Reflections

We all love animals. Why do we call some ‘pets’ and others ‘dinner?
 

k. d. Lang, Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter

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To get mud off your hands, use soap and water. To get blood off your hands, go vegan.

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John Sakars, musician and vegan activist

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A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk’sbill, 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, 1st century Greek philosopher and historian

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If a kid ever realized what was involved in factory farming, they would never touch meat again.
 

By James Cromwell, American actor and activist, and the human star of the film Babe

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

 

Sharon Gannon, animal rights activist, yoga teacher, and co-founder of the Jivamukti Yoga

method

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People eat meat and think they will become as strong as an ox, forgetting that the ox eats grass.

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Pino Caruso, Italian author and actor

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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.

By Cesar Chavez, an American labor leader, community organizer, civil rights activist and,

together with Dolores Huerta, founder of the National Farm Workers Association 

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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.

From Eating Animals (2009) by Jonathan Safran Foer, American novelist

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What other agents then are there, which, at the same time that they are under the influence of man's direction, are susceptible of happiness? They are of two sorts: (1) other human beings who are styled persons. (2) Other animals, which, on account of their interests having been neglected by the insensibility of the ancient jurists, stand degraded into the class of things... But is there any reason why we should be suffered to torment them? Not any that I can see. Are there any why we should not be suffered to torment them? … It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to such fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not: Can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.

From The Principles of Morals and Legislation by Jeremy Bentham, 18th/19th century English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

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Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent

nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or

restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers.
 

From Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, Australian author and moral philosopher

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A big reason for optimism about the end of animal farming is that it doesn't have to be the end of meat.

From The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food System by Jacy Reese

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If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When evaluating global happiness, is it wrong to count the happiness only of the upper classes, of Europeans or of men? Perhaps it is also wrong to consider only the happiness of humans.

From Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Israeli author, intellectual, and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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It's really hard (impossible, even) to care about climate change, workers' rights, human health, spiritual growth, and the environment while contributing to the death of 1 trillion innocent animals every year. Hopefully the progressives and 'spiritual' people will wake up and start to live according to their purported values.

By Moby

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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.

From Eating Animals (2009) by Jonathan Safran Foer, American novelist

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Some animal rights activists are demanding vegetarianism, even veganism now, or nothing. But since only 4 or 5 percent of Americans claim to be vegetarians, 'nothing' is the far more likely outcome. I ask these activists to weigh the horrors of Bladen County's industrial farms and the Tar Heel slaughterhouse against the consequences of doing nothing to alleviate the hour-to-hour sufferings of its victims. Is not a life lived off the factory farm and a death humanely inflicted superior to the terrible lives we know they lead and the horrible deaths we know they suffer in Bladen County today?

From An American Trilogy: Death, Slavery, and Dominion on the Banks of the Cape Fear River by Steven Wise

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Vegetarianism is the ethical corollary of evolution. It is simply the expansion of ethics to suit the biological revelations of Charles Darwin. Evolution has taught us the kinship of all creatures.

J. Howard Moore, Why I Am a Vegetarian: An Address Delivered Before the Chicago Vegetarian Society. He is considered to be an early proponent of animal rights and etchical vegetarianism

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The will to live is as intense in a weed as it is in a human.

By Mokokoma Mokhonoana, mystic, author, and social critic

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We built zoos because we are cruel, because we care not about the freedom of others, but only our own freedom, because animals are weak and we love to crush the weak, because we never understood and we are still not understanding that all living things have feelings like us!

By Mehmet Murat ildan, Turkish playwright and novelist

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It is nothing short of a miracle to be in the presence of a farm animal who has managed to reach old age. Most of their kin die before they are six months old.

