Animal Vegan Quotes & Sayings

Miley [Cyrus] is so sweet. In this generation - and I know because I have two teenage boys - they don't really have to care about things. It's kind of a desensitized generation. I'm so impressed that she's really vegan and outspoken about animal welfare. — Pamela Anderson

Being vegan is not just a matter of being 'kind' to animals. First and foremost, it is a matter of being just and observing our moral obligation to not treat other sentient beings as things. — Gary L. Francione

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

I've been vegan for 15 years, and it turns out it makes a very big impact on the environment to eat fewer animal products, which cause more greenhouse gases than all of transportation combined. — Emily Deschanel

We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to help people understand that the animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves. — Cesar Chavez

Look a pig in its eyes, and understand the truth behind bacon. — Mango Wodzak

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 eat animals, you don't love animals; you love to eat them." - Andrew Kirschner, Ed.D. — Andrew Kirschner

The more [animal products] you remove from your diet, the better you feel. The difference between vegetarian and vegan is huge. I feel so much better as a vegan. — Pamela Anderson

You either approve of violence or you don't, and nothing on earth is more violent or extreme than the meat industry. — Morrissey

One can be a vegan and eating a health-promoting, high-nutrient diet, but one can also eat a small amount of animal products while following a Nutritarian diet and still live a long, healthy life. — Joel Fuhrman

I'm all in favor of animal rights, but I'd like to see the food movement take a much stronger stand in defense of basic human rights. If you're a vegan or a vegetarian, you should care about the people who are picking your fruits and vegetables by hand. — Eric Schlosser

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

I am a vegan out of my love and respect for animals, as well as respect for myself. — Davey Havok

After you have witnessed the reality, you can no longer look at a piece of steak, and simply think "yum". — Mango Wodzak

I find it very annoying that so many animal advocates talk about the difficulty of being vegan. Many animal advocates are inclined to make the issue their suffering and not the animals' suffering, and I suppose that accounts for part of the reason that veganism is portrayed as such a "sacrifice." And many animal advocates are not vegans, or are "flexible vegans," which means that they do not observe veganism at all or not consistently, and emphasizing the supposed difficulty of veganism is part of justifying their own behavior. — Gary L. Francione

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. — Gary L. Francione

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

The reason my food bank is vegan is because I can't pay for animal products in good conscience. — Sam Simon

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

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

Being vegan provides us with the peace of knowing that we are no longer participants in the hideous violence that is animal exploitation. — Gary L. Francione

The best part of being a vegan is the purity and peace of mind one experiences and the strong connection I feel to the animal kingdom. — Uri Geller

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

We know we cannot be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them
exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food. — Cesar Chavez

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 Patrick-Goudreau

Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others. — Cesar Chavez

If modern civilised man had to keep the animals he eats, the number of vegetarians would rise astronomically. — Christian Morgenstern

I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings. — Cesar Chavez

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

It costs us so little to go vegan. It costs animals so much if we don't. — Gary L. Francione

Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn't motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn't enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when? — Jonathan Safran Foer

Embrace compassion without exception. — Janice Anderson

Animal factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities have advanced faster than our ethics. — Peter Singer

Be a good example and a positive ambassador for vegan living, and be patient and understanding with people who aren't vegan. Support any move non-vegans make away from animal consumption toward plant-based eating. Nurture even small positive steps, as these tend to empower people and build momentum toward bigger steps. — Gene Baur

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

They are nonhuman persons. They are not food. If animals matter morally at all, there is one and only one rational response: go vegan. Everything else is just participation in animal exploitation. — Gary L. Francione

Becoming a vegan is a sure way of completely avoiding participation in the abuse of farmed animals. Vegans are a living demonstration of the fact that we do not need to exploit animals for food. — Peter Singer

The moment I began to understand what was going on with the treatment of animals, it led me more and more in the way of the path I am [on] now, which is a complete vegan.' — Bryan Adams

Donald Watson, who founded The Vegan Society in 1944 and who lived a healthy, active life until passing on in 2005, maintained that dairy products, such as milk, eggs, and cheese, were every bit as cruel and exploitive of sentient animal life as was slaughtering animals for their flesh: "The unquestionable cruelty associated with the production of dairy produce has made it clear that lactovegetarianism is but a half-way house between flesh-eating and a truly humane, civilised diet, and we think, therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve sufficiently to make the 'full journey.'" He also avoided wearing leather, wool or silk and used a fork, rather than a spade in his gardening to avoid killing worms.

