. Rend an ox with thy teeth, worry a hog with thy mouth, tear a lamb or a hare in pieces, and fall on and eat it alive as they do. But if thou had rather stay until what thou eat is to become dead, and if thou art loath to force a soul out of its body, why then dost thou against nature eat an animate thing? There is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing even as it is; so they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare. ~ Plutarch

I've seen cases on the Internet, of a dog being locked in a car for several hours and comments from people so enraged, that they threaten physical violence toward the perpetrator; some even crying out for the owners to be faced with the death penalty! These self same people will likely not think twice about the animals on their plates. In fact, they usually react more strongly toward such events (dogs locked in cars) than do most vegans. The often unconsidered, deep seated reasoning behind their indignation, is to draw away attention from their own wrong doings toward animals, and focus it elsewhere. If they shout loud enough, perhaps people won't notice that they themselves, are behind far worse animal treatment! ~ Mango Wodzak

Veganism is not a "sacrifice." It is a joy. ~ Gary L. Francione

Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable - the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

All sentient beings should have at least one right - the right not to be treated as property ~ Gary L. Francione

There is something about veganism that is not easy, but the difficulty is not inherent in veganism, but in our culture. ~ Will Tuttle

You humans drink our milk and eat the eggs of the chickens and the ducks. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't it enough that we give you our children and what's meant for our children? And if not, when is it enough? All you humans do is take, take, take from the earth and its beautiful creatures, and what do you give back? Nothing. I know humans consider it a grave insult to be called an animal. Well, I would never give a human the fine distinction of being called an animal, because an animal may kill to live but an animal never lives to kill. Humans have to earn the right to be called animals again. ~ David Duchovny

Adopting a vegan diet brings your choices and actions in line with those same beliefs that underlie a commitment to resisting regressive politics: generosity, compassion, and a commitment to justice and fairness. By acting in a way that reflects your values and what you believe, you relieve the cognitive dissonance that can make stress and depression worse. ~ Carol J. Adams

Spain is more vegan-friendly than you've been led to believe. The truth is, most places are. ~ Wendy Werneth

Your perception of meat being nice is blurred by the likely fact that you are excluded from participating in, or even witnessing the untimely mortal demise of the animals you gluttonously devour. ~ Mango Wodzak

Veganism must be the baseline if we are to have any hope of shifting the paradigm away from animals as things and toward animals as nonhuman persons. ~ Gary L. Francione

Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat."
Look into their eyes, and tell them "I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I know I don't NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don't care because I am selfish."
Look into their eyes and tell them "I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn't matter as much."
Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that! ~ Jenn V Keller-Lowe

I don't like vegans, either. Bunch of whiny zealots. A cow or a pig wouldn't give a damn if a person died… animals tear apart other animals while they're still alive, but we aren't so cruel, so vegans should learn to shut up. Vegans use palm oil and never think about the forests and endangered species at risk from that… and they all exploit the world in other ways, buying their computers and their sweatshop clothes and their Starbucks coffees. Anyway, cats and dogs eat their owners after the owner dies. I saw on the news a few times that there was a lot of open animal food in the houses where that sort of thing happens, but the pets eat the dead owner… just because. Maybe a pet's notion of 'unconditional love' is like Jeffrey Dahmer… he used to eat and kill the people he professed to love, too. He was a sicko… I don't believe animals have any empathy. Do elephants ever consider Holocaust victims? Do dogs ever cry over the Rwanda Genocide? ~ Rebecca McNutt

How would we fare psychologically if the walls of slaughterhouses were made of glass? ~ Tom Regan

Honestly, I would eat cardboard rather than go back to eating animals. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

In a country such as this, where there are fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, how can one think that he must eat the flesh of dead animals? ~ Ellen G. White

We don't "crave" animal-based meat, dairy, and eggs, but we do crave fat, salt, flavor, texture, and familiarity. ~ Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian. ~ Linda McCartney

People care about animals. I believe that. They just don't want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It's wrong. They're packed body to body, and can't escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It's wrong. They feel their slaughters. It's wrong, and people know it's wrong. They don't have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I'm not better than anyone, and I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

From a vegan perspective, rescuing a cat or dog and then feeding them flesh from countless other innocent butchered animals is a clearly speciesist choice, not a compassionate one! ~ Mango Wodzak

Meat may taste good, but the guilt of eating it tastes far worse. ~ Evan Baldonado

Denying someone [else] justice just because you do not yet have your own is never a good idea. I am also convinced we cannot have disability liberation without animal liberation--they are intimately tied together. What if, rather than dismissing or disassociating for the struggle of animals, we embraced what political theorist Claire Jean Kim calls an 'ethics of avowal,' a recognition that oppressions are linked, and that we can be 'open in meaningful and sustained way to the suffering and claims of other subordinated groups, even or perhaps especially in the course of political battle'? Compassion is not a limited resource. ~ Sunaura Taylor

Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever. ~ Gary L. Francione

This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting - to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing. It's not as though the rest of us don't countenance the killing of tens of millions of animals every year. Yet for some reason we feel more comfortable with the mechanical killing practiced, out of view and without emotion by industrial agriculture. ~ Michael Pollan

No decent person deliberately chooses to be violent or cruel. We must remove our blinkers and learn that in order to live according to our true values, we need to stop viewing animals as commodities to be used, abused and killed for our own selfish benefit. ~ Mango Wodzak

There is no particular merit in being nice to one's fellow man... We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is a result of our emotions - love apathy, charity of malice - and what part is predetermines by the constant power play among individuals.
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buries from view), consists of attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental débâcle, a débâcle so fundamental all others stem from it. ~ Milan Kundera

I am not well-versed in theory, but in my view, the cow deserves her life. As does the ram. As does the ladybug. As does the elephant. As do the fish, and the dog and the bee; as do other sentient beings. I will always be in favor of veganism as a minimum because I believe that sentient beings have a right not to be used as someone else's property. They ask us to be brave for them, to be clear for them, and I see no other acceptable choice but to advocate veganism. If these statements make me a fundamentalist, then I will sew a scarlet F on my jacket so that all may know I'm fundamentally in favor of nonviolence; may they bury me in it so that all will know where I stood. ~ Vincent J. Guihan

Many people who think nothing of buying factory-farmed ham or chicken from a supermarket are quick to condemn hunting; yet hunting is more defensible than factory farming. ~ Peter Singer

It is not your right - based on YOUR traditions, YOUR customs and YOUR habits - to deny animals THEIR freedom so you can harm them, enslave them and kill them. Thats not what rights are about. Thats injustice. There is no counter-argument to veganism. Accept it. Apologize for the way youve been living. Make amends and move forward. ~ Gary Yourofsky

Speak to meat eaters the way you would speak to a wild animal: softly and without any sudden movements. ~ Carol J. Adams

Animals (human and nonhuman) feel pain, can suffer, and ought to be treated accordingly – pain and suffering are always of moral concern. ~ Lisa Kemmerer

When women tell me that Skinny Bitch made them go vegan, my appreciation of the book's purpose is tainted by a sadness that their self-worth had to be bartered to make that choice. ~ Kim Socha

Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan. ~ Gary L. Francione

Our deeply-rooted beliefs about the wholesomeness of milk and dairy products should be re-considered under careful, scientific evaluation. ~ Bodo Melnik

The plea for ethical veganism, which rejects the treatment of birds and other animals as a food source or other commodity, is sometimes mistaken as a plea for dietary purity and elitism, as if formalistic food exercises and barren piety were the point of the desire to get the slaughterhouse out of one's kitchen and one's system. Abstractions such as 'vegetarianism' and 'veganism' mask the experiential and philosophical roots of a plant-based diet. They make the realities of 'food' animal production and consumption seem abstract and trivial, mere matters of ideological preference and consequence, or of individual taste, like selecting a shirt, or hair color.

However, the decision that has led millions of people to stop eating other animals is not rooted in arid adherence to diet or dogma, but in the desire to eliminate the kinds of experiences that using animals for food confers upon beings with feelings. The philosophic vegetarian believes with Isaac Bashevis Singer that even if God or Nature sides with the killers, one is obliged to protest. The human commitment to harmony, justice, peace, and love is ironic as long as we continue to support the suffering and shame of the slaughterhouse and its satellite operations.

Vegetarians do not eat animals, but, according to the traditional use of the term, they may choose to consume dairy products and eggs, in which case they are called lacto-ovo (milk and egg) vegetarians. In reality, the distinction between me ~ Karen Davis

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. ~ Romain Rolland

What about all the poor brothers and sisters across the city and the shit they had to deal with? Fuck, what about all the poor brothers and sisters in Syria for that matter? They sure had their hands full. What do you even call depression in a refugee camp? Depression felt as much a luxury as veganism and fair trade coffee. ~ Zack McDermott

We might treat a rabbit as a pet or become emotionally attached to a goose, but we had come from cities and supermarkets, where flesh was hygienically distanced from any resemblance to living creatures. A shrink-wrapped pork chop has a sanitized, abstract appearance that has nothing whatever to do with the warm, mucky bulk of a pig. Out here in the country there was no avoiding the direct link between death and dinner. ~ Peter Mayle

Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in a filthy, waste-coated room is not very healthy. Beyond deformities, eye damage, blindness, bacterial infections of bones, slipped vertebrae, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, slipped tendons, twisted lower legs and necks, respiratory diseases, and weakened immune systems are frequent and long-standing problems on factory farms. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

There was a young lady called Peaches,
who simply loved animals to pieces.
She ate pigs and sheep,
and for cows she would weep,
when baked in a sauce of rich greases. ~ Mango Wodzak

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