From Allowed to Grow Old: Portraits of Elderly Animals from Farm Sanctuaries by Isa Leshko, American photographer

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Because the oppression of nonhuman individuals is normative, it is largely invisible, and most of us are complicit in one way or another. While social justice activists now widely recognize that the poor, elderly, and non-white racialized minorities are harmed by patriarchy, few are willing to similarly recognize the harm of patriarchal dualisms and hierarchy on nonhuman animals – even ecofeminist theorists. Very few social justice activists have even a rudimentary understanding of speciesism, or of the harmful exploitation that stems from such marginalization and cruel domination of nonhuman animals.

From Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice by Lisa Kemmerer

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The power brokers of factory farming know that their business model depends on consumers not being able to see (or hear about) what they do.

From Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

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Why do human egos seem so threatened by the thought that other animals think and feel? Is it because acknowledging the mind of another makes it harder to abuse them?

From Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina

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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.

From Fat, Gay Vegan - Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t by Sean O’Callaghan

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A prison for animals who committed no crimes is what a zoo is.

From The Sunrise Scrolls: To Life from the Shadows II, by Lamine Pearlheart

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Hunting animals is not a wildlife or environmental management solution. Why should anyone spend money to protect an animal that a wealthy trophy hunter can then pay to go kill?

By Fuad Alakbarov, political commentator, human rights activist and photographer

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If our ethical code makes a purely arbitrary distinction between humans and all other species, then we have a code based on naked selfishness devoid of any higher principle.

From The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond, American Geographer, historian and ornithologist

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Animal trafficking brings $20 billion, yes, billion with a b, into the United States every year, and that’s why you don’t see tighter regulations, higher fines, heftier punishments. As they say, follow the money. 

By Shenita Etwaroo, author and activist for human and animal rights

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About 30 years ago, the philosopher Peter Singer started to argue about the way animals are treated in our factory farms. Everybody thought he was nuts. But I’ve watched this movement grow; I’ve watched it become emotional. It has to become emotional. You have to draw empathy into it. But here it is, right in our time—a philosopher making the argument, everyone dismissing it, but then people start discussing it.

By Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, American Philosopher and Novelist

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We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but nobody knows where we’re going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own concord and amusement, yet never-ending satisfaction. Is there anymore more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?

From Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Israeli author, intellectual and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Vegans avoid animal products because we oppose any use of animals, regardless of how small- or large-scale, but as we live in a non-vegan world we have to accept that some of those products are unavoidable at this point in time.

By Dominika Piasecka, vegan and animal rights activist

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Animal rights and environmentalism walk hand in hand. We simply cannot take care of one without the other. If we try to do that, we fail. Protect the animals, protect our planet.

By Shenita Etwaroo, author and activist for human and animal rights

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If factory farming for meat of cats, dogs, squirrels, swans and guinea pigs began in western Europe, you can be sure some of the bacon and sausage gorging public would be out protesting. Although other cultures regularly eat some or all of these animals, everybody draws the line somewhere. Most would balk at the idea of eating dolphin, gorilla, orangutan or human flesh, but really the differences between the species are minimal and whether we are a rabbit, horse, chimpanzee or human, we all have an innate desire to live our lives freely and avoid violation.

From Destination Eden - Eden Fruitarianism Explained by Mango Wodzak

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No one in the world needs a Rhino horn but a Rhino.
By Paul Oxton, CEO and founder of the Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation

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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.

From The Complete Poems of Cecil Day-Lewis

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It's not that there are no challenges to becoming a vegetarian or vegan, but in the media, including authors of popular books on food and food politics, contribute to the 'enfreakment' of what is so often patronizingly referred to as the vegan or vegetarian 'lifestyle.' But again, the marginalization of those who care about animals is nothing new. Diane Beers writes in her book For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States that 'several late nineteenth-century physicians concocted a diagnosable for of mental illness to explain such bizarre behavior. Sadly, they pronounced these misguided souls suffered from "zoophilpsychosis."' As Beers describes, zoophilpsychosis (an excessive concern for animals) was more likely to be diagnosed in women, who were understood to be 'particularly susceptible to the malady.' As the early animal advocacy movement in Britain and the United States was largely made up of women, such charges worked to uphold the subjugation both of women and of nonhuman animals.

From Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor, American painter, writer, and activist for disability and animal rights

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Special needs animals need special homes with special hearts in order to take care of them. These animals deserve forever homes, too. It’s so disheartening, how often I see posts for adoptions for a dog or cat that have aged twelve years without ever finding their family because of some perceived defect.

By Shenita Etwaroo, author, activist and advocate dedicated to human and animal rights

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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 recognized for what they really are.

From Destination Eden - Eden Fruitarianism Explained by Mango Wodzak

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The word animal is a derivative of the Greek word anima, which also means soul.

From Toward Saving the Honeybee by Gunther Hauk

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Like other mammals, they are capable of strong emotions. They have certainly committed no crimes. I do not claim to have the answer, but I think it is certainly worthwhile to raise the question: Why, exactly, all over the civilized world, in virtually every major city, are apes in prison?

From Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan, American astrophysicist and cosmetologist

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Animal rights are not a gift we give to animals. They are a birthright we have taken from them.

By Ryan Phillips, vegan activist

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As long as humans feel they are forced to defend their own rights and worth by placing someone beneath them, oppression will not end.

From The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel, author and Executive Director of The Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness

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The choice-obsessed modern West is probably more accommodating to individuals who choose to eat differently than any other culture has ever been, but ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore - “I’m easy; I’ll eat anything” - can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.

From Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

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The indifference, callousness, and contempt that so many people exhibit toward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering towards animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of human spirit.

By Ashley Montagu, British-American anthropologist

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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!

By Jenn Keller-Lowe, animal rights activist

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

From The 30-Day Vegan Challenge: The Ultimate Guide to Eating Healthfully and Living Compassionately by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

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We are the collateral damage of carnism; we pay for it with our health, our environment, and our taxes - $7.64 billion a year, to be exact.

From Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism: The Belief System That Enables Us to Eat Some Animals and Not Others by Melanie Joy

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Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way.

From Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary Francione

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The Reflections for April, 2022 consist of quotations from essays written by various Vegan activists for Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers, edited by Dr. Joanne Kong

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I am glad we have a subconscious and the “mirror neurons” that allow us to put ourselves in the place of even the “oddest,” most alien beings, who seem the furthest removed from us. Practicing empathy, understanding, and respect can only be a good thing after all.

By Ingrid Newkirk, President and Founder, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

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I do believe that we are in the middle of a global awakening of consciousness – a collective shift toward peace, nonviolence, and compassion, toward a future on which all sentient life on this planet will be treated with respect and reverence and allowed to live free of human imposed suffering. We must hold this vision of a compassionate, vegan world in our hearts and n our actions, and we just might see big changes for animals in our lifetime. Indeed, we already have.

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By Hope Bohanec, activist, author, podcaster

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So ethics, morality, and justice tell us that might does not make right, yet how do humans justify the use, enslavement, genetic manipulation, commodification, mutilation, objectification, killing, and consuming of sentient beings on this earth? The honest answer is we cannot, but we have tried to do so using any excuse and reasoning that we, the wielders of power, can use. These excuses include religious invention … And cultural practices are used to justify continuing insupportable barbarism in a time when there is no need for such practices to continue … Then there is the excuse of ownership, the result of the commodification of sentient living beings, which should be an affront and a perversion to any civilized mind. There are also people who simply do not care, and people who just want to satisfy their wants.  

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​By Katina Czyczelis, business manager, musician, activist, writer, and healer

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​Activism can come in all shapes and forms. It doesn’t have to be on the streets. One can actively try to dismantle this violent system by – among other things – fundraising, organizing community events, making posters, managing social media, giving speeches, writing books and blogs, promoting plant-based nutrition as a medical professional, bearing witness, or running a vegan business, restaurant, or animal sanctuary. What matters is that you do something that you loave and are good at to strengthen the cause.