Let us instil in others the reverence or life that Donald Watson had and that he passed on to us. — Gary L. Francione

Hunting and fishing involve killing animals with devices (such as guns) for which the animals have not evolved natural defenses. No animal on earth has adequate defense against a human armed with a gun, a bow and arrow, a trap that can maim, a snare that can strangle, or a fishing lure designed for the sole purpose of fooling fish into thinking they have found something to eat — Marc Bekoff

I was a vegan for about a year, and it was a great experience. And I became vegan not because of animal rights. I became vegan for a year for health purposes ... It was just kind of a detox that I was going through. — Tia Mowry

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

When humans act with cruelty we characterize them as "animals", yet the only animal that displays cruelty is humanity. — Anthony D. Williams

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

My own view is that being a vegetarian or vegan is not an end in itself, but a means towards reducing both human and animal suffering and leaving a habitable planet to future generations. — Peter Singer

A vegan diet takes care of most of what we need to do. But you'll also want to minimize the use of oils generally, because while olive oil and other vegetable oils are better for your heart than chicken fat, they are as fattening as animal fats. — Neal Barnard

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

I personally chose to go vegan because I educated myself on factory farming and cruelty to animals, and I suddenly realized that what was on my plate were living things, with feelings. And I just couldn't disconnect myself from it any longer. I read books like 'Diet for a New America' and saw documentaries like 'Earthlings' and 'Meet your Meat,' and it became an easy choice for me. — Ellen DeGeneres

I'm always active in trying to educate people when it comes to eating animal products, testing on animals, and the health benefits of being vegan, although I'm probably not the best person to be talking about the latter at the moment. — Daniel Johns

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

I'm killing two birds at once, so to speak. Animal-based food kills people. This way, by going vegan ... we get healthy and save animals. I'm being selfish, too, because if I can get my employees healthier, we cut down on sick days and gain more productivity. — Steve Wynn

Being a thoughtful vegan makes our time on this Earth more peaceful and joyous, because you get to have a hand in promoting and increasing the happiness, good health and well-being of others
both animal and human
rather than being an instrument of their suffering and death. — Russell Simmons

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

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

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

I've been an animal rights activist and a vegan for 28 years. The entire time, I've asked myself: How do I best advance an animal rights agenda? — Moby

This is a message to all those out there who think that you need animal products to be fit and strong. Almost two years after becoming vegan I am stronger than ever before and I am still improving day by day. Don't listen to those self proclaimed nutrition gurus and the supplement industry trying to tell you that you need meat, eggs and dairy to get enough protein. There are plenty of plant-based protein sources and your body is going to thank you for stopping feeding it with dead-food. Go vegan and feel the power! — Patrik Baboumian

Back in the eighties, people thought a vegan was someone from Vegas. It's a different world now and I feel lucky to have been a part of the revolution, both for animal rights and gay rights. — Dan Mathews

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

I've been vegetarian since the 80s and, lately, even vegan. And I once happened to witness the slaughter of a cow. What atrocity must undergo an animal to satisfy the appetite of those fat
men who eat hamburgers! — Anthony Kiedis

Being vegan truly is the secret to my life's joy and peace. I feel physically and spiritually better than I could have ever imagined knowing that I am doing everything I can to reduce animal suffering with simple lifestyle choices like being vegan, never wearing any products made from animals (like wool and leather), and buying only from companies that NEVER test their products or ingredients on animals. — Alicia Silverstone

Becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. — Chris Hedges

The most important form of incremental change is the decision by the individual to become vegan. Veganism, or the eschewing of all animal products, is more than a matter of diet or lifestyle; it is a political and moral statement in which the individual accepts the principle of abolition in her own life. Veganism is the one truly abolitionist goal that we can all achieve-and we can achieve it immediately, starting with our next meal. — Gary L. Francione

Feed two birds with one crumb. — Mischa Temaul

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

People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices — Gary L. Francione

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 Day-Lewis

I'm a proud vegan, whistle-blower, and animal rights activist. — Steve-O

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 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

Whatever the country or the venue, whoever I find myself with, I strongly believe that whenever you agree to pay for something, you vote for it. I personally try to be in coherence with my core values (as much as possible) so, since I do not want to vote for animal exploitation in any form or under any circumstance, I do not derogate from my chosen alimentation. I do not un-veganize myself for the time of a meal. Even if it implies eating only bread and drinking only water... And being made fun of by workmates in a convention (be there, done that, got the t-shirt). — Martin Blais

