Quote in the Act

Here you will find quotations in no particular order from a variety of people (and you may be surprised who). Some are humorous, some profound, some poignant. If a quotation finds you, please send it to us by entering it in the form at the bottom of the page.

You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car.
Harvey Diamond, author

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 and humanitarian, Nobel 1921

When I was 12, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.
Marv Levy, football head coach

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and 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, artist and scientist

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi, statesman and philosopher

I just couldn't stand the idea of eating meat - and I really do think that it has made me calmer ... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the male calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us can't really be right, and if you've seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it can't understand why its calf isn't by it, it can make you think a lot.
Kate Bush, singer and songwriter

Now I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.
Franz Kafka, novelist

I tremble for my species when I reflect that God is just.
Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president

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.
Henry David Thoreau, essayist and poet

How can you eat anything with eyes?
Will Kellogg, creator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes

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

Those who protest against compassion the strongest, have to work the hardest to imprison their conscience.
prad

Men who have practised tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame. How can they still hold their heads high among human beings?
Samuel Johnson, author and lexicographer

There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, but they are people like unto you.
The Koran, sacred scripture of Islam

I grew up in cattle country - that's why I became vegetarian. Meat stinks, for the animals, the environment, and your health.
k.d. lang, musician

The recklessness with which we sacrifice our sense of decency to maximize profit in the factory farming process sets a pattern for cruelty to our own kind.
Jonathan Kozol, author

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.
Linda and Paul McCartney, musicians

I haven't bought any leather articles for a very long time. My ideal is to be able to avoid all animal products, in food as well as clothing.
Martina Navratilova, tennis champion

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Albert Schweitzer, missionary and statesman, Nobel 1952

Every bond that forms between species, provides hope within our own.
prad

There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties ... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery.
Charles Darwin, biologist

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
Plutarch, essayist and biographer

As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness.
Richard Gere, actor

And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which are fruits; for you it shall be as meat.'
Bible (Genesis 1:29)

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
Pythagoras, philosopher and mathematician

If you are too worried about doing the wrong thing, you never get around to doing the right thing.
prad

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, inventor

If you visit the killing floor of a slaughterhouse, it will brand your soul for life.
Howard Lyman, former cattle rancher

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
Leo Tolstoy, author

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, author

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of 'real food for real people', you'd better live real close to a real good hospital.
Neal D. Barnard, MD

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men. Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them wherever they require it.
Francis of Assisi, saint

If you could see or feel the suffering you wouldn't think twice. Give back life. Don't eat meat.
Kim Basinger, actress

We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear.
Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist and poet

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
Henry David Thoreau, essayist and poet

We manage to swallow flesh, only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do ... If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard.
Rabindranath Tagore, poet, Nobel 1913

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel 1978

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel 1925

O men! you can take life easily but, remember, none of you can give life! So, have mercy, have compassion! And, never forget, that compassion makes the world noble and beautiful.
Buddha, compassionate one

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president

Unless, when you look into the eyes of an animal, you see the entity that they are, looking back at you, you will not understand why they deserve respect and compassion. I can't even wear leather anymore.
Bennett Barr, philosopher

Words only let one hide from one's conscience - it is not possible to escape it.
prad

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

It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else.
Maimonides, physician and philosopher

Tradition has never been a justification for existence. Rather it has almost always bourne the seeds of extinction.
prad

I don't hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.
Brigid Brophy (1929-1995)

You can change your livelihood, but you can't change your conscience.
prad

Animals have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.
John Henry Newman, Cardinal

150 years ago, they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery. 100 years ago, they would have laughed at you for suggesting that women should have the right to vote. 50 years ago, they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under the law. 25 years ago they would have called you a pervert if you advocated for gay rights. They laugh at us now for suggesting that animal slavery be ended. Some day they won't be laughing.
Gary Smith, Activist

A key step toward societal improvement is to relieve ignorance, so we do not have to relive it.
prad

Centering on human-made abstractions above all, instead of on the animals themselves as individuals is oddly anthropocentric.
Dr. David Sztybel, Philosopher

I still have Billy's picture up in my office. He's my reminder of how animals return what they sense from us, that they appreciate kindness as all of us do and that we must fight for them harder than we ever have before.
Twyla Francois, Activist

May all who do so much for the most worthwhile and essential cause in history, see themselves as they truly must be - undaunted by the irrefutable task at hand and undented by the illusive passage of time.
prad

Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.
Theodor Adorno, Philosopher

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist

Violence is not how we deal with neighbors we don't like.
Dr Allan Rutberg, Director Tufts University Center for Animals and Public Policy

True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.
Joseph Addison, Author and politician

Having abandoned the taking of life, refraining from killing, we dwell without violence, with the knife laid down, scrupulous, full of mercy, trembling with compassion for all sentient beings.
Buddha, compassionate one

Winning is not a noun we will find someday in the future. Winning is a present-tense verb. When you fight for the greater good with courage, dignity, and intelligence, you are winning. We are winning.
Jacob Chase, Activist

When vegans tell you about factory farming, we're not forcing our beliefs on you. We're telling you facts about the industry and hoping that you'll use those facts to come to the logical conclusion that eating animals is wrong. We have no personal agenda, no personal gain motive, these aren't lies or propaganda. If the information makes you feel bad or guilty, it's because you're a conscientious person who's just doing the wrong thing, change that.
aus-vegan (tumblr),Activist