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By Shweta Borgaonkar, social justice organizer

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​The idea that parents shouldn’t “force” (a word that really means “educate” in this context) their ethical and moral beliefs on their children is ridiculous, because society itself is not value-neutral. The notion of letting children choose for themselves whether or not they want to be vegan presents a false scenario, in which veganism is viewed as supporting ridiculous and extreme values backed by propaganda. Nonveganism, the default, is thus viewed as neutral and “the norm”. Big business, industry, and advertisers create and reinforce this nonvegan norm on a regular basis, which is anything but value-neutral. TV commercials for cheeseburgers, roadside billboards for zoos, and “Got Milk?” ads in magazines and school cafeterias all convey that animal are things and commodities for human use, and that this is a value in and of itself. 

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By Sarina Farb, vegan educator and speaker

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​The vegan revolution is an essential part of the evolution of consciousness that humanity has to undergo in order to solve our problems. It is the first step in creating a nonviolent world. Aided by, among other things, the Internet and rising plant-based protein technologies, just as mountains are eroded by constant wind and precipitation, a tiny minority of animal activists are breaking the iron chains of habit and tradition to create a better, brighter future for all Earthlings.

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By Sandra Isobel Kyle, the Singing Vegan

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When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to him who suffers, and try to help him.

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By Leo Tolstoy as quoted by James O’Toole, Co-Director of Communications, Animal Save Movement 

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​In society, we are conditioned from infancy to believe the lies that it is normal, natural, and necessary to consume animal products, It is up to those of us who have broken the disconnect to inform the public that these myths are not true and that believing them is not only wrong and incredibly destructive to our planet, our health, and of course, the billions of animals who are abused, tortured and murdered at the hands of humans every single year. 

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By James O’Toole, Co-Director of Communications, Animal Save Movement

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​I believe all humans know right from wrong. I believe that empathy is innate and violence is learned. The problem is that we’ve been conditioned by society to not only suppress our innate and deepest sense of empathy, but also to shun and ridicule those who openly display it. From the moment we’re born, we’re inundated with TV commercials, billboards, and other advertisements telling us animals are commodities. 

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By Curtis Vollmar, animal liberation activist

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​I firmly believe that those phenomena that are the most detrimental, toxic and hindering to the animal rights movement occur within our own ranks, in the form of groups or individuals who 1) believe their way is the only way to achieve success and/or 2) condemn others for their form of activism or protest. I cannot stress how negative of an impact this rhetoric can have on the movement, especially on new or emerging activists. 

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By Curtis Vollmar, animal liberation activist

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​Slaughterhouse workers are some of the most exploited and most vulnerable people in the workforce. We pay to kill, literally. And they have to live with that. They have to see the blood that we do not want to see. They have to take the life of an innocent sentient being. The act of killing over and over again can, among other consequences, cause irreparable damage to their psyche.

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By Farah Siraj, vegan musician and speaker

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​I look into the future and see the possibilities for a bold new world brought about by the best qualities of who we are – our intellect, adaptability, sense of innovation, perseverance, optimism, and determination. We end the ravages upon our planet, instead regenerating and preserving its resources that allow us to live; we find strength in our diversity; we continue to recognize and accept the emotional and cognitive abilities of nonhuman animals; and we expand the rising awareness that food should be healing and not come from violence. I believe that one day, we will look back upon the mass exploitation of animals as a moral atrocity. Bringing it to an end will be proof of a revolutionary kindness and one of humanity’s greatest acts of compassion. 

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From the Afterword to Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers, edited by Dr. Joanne Kong

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The Five Principles of Reiki:

Just for today, let go of anger. 
o    Anger results from one’s inability to control situations or people encountered in life. Step back, take a breath, clear your mind, step forward.

