Animal Rights Activists

"When factory farmers tell us that animals kept in 'intensive' (i.e. concentration) camps are being kindly spared the inclemency of a winter outdoors, and that calves do not mind being tethered for life on slats because they have never known anything else, an echo should start in our historical consciousness: do you remember how the childlike blackamoors were kindly spared the harsh responsibilities of freedom, how the skivvy didn't feel the hardship of scrubbing all day because she was used to it, how the poor didn't mind their slums because they had never known anything else?"

"I'm standing on the shoulders of Nina Duchess of Hamilton and Miss Lind-af-Hageby and the people who fought for the animals in the previous generation. Their period of life on earth is gone, but people carry on their work. As I said, my husband and I stood on their shoulders, but there are lots who will stand on our shoulders."

"Reason can always disarm the irrational. If reason finds itself to be irrational, it can disarm it; and if one finds reason and discovers that eating animals is immoral, unnecessary, and done largely for superstitious reasons, then one is delivered from the compulsion to do it."

"Even if vegetarian dishes are less palatable than meat-based dishes, and it is not clear that they are, we have to weigh up humans' loss of certain pleasures of the palate against what the animals we eat have to give up because of our predilection for meat. Most obviously, of course, they have to give up their lives, and all the opportunities for the pursuing of interests and satisfaction of preferences that go with this. For most of the animals we eat, in fact, death may not be the greatest of evils. They are forced to live their short lives in appalling and barbaric conditions, and undergo atrocious treatment. Death for many of these animals is a welcome release. When you compare what human beings would have to 'suffer' should vegetarianism become a widespread practice with what the animals we eat have to suffer given that it is not, then if one were to make a rational and self-interested choice in the original position, it is clear what this choice would be. If one did not know whether one was going to be a human or an animal preyed on by humans, the rational choice would surely be to opt for a world where vegetarianism was a widespread human practice and where, therefore, there was no animal husbandry industry. What one stands to lose as a human is surely inconsequential compared to what one stands to lose as a cow, or pig, or lamb."

"When he was a little boy, my father had a dog – a German shepherd named Rex. He was very fond of the dog and would ride around the garden on its back. Around the same time, the Rowlands family also had a pig. History does not record the name of this pig, and perhaps it never had a name. But, nameless or not, my father was very fond of it and would ride around the garden on its back. Rex, by all accounts, lived a long and happy life. Things went a little differently for the pig. I relate this story not only because it provided my first brush with the idea of animal rights ('What happened to the pig, Dad?') but also because, if you look closely enough, you will find the basic moral case for animals encapsulated tightly within it. Ethics is many things, but it's hardly rocket science. In the end, most of it is pretty obvious. The moral case for animals … is about as obvious as this: the differential treatment of Rex and pig is a bit strange."

"Our modern sedentary life is one for which we have not been designed and for which, at least biologically, we are poorly equipped. It is a common misconception – pervasive and tenacious, but a misconception nonetheless – that arses are made for sitting on. It seems, instead, they are made for running."

"Humans are the animals that manufacture weakness. We take wolves and we make them into dogs. We take buffalo and we make them into cows. We take stallions and we make them into geldings. We make things weak so that we may use them."

"I’m vegan in my fashion and vegetarian in my food. I don’t buy any leather goods or anything made from animal products – no down, nothing. It’s something people should be mindful of. … I think because I came to live in L.A. the transition was simple because vegetarianism is so common there. And I didn’t feel like I was missing that much by being a vegetarian. … I had a moment about 9 years ago. It was so odd. I was talking to my then-boyfriend and he was talking about a fishing trip and how he’d never had the experience of ‘killing’ his food. Even though I had fished my whole life, something just snapped in me and I said, I’m not eating this anymore. … Being vegan is more challenging, especially when it comes to going out to eat. But I found Chicago has great vegetarian and vegan restaurants. … Healthwise, I notice when I wasn’t eating meat anymore I felt so much lighter."

"I've always grown up with animals and I just felt like, that, animals were always family to me. And so, I am a complete lover of animals, and anything I can do to support them, that’s really my goal and job. … I always call my dogs "kids" and so anytime a child can associate that type of love of an animal as they would with another human being, I definitely think that's going to kind of help our culture as we are going along. Of course in the Bible, God gave man dominion over animals … I definitely believe that dominion is not taking it and beating them but just showing them the way. Showing them that you love them, that you are concerned about them, you want to watch them grow up to be the best animals that they could possibly be."

"To most, death is an incredibly scary and taboo idea. provides a shoulder to lean on... and the important duty of easing the fears and doubts that naturally reside in our minds as we approach the end of our lifetime. There is nothing I am more proud or passionate about than being a part of this work. It is a life-long commitment for me. A passion that I find to be more gratifying than anything I have ever known. My hope is to inspire others to join me in this fulfilling journey."

"People need to treat animals like they would treat a kid. You have to take care of it, make sure they are happy and they have anything they need. If you don’t have the time, then you don’t need an animal. … I want people to be aware of what is around them. Just because they don’t want to deal with it, doesn’t mean they can shut it out."

"I’ve always been opposed to slaughtering, eating, wearing carcasses."

