100 Quotes About Vegan

As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. 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

I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being. Rai Aren

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Unknown

In order to align your life choices with your values, you will need to inquire about the effects of your actions (and inactions) on yourself and others. Although we are always stumbling upon new knowledge that shifts our choices and life direction, bringing conscious inquiry to life means that we continually ask questions that lead us to the information we need to make thoughtful decisions. Asking questions is liberating because we develop great understanding and discover more choices with our new knowledge. Zoe Weil

All it takes for generosity to flow is awareness. By actively pursuing awareness and knowledge, we can make choices that cause less harm and greater good to others in the global community of our shared earth. Zoe Weil

Each day we wake up and make myriad choices that affect others. We clothe ourselves with shirts, pants, and shoes that may have been sewn together by women working in factories fourteen-plus hours a day for a nonliving wage; we buy products manufactured in ways the destroy forests, pollute waterways, and poison the air; we wash our hair with shampoos that may have been squeezed into the eyes of conscious rabbits or force-fed to them in quantities that kill; and on and on. As Derrick Jensen has written in his book "The Culture of Make Believe", "It is possible to destroy a culture without being aware of its existence. It is possible to commit genocide or ecocide from the comfort of one's living room. Zoe Weil

Mogo living brings about true freedom. When you have the inner conviction to do the most good and the least harm, you are free to say no to media, social, and peer pressures. You are free from a nagging sense that your life does not have value or meaning. You are free to imagine and then create a truly successful (in the deepest meaning on the word) life. You are free to be at peace with yourself and all those whom your life touches. Zoe Weil

I took a bite of lobster meat with rice. It was quite tasty. 'Arguing the morality of slaughter will send you into a tailspin of self-loathing every time.' 'Unless you're a vegan.' 'Uh-huh. But then you're a vegan and you don't count. Julie Powell

It is a federal system of sadistic torture, vivisection, and animal genocide, which has been carried on for decades under the fraudulent guise of respectable medical research. And nobody on the outside knows, or wants to know, or is willing to find out. My parents, my friends, my teachers, wouldnt listen to me, or suggested that if it was bothering me that much I just had to quit the job. Just like that. As if that would have solved anything. As if I could ever live with such cowardice. You can't imagine, or maybe you can, how many people are convinced - without knowing the first thing about it - Animal research is essential. Americans have been hopelessly brainwashed on this issue. The animal rights people, by and large, acknowledge the essential futility of trying to change the system. So they address the smaller issues, fighting for legislation which would provide one extra visit per week to the labs by a custodian of the US dept of agriculture. Or demanding that a squirrel monkey be given an extra 12 square inches in his holding pen, before being led to the slaughter. That sort of thing. For whomever, and whatever it's worth, I hope my little write up is clear. I dont have the guts to do whats necessary. I pray there's someone out there who does. God help all of us. . Michael Tobias

I remember one bobcat they had in here - now bobcats are an endangered species in this neck of the woods - they'd caught it somewhere and they must have put that cat through a dozen rounds of burn experiments before they finally determined that it was utterly useless to them. Like an empty beer can. And then you know what they did to it? Claudius was late for a lunch date so rather thanput the destroyed but still breathing animal to sleep, he picked it up by its hind legs and simply smashed its head against a wall repeatedly until it was dead. How can I forget it: I was the one told to clean up the mess. The head dented in. The eyes slowly closing. The once proud claws hanging down, stunned and lifeless, the utter senselessness of it all, and the hate, a hatred that was consummated in me which is as dangerous a hormone, or chemical, or portion of the brain, as any neutron bomb. Except that I didnt know how to explode. I was like a computer without a keyboard, a bird without wings. Roaring inside. I wanted to kill that man. To do unto others what they had done unto me. I was that bobcat, you better believe it. . Michael Tobias

L-EVELSO-FV-ARYINGE-MOTIONSBEING IN LOVE IS ALWAYS A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP! Qwana ReynoldsFrasier