 

Just for today, let go of worry. 
o    Worrying about what has occurred in the past is useless and can lead to shame and regret. Worrying about what may occur in the future is equally futile because it is unknown. 

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Just for today, be grateful and humble.
o    To feel gratitude and humility is to be thankful for all of the circumstances in one’s life. 

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Just for today, live honestly. 
o    Deal with both oneself and others with integrity.

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Just for today, be compassionate. 
o    Be considerate of one’s environment and strive not to cause unnecessary harm to other living beings and life forms. 

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On a larger scale, dharma means the essential order of things...rightness, justice, goodness, purpose rather than chance. Underlying this idea is the oneness of life...There is an ancient Sanskrit epigram, Ahimsa paramo dharma: the highest dharma is ahimsa, nonviolence, universal love for all living creatures; for every kind of violence is a violation of dharma, the fundamental law of the unity of life.

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By Eknath Easwaran, Indian-born spiritual teacher, author and translator and interpreter of Indian religious texts such as the Bhagavad Vita and the Upanishads

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Sometimes we might remember that all other animals have every bit as much right to be here and to be unmolested as any human does.

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By Sir David Frederick Attenborough, English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. Also, the “away” message for Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 

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Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.

And when I’m awake, or awake enough,

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement?

Over and over he gets to ask.

I get to tell.

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From Dog Songs, Poems by Mary Oliver. Contributed by Elaine Hutchison, Compassion Consortium member.

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Desire

Those who do not achieve their desires will continue to desire.

Those who achieve their desires will desire more.

Desire does not rest.

It is an infinite, endless hedonic treadmill of diminishing and unfulfilling returns.

Those who do not desire will achieve liberation and internal peace. 

The easiest way to gain happiness is to learn to desire the things we already have. 

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The Compassion Consortium by Rev. William Melton (with a little assistance from The Buddha and Epictetus)

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Ahimsa is not mere negative ‘non-injury.’ It is positive, cosmic love. It is the development of a mental attitude in which hatred is replaced by love.

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By Swami Sivananda, a yogi and medical doctor from India, awarded the Padma Shri by India in 2022

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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

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By Herman Hesse, a German-Swiss poet, novelist and painter, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946

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Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it alright will rather preserve it’s life than destroy it. 

By Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, naturalist, poet, and philosopher, best known for his book Walden, a Reflection Upon Simple Living in Natural Surroundings. 

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When a child kills an animal for fun, we fear mental illness, when an adult with the capacity for reason does it, we call it “sport”. 

By Seth MacFarlane, American actor, director and producer

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I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice that it always coincides with their own desires. 

By Susan B. Anthony, American social reformer and women’s rights activist

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A bloodless sportsman,
I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods,
The dreams that haunt the sky,
The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
The brooks for the fishers of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gun-less games
The streams and woods belong.

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From The Bloodless Sportsman by Sam Walter Foss, American poet and librarian

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Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one – the solitary one – that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices – the most hateful. He is the only creature that has pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. Also – in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind. 

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By Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, American humorist, writer and lecturer.  

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The U.S. system of justice contains laws whereby nonhuman animals have no legal standing, but are defined as “property,” as wives and enslaved Africans once were. Other animals (including mice, rats, and birds) are excluded from the legal definition of “animal” in the U.S., thereby denying these individuals whatever slight protection might be provided by U.S. animal welfare laws, and allowing science to use these sentient beings in any way researchers see fit, without fear of legal sanction. Other speciesist laws prevent animal advocates from using free speech on behalf of hunted animals … Institutionalized support for the systematic oppression of nonhuman animals is also evident in the recent Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, as well as in the mainstream media, both of which – unbelievably – label animal advocates as “terrorists.

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By Lisa Kemmerer: Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice

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

The eternal being which, as it lives in us, also lives in every animal ... the animal is in essence absolutely the same thing that we are.