"When I stopped eating meat, I noticed that it was easier for me to focus, and I was really proud of myself for being green also. … I had a plethora of reasons for going vegetarian. I was eating meat and didn’t know how it affected my health …. I just felt better and brighter and lighter, and I had more energy …. It was a big deal to me, being an animal lover, that I realised what I was eating, and I didn’t separate myself from, say, my animals, my pets."

"I love animals, always had. It's totally unfair what we do to animals who have no voice, who can't say anything, who can't do anything about it. And since they can't help themselves, someone needs to … I think people definitely need to pay more attention because it's so unfair. … [If you see an animal in need or mistreated] just make sure that you don't forget about the animal, because you wouldn't want anybody to forget about you if you couldn't talk."

"I was literally waiting till I turned 18 so I could do that [nude posing] with PETA. It's something I was passionate about at a young age. I was educating my mom and sister, and encouraging as many people as possible not to eat meat and the reasons behind it. That poster is something I'm really proud I did to raise awareness for a cause I believe in. It's one of my proudest moments."

"I was raised Vegan since birth. … I remember watching undercover investigation videos and reading the pamphlets that were mailed to the house when we were kids—I felt deeply for the animals at an early age. I remember how the other parents of my childhood friends would either get upset or interested when their kids would come home after sleepovers at my house—I felt it was my duty to show my friends what was happening to animals. … Veganism is the ultimate form of compassion. … I never considered my being Vegan was for health reasons—it was always for the love and respect I had for animals. And because of that love and respect I have for non-human animals my compassion flows over to all living beings, of all types. … I am encouraged by compassionate souls and the love I see in the eyes of those I've committed my life to stand up for."

"It is the responsibility of each of us—every man, woman, and child on this planet—to try to lessen the total amount of suffering in our world. … Speciesism, like racism, is a learned attitude, and both can be unlearned."

"I’ve only known a vegan life and have been constantly teaching others of the joys and benefits of being a vegan … As an adult, I THANK my Mother profusely for being extremely honest with me as a kid and for never hiding the truth about milk, “meat”, animal experimentation … There is speciesism and that is about as cruel as it gets because it sets the stage and practice for cruelty amongst human beings. … Discrimination is discrimination—as abuse is abuse … regardless of an animals human or nonhuman form, gender, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation or level of intelligence/knowledge it should be our birthright to LIVE our lives peacefully and harmoniously without inflicting pain on others. People who inflict intentional pain without moral or ethical regard for other human or nonhuman animals are just reminders of how much further we have to go until oppression is completely eradicated."

"Each fur jacket and piece of fur trim is taken from a terrified living being who was trapped in the wild … or who had a miserable life locked inside a barren wire cage before being drowned, electrocuted, poisoned, or skinned alive. … I, along with many … would love to see … take a step into the compassionate future of fashion by pledging not to feature fur."

"I decided to go nude because I think that nudity always creates a big reaction. That is what is required to keep people’s attention on such a brutal practice …. These poor animals are electrocuted, skinned alive, drowned, and bludgeoned just for the sake of fashion. … Don’t buy fur. Even a little trim—your gloves or your bag or your jackets …. You must remember that animals don’t have a voice. You must be their voice. Never be afraid to speak up."

"In early 1981 one of the most important moments in my life occurred. I entered a vivisection lab … In one of the cages, I saw a young Alaskan malamute … The dog tried to lick my face through the bars. Maybe he thought I had come to save him. I saw the infected stitches in the belly, oozing pus and blood. I saw the filthy, encrusted tube that was draining fluid out of his stomach. And as I held him, I saw the rotted stitches start to come apart and his guts start to spill out. As gently as I could, I let him down onto the floor of the cage and placed my hand on him, trying to comfort him in those last few moments of his life. I was still holding him when at last he took his final struggling breaths and died. It seemed to take a lifetime. I was close to tears as I looked at the body, and I thought, this isn’t science — this is madness. Standing there, looking at that gentle animal lying dead in a bloody cage, I made a promise to him and to myself, that I would never forget him, that I would keep on fighting vivisection until it was ended."

"I decided to become Vegan simply because if you care about animals and people, there is no other choice but to be vegan. It’s a very simple equation — meat and dairy = animal and human suffering. … When you know the truth about meat and dairy the hard thing would be to continue to eat them."

"My husband is a veggie and I always wanted to try it. Our first step was making our entire family go “organic.” I only wish we had done it sooner! I also read a book called “Skinny Bitch”, which opened my eyes to cruelty to animals, and that was it! It hasn’t been that hard for me."

"I've been an animal lover all my life, and the more I learned of the torture that animals go through in the name of fashion, I just think it's so unnecessary; it's unbelievable to me. I’m blessed to team up with my pageant sisters to take a united stand and to tell the pageant industry not to support the fur industry."

"Promoting veganism, I think it’s such an important message. … I remember as a child, my grandma instilling in us that no matter how little you think you have, there are always people and beings that are suffering on the planet and have even less than us. As I’ve grown older, the love just continues to grow for all living beings. It breaks my heart when I see animals being mistreated. As we all know, in agriculture, that’s like one of the biggest mistreatments that animals endure in our country. The more I educated myself about the subject, the more I was able to make wiser, more intelligent decisions in my life. … I’ve seen some tremendous positive changes in my health in the last six years when I switched to a plant-based diet … I live by the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. And to me, that includes animals as well. They should be loved. They are souls on this planet just like we are."

"There are so many good reasons not to eat meat, but for me