YOU ARE NOT A FINISHED WORK OF ARTYOU ARE A COMMISSIONED WORK IN PROGRESSHANGING IN A GALLERY UNDER CONSTRUCTION! KEEP PUSHING! Qwana ReynoldsFrasier

May our daily choices be a reflection of our deepest values, and may we use our voices to speak for those who need us most, those who have no voice, those who have no choice. Colleen PatrickGoudreau

Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps—in a seriously backward direction. Gary L. Francione

Most people just want to be left in peace to eat their bacon, not realising that there is no peace behind bacon. Mango Wodzak

Embrace compassion without exception. Janice Anderson

Dominion does not mean domination. We hold dominion over animals only because of our powerful and ubiquitous intellect. Not because we are morally superior. Not because we have a "right" to exploit those who cannot defend themselves. Let us use our brain to move toward compassion and away from cruelty, to feel empathy rather than cold indifference, to feel animals' pain in our hearts. Marc Bekoff

I am sorry, Miss Grey, you should think it necessary to interfere with Master Bloomfield's amusements; he was very much distressed about you destroying the birds.'' When Master Bloomfield's amusements consist in injuring sentient creatures, ' I answered, 'I think it my duty to interfere.'' You seemed to have forgotten, ' said she, calmly, 'that the creatures were all created for our convenience.' I thought that doctrine admitted some doubt, but merely replied - 'If they were, we have no right to torment them for our amusement. Unknown

If you are a feminist and are not a vegan, you are ignoring the exploitation of female nonhumans and the commodification of their reproductive processes, as well as the destruction of their relationship with their babies; If you are an environmentalist and not a vegan, you are ignoring the undeniable fact that animal agriculture is an ecological disaster; If you embrace nonviolence but are not a vegan, then words of nonviolence come out of your mouth as the products of torture and death go into it; If you claim to love animals but you are eating them or products made from them, or otherwise consuming them, you see loving as consistent with harming that which you claim to love. Stop trying to make excuses. There are no good ones to make. Go vegan. . Gary L. Francione

The number one element on the list for changing and improving one's lifestyle is definitely in the area of health for most people. Good health paves the way for even more awesomeness to happen all-the-way-around. Sereda Aleta Dailey

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

I love animals, especially with barbeque sauce. J. Richard Singleton

What if there were health food stores on every corner in the hood, instead of liquor stores! ? SupaNova Slom

Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet Marc Bekoff

I am grateful to realize that my desires do not entitle me to add to another's suffering. Zoe Weil

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

See this abdicated beast, once king Of them all, nibble his claws: Not anger enough left–no, nor despair– To break his teeth on the bars. Cecil DayLewis

How many would protest if restaurants began serving puppy and kitten flesh instead of calves? Robins instead of hens? Squirrels instead of pigs? Mango Wodzak

I realized I could only play-act at the spiritual life as long as my appetites were stronger than my empathy. Victoria Moran

No animals needs to die in order for me to live. And that makes me feel good. Howard Lyman

The fundamental principle of morality which we seek as a necessity for thought is not, however, a matter only of arranging and deepening current views of good and evil, but also of expanding and extending these. A man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to help all life which he is able to succour, and when he goes out of his way to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower, and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight on a summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling air, rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed and sinking wings. Albert Schweitzer

You know the world has gone mad when those who have enlightened, compassionate views and future visions, are accused of borderline insanity, ridiculed and criticised for thinking positively. Mango Wodzak

Aa is for animals, friends, not food. We don't eat our friends. They would find it quite rude! Ruby Roth

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

What I like best about traveling is exploring new places, cultures, and cuisines, and learning to look at the world through a different lens. Travel really is the world’s best teacher. And actually, veganism offers the same thing. Becoming vegan completely changed my worldview and enabled me to connect with nature and with my fellow earthlings in a way I never had before. By combining travel with veganism, I’m able to view the world through a whole new window and experience places in a way that most other tourists don’t. Wendy Werneth

Drama does not just walk into our lives. Either we create it, invite it, or associate with it. Brandi L. Bates

When my son speaks of playing sports, I've always told him: playing on the team is great, but aspire to be the guy who owns the team. I've always told my son: most of the guys on the team will end up bankrupt with bum knees, but not the guy who owns that franchise. Brandi L. Bates

Often, the greater our ignorance about something, the greater our resistance to change. Marc Bekoff

The Butcher’s ShopThe pigs are strung in rows, open-mouthed, dignified in martyrs’ deaths. They hangstiff as Sunday manners, their porky headsvoting Tory all their lives, their blue rosettesdiscarded now. The butcher smiles a meaty smile, white apron stained with who knows what, fingers fat as sausages. Smug, woolly cattleand snowy sheep prance on tiles, grazingon eternity, cute illustrations in a children’s book. What does the sheep say now? Tacky sawdust clogs your shoes. Little plastic hedges divide the trays of meat, playing farms. playing farms. All the way homeyour cold and soggy paper parcel bleeds. Angela Topping

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

Especially when it comes to animals used for food, humanity’s reasoning power and concern about fairness plummets. Karen Davis

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The phytochemicals, antioxidants, and fiber- all of the healthful components of plant foods- originate in plants, not animals. If they are present, it is because the animal ate plants. And why should we go through an animal to get the benefits of the plants themselves? To consume unnecessary, unseemly, and unhealthy substances, such as saturated fat, animal protein, lactose, and dietary cholesterol, is to negate the benefits of the fiber, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are prevalent and inherent in plants. Colleen PatrickGoudreau

A reduction of meat consumption by only 10% would result in about 12 million more tons of grain for human consumption. This additional grain could feed all of the humans across the world who starve to death each year- about 60 million people! Marc Bekoff

We generally accept that it's natural for carnivorous wild animals to kill other animals in order to live. But people don't often think (or even know) about the extraordinary and unnatural suffering that humans inflict on the animals that we freely harvest for food, with the help of modern high technology and the animal food sciences. Marc Bekoff

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

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

Fed by plants, fed up with the world Evan Baldonado

We don’t “crave” animal-based meat, dairy, and eggs, but we do crave fat, salt, flavor, texture, and familiarity. Colleen PatrickGoudreau

The vegan lifestyle is a compassionate way to live that supports life, supports fairness and equality, and promotes freedom. Robert Cheeke

Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer. Lydia Davis

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

Don't eat bear balls. Eat healthy, delectable, plant-based foods so that you will never fall over on your cat. Rip Esselstyn

This is the body's nurse; but since man's wit Found the art of cookery, to delight his sense, More bodies are consumed and kill'd with it Than with the sword, famine, or pestilence. Unknown

Understand: I don't ever want to be equal to any other being. I always want to be greater...in all things, in all circumstances. Brandi L. Bates

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

No one is born with equality. We all come here with varying degrees of opportunities, qualities, strengths, weaknesses, IQ, etc. Brandi L. Bates

I don't want to be around people who accept me as is, in my unrefined state of becoming. I consistently want people around me who push and encourage me to be my ultimate best, who bring out the inner diamonds. I want to be around those intellectual giants who extract the gold within me, those who force me to read, to attend classes, seminars, conferences, and who steep me in an environment of perpetual growth and upward mobility. Not trying to be funny, but I've learned that I simply cannot afford to invest too much time around mediocrity. It's contagious. Brandi L. Bates

When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied. Herophilus

It's a pretty amazing to wake up every morning, knowing that every decision I make is to cause as little harm as possible. It's a pretty fantastic way to live. Colleen PatrickGoudreau

As I learned about the consequences of my food choices and as I recognized that I didn't have to eat animals, and that eating animals caused the animals to suffer, it caused an enormous footprint on our planet, and it wasn't healthy, it made since to go vegan. And, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I think most people who've decided to go vegan share a similar experience. It's very empowering. And, when I went vegan I actually started eating a wide variety of foods I had never tried before. Different ethnic foods. You also start combining things in different ways, you start becoming more creative in the kitchen. But I went vegan just because it seemed to make sense, and it was aligned with my own values, because I didn't want to support this system that was so abusive to animals, and wasting and squandering so many scarce resources on our planet. And it was also healthier, so it was in my interest to eat food that was plant-based instead of animal-based. Living a vegan lifestyle makes a lot of sense. Gene Baur