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By Arthur Schopenhauer: The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion

Bacon would not be a choice if the pig had any say in the matter. A lamb, given the gift of speech, would most probably say "no" if you asked if you could eat her leg. Fish would no doubt choose to stay in the water, if they could and I feel pretty sure turkeys must object once their Christmas fête (or should that be fate?) is made clear to them. Chickens are surely protesting from having their eggs systematically stolen and freedoms restricted, and both cows and their calves would be up in arms, if they had any, with the theft of their milk and violent separation. Given the chance, bees will attack and defend ferociously, even sacrificing themselves in the process, in order to protect their precious honey; a sure sign they do not part with it voluntarily.”

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By Mango Wodzak: Destination Eden - Eden Fruitarianism Explained

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There is a famous scene at the beginning of a Star Wars film, where the main character cuts open an animal to climb inside of it to so that he would survive extremely cold weather. People were shocked by this, and they should be. Do they not consider that wearing fur or leather is the same thing?

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By Shenita Etwaroo, author, activist and advocate dedicated to human and animal rights

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We use horses as our slaves; we chain dogs; we steal eggs from the chickens, honey from the bees; we make wallets out of crocodiles; we imprison the birds; we torture the bulls in the arenas; we whip the lions and beat the tigers in the circuses! What are we? Definitely not ethical creatures!

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By Mehmet Murat ildan, Turkish author and animal rights activist

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If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as "human rights"? How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder? What further properties must he show before religious missionaries must
consider him worthy of attempts at conversion?”

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By Carl Sagan:  Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

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Most frequently asked question at my AI talks: Will robots be conscious? We slaughter 60 billion animals/year, but are concerned for robots?”

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By Piero Scaruffi, freelance software consultant, writer and university lecturer

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As per the law of karma, that which is your meat today, this dear beloved animal will make mincemeat of you tomorrow. In another birth.

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By Fakeer Ishavardas: Yoga of Jesus: Cracking the Code of the Mystic Teachings of Christ

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If people were superior to animals, they'd take better care of the world”

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By Benjamin Hoff: The Tao of Pooh

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Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way.”

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By Gary Francione: Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals

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But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”

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By Lawrence Anthony: The Elephant Whisperer

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A Dog’s Last Will and Testament

 

 

Before humans die, they write their last Will & Testament, give their home & all they have to those they leave behind. If, with my paws, I could do the same, this is what I’d ask …

 

To a poor and lonely stray I’d give:

•    My happy home
•    My bowl & cozy bed, soft pillows and all my toys
•    The lap, which I loved so much
•    The hand that stroked me and the sweet voice which spoke my name

 

I’d will to the sad, scared shelter dog, the place I had in my
Human’s loving heart, of which there seemed no bounds. 

 

So, when I die, please do not say, “I will never have another pet companion again, for the loss and pain is more than I can stand.”

 

Instead, go find an unloved dog, one whose life has held no joy or hope, and give MY place to that dog.

 

This is the only thing I can give: 

------ The love I left behind.

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Author unknown

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I am often accused of caring for non-human animals as much as I care for humans, and of believing that non-human animals are equal to humans in terms of their spirituality and souls. Well, let’s do a brief review of the sordid history of the human species for the last several hundred years. Non-human animals have never attempted to eliminate an entire group of other humans, as was done during the Holocaust. Non-human animals have never committed the largest genocide in history, as was done by Europeans against the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Non-human animals have never held an entire race of humans in the bondage of slavery as was done to the Africans captured and transported to the United States. Non-human animals have never stormed an elementary school armed with a military-style rifle and massacred innocent young children. So, let me ask you: Are non-human animals at least equal to humans … or is it possible that non-human animals are in fact infinitely superior to humans in all respects, except intellectual ability? 

 

By Rev. William

 

Empathy is really important. Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our full potential.

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By Jane Goodall, English primatologist and anthropologist 

 

If a cow can influence a cattle rancher’s wife to go vegan … anything is possible.  

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By Renee King-Sonnen, Rowdy Girl Sanctuary

The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.

 

By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit priest, paleontologist and theologian 

 

It’s a wonderful harmony. The plants make the antioxidant shields, and at the same time make them look incredibly appealing with beautiful, appetizing colors. Then we animals, in turn, are attracted to the plants and eat them and borrow their antioxidant shields for our own health. Whether you believe in God, evolution, or just coincidence, you must admit that this is a beautiful, almost spiritual, example of nature’s wisdom.

By T. Colin Campbell, nutritional biochemist

Noah had his ark. Today Vegans ARE the ark, working together...to take the world forward over a flood of cruelty, pain and torture, to bring all our precious animal friends to a place where they can live in safety in peace.

By Dr. Tony Matthews, Australian author and historian

You kill life and call it an act of religion. Then what is irreligion?

By Kabir, 15th century Indian mystic poet and saint

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!

By Mango Wodzak, from, Destination Eden- Eden Fruitarianism Explained

Writer Brigid Brophy exposes [their motives] with great precision:
"Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. These slogans have a long history. After being used to justify slave traders, ruthless industrialists, and contractors who had found that the most economically 'realistic' method of cleaning a chimney was to force a small child to climb it, they have now been passed on, like an heirloom, to the factory farmers. 'We mustn't be sentimental' tries to persuade us that factory farming isn't, in fact, cruel. It implies that the whole problem had been invented by our sloppy imagination.”

By Peter Cox, from You Don’t Need Meat

There is no kind way to rip the skin off animals' backs. Anyone who wears any fur shares the blame for the torture and gruesome deaths of millions of animals each year.

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By Natalie Imbruglia, Australian-British singer and actor

This, for many people, is what's 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.

By Michael Pollan, American author and journalist

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I outgrew the demand for murdered things.

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Myrtle Filmore, co-founder of Unity, along with her husband Charles Filmore

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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.

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Albert Schweitzer, theologian, humanitarian and physician

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If you eat animals, you don't love animals; you love to eat them.

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Andrew Kirschner, Ed.D.

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My view is that what morality boils down to is, 'Don’t harm, and do help.' And now the question is, 'Can creatures like chickens and cows be harmed?' And the answer is, 'Of course they can.' Consequently, I think it’s immoral to harm them. And that seems to me to provide a very strong moral reason to be vegetarian, to not wear leather... it seems to me that our treatment of animals is morally appalling... and that we ought to radically revise the way we live, precisely because they feel pain, they can be hurt, and we’re constantly hurting these creatures!

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Shelly Kagan, Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, known for his writings about moral philosophy and ethics. 

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Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way.

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From Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary Francione

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If we are not able to bring the churches, the synagogues and the mosques around to the animal rights view, we will never make large-scale progress for animal rights in the United States. 

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Norm Phelps, animal rights activist and writer

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All animals, including humans, have a right to lives of dignity and respect, without forced intrusions.

From The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons for Expanding Our Compassion Footprint by Mark Bekoff

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Religion asks followers to believe in things nobody can see, however, animal activists ask people to see things they can prove. When Christian animal and environmental activists finally demand that their church be better stewards over the world, we will see change. Until then, one percent of sermons will teach parishioners about the importance of being stewards over our animals in a year. Mega churches and corporate religious empires will continue to own stock in companies that pollute our earth and exploit our animals. Ignorance and hypocrisy will continue to corrupt the pureness of the Gospel. From here, we will not be truly “saved” because we choose not to save ourselves.

 

 

Shannon L. Alder, inspirational author, therapist and animal rights activist

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What we see in the world around us is just a reflection of what is inside of us.

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From Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness, by Sharon Gannon

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

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From Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness: The Complete Guide to Building Your Body on a Plant-Based Diet by Robert Cheeke

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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.

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From The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, American author and journalist

 

 

Meat is a 4-legged word.

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From Destination Eden by Mango Wodzak

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