Some people feel that humans have a right to eat other animals but not to trash the earth. They may choose veganism because a vegan's ecological footprint is light, but once they are not invested in eating animals, they are more likely to be willing to learn the details of what happens to them. That learning will encourage compassionate people to stick with a plant-based diet. — Karen Dawn

For many of us, it's too difficult to jump in to vegan full on because it's just so different than the way we grew up eating. But if we take small steps - like replacing cow's milk with almond or soy milk, or using veggie sausage instead of sausage made from animals - we can keep enjoying the things we grew up loving, just better versions of them. — Kathy Freston

If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for animals that you are not vegan. — Gary L. Francione

In order to be a teacher you've got to be a student first — Gary L. Francione

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

Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning. — Melanie Joy

Being vegan or vegetarian isn't just about compassion for animals. Most of the destruction of the planet is the result of all the clear-cutting, groundwater contamination, grain production, fuel consumption, greenhouse gas, viral proliferation - the direct result of livestock production. — William McNamara

All of us, whether vivisector or vegan, have been subject to mechanisms undercutting sympathy for animals. How long and to what extent we submit to these mechanisms is not a matter of rationality: to cut off our feelings and support animal exploitation is rational, given societal expectations and sanctions; but to assert our feelings and oppose animal exploitation is also rational, given the pain involved in losing our natural bonds with animals. So our task is not to pass judgment on others' rationality, but to speak honestly of the loneliness and isolation of anthropocentric society, and of the damage done to every person expected to hurt animals. — Brian Luke

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

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

My stomach growled again, even more loudly than the first time. I flushed in embarrassment.
Jack's brows lifted. "Sounds like you haven't eaten in days, Ella."
"I'm starving. I'm always hungry." I sighed. "The reason I eat vegan is because my boyfriend Dane does. I never feel full for more than twenty minutes, and it's hard to keep up my energy."
"Then why do you do it?"
"I like the health benefits. My cholesterol and blood pressure are really low. And my conscience feels better when I eat an animal-free diet."
"I know of some good remedies for an active conscience," he said.
"I'm sure you do."
"It sounds like if it weren't for your boyfriend, you'd be eating meat."
"Probably," I admitted. "But I agree with Dane's take on the issues, and most of the time it's not a problem for me. Unfortunately, I'm temptable."
"I like that in a woman. It almost makes up for your conscience."
-Jack & Ella — Lisa Kleypas

I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world if we are superior to it. — Mahatma Gandhi

Beyond my desire to boycott the torture factories, I am also way happier when I eat a plant-based diet, and I feel about a thousand times more energetic ... I am really honored, and very inspired to continue living the vegan lifestyle that has been so good to my body, my animal friends, and the world we live in. — Olivia Wilde

I got into being vegan because I was simply looking to benefit from being more compassionate. I have since come to learn that it is an animal-based diet that is responsible for the overwhelming majority of cases of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, multiple sclerosis, and all kinds of other problems. — Steve-O

So in 1987 I gave up all animal products and became a vegan. Simply so that I could eat and live in accordance with my beliefs that animals have their own lives, that they're entitled to their own lives and that contributing to animal suffering is something that I don't want to be a part of. — Moby

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

Meat is a 4-legged word. — Mango Wodzak

Being vegan is easy. Are there social pressures that encourage you to continue to eat, wear, and use animal products? Of course there are. But in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic, and ableist society, there are social pressures to participate and engage in sexism, racism, homophobia, and ableism. At some point, you have to decide who you are and what matters morally to you. And once you decide that you regard victimizing vulnerable nonhumans is not morally acceptable, it is easy to go and stay vegan — Gary L. Francione

Starvation does not occur because of a world food shortage. If everyone ate a vegetarian, or better still, a vegan diet there would be enough food for everyone. The only sane way forward is to grow food for humans rather than to feed it to farmed animals.. — Jeremy Rifkin

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

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

It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal. — Joaquin Phoenix

The Utopians feel that slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable. — Thomas More

The primary benefit of a vegan diet is that the removal of animal products usually necessitates a higher amount of nutrient-rich plant produce. The cons of a vegan diet could be the inclusion of too much heavily processed food, including seitan and isolated soy protein, flour, sweeteners and oils. — Joel Fuhrman

If you care about animals, there is one and only one choice: go vegan. Can you choose not to be vegan? Sure. You can choose not to care. — Gary L. Francione

The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don't have a choice but to go vegan. — Gary L. Francione

Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. — Cesar Chavez

Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of "us" and "them" creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering. It is part of the in-group/out-group mentality that leads to human oppression of the weak by the strong as in ethic, religious, political, and social conflicts. — Marc Bekoff