Quotes

For the son of Cronos has ordained this law for men, that fishes and beasts and winged fowls should devour one another, for right is not in them; but to mankind he gave right which proves far the best

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

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals

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

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

Thousands of people who say they ‘love' animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs

Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct.  Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit.  The roots of cruelty therefore, are not so much strong as widespread.  But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought.  Let us work that this time may come

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight

The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals

If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men

It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, ‘What are you doing?’ The youth replied, ‘Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.’ ‘Son,’ the man said, ‘don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!’ After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…‘I made a difference for that one.’

However scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity

Awareness is bad for the meat business. Conscience is bad for the meat business. Sensitivity to life is bad for the meat business. DENIAL, however, the meat business finds indispensable