Start with your heart, and only good can follow! Ocean

Everyone's life changes when they meet their Obi-Wan & their Yoda, or their Morpheus & their Oracle; those who help remove the veil. Brandi L. Bates

Be selective in your battles... Brandi L. Bates

Make ethical choices in what we buy, do, and watch. In a consumer-driven society our individual choices, used collectively for the good of animals and nature, can change the world faster than laws. Marc Bekoff

It is easy to take a stand about a remote issue, but speciesists, like racists, reveal their true nature when the issue comes nearer home. To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada, while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, or the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apartheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks. Peter Singer

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

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

The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies. Albert Schweitzer

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

Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds? … It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being. . Plutarch

We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. Peter Singer

Most people would say they love animals, but the reality is, if your using animals for food, clothing, or entertainment, you're only considering the lives of certain animals, typically those of cats and dogs. Melisser Elliott

We strive for a world where every earthling has the right to live and grow. That's why we don't eat animals. Ruby Roth

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

If we have learned anything from the liberation movements, we should have learned how difficult it is to be aware of the ways in which we discriminate until they are forcefully pointed out to us. A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons, so that practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable are now seen as intolerable. Peter Singer

Two friends are ordering lunch. One says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger, ' and orders it. The other says, 'I'm in the mood for a burger, ' but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and orders something else. Who is the sentimentalist? Jonathan Safran Foer

As told by Kafka's close friend Max Brod:"Suddenly he began to speak to the fish in their illuminated tanks. 'Now at least I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.' It was the time he turned strictly vegetarian. Jonathan Safran Foer

Of the animals I saw, I could write volumes. All were wild; for the Great Race's mechanised culture had long since done away with domestic beasts, while food was wholly vegetable or synthetic. H.P. Lovecraft

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys. My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. . Colleen PatrickGoudreau

Humans don’t just kill to survive. Sometimes, they kill out of rage. And they don’t just eat to survive; sometimes, they eat when their belly is already full. They are violent and greedy. They aren’t like any of the other beasts in the forest; they want to own it all. Mark Van Steenwyk

Many people know that animals around the world are treated badly, yet they turn their minds away. To be vegan means to care deeply about how our choices help or harm animals, how we create peace or suffering in the world. Our choices are powerful. Vegan is love. Ruby Roth

I waited for him to come out. He didn't. I considered going in after him, but knew the fact that I had readied myself to kill him did not mean that he had readied himself to die. Derrick Jensen

I'll stop eating steak when you stop killing spiders." Absurdity: comparing cows to spiders. Arachnids are pure evil. They're like a cigarette manufacturer or a terrorist. They're organized religion on eight legs. Davey Havok

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

Your body is a Temple. You are what you eat. Do not eat processed food, junk foods, filth, or disease carrying food, animals, or rodents. Some people say of these foods, 'well, it tastes good'. Most of the foods today that statically cause sickness, cancer, and disease ALL TATSE GOOD; it's well seasoned and prepared poison. THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE SICK; mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually; because of being hooked to the 'taste' of poison, instead of being hooked on the truth and to real foods that heal and provide you with good health and wellness. Respect and honor your Temple- and it will honor you. . SupaNova Slom

Certain actions bring harm, other more wizened actions bring harmony. Mango Wodzak

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

These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can. J.r.r. Tolkien

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

He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone. David Sedaris

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

Through the deeply theraputic practice of asana, we begin to purify our karmas, thereby healing our past relationships with others and reestablishing a steady and joyful connection with the Earth, which means all beings. Sharon Gannon

Invalid food choices lead to invalid people. Mango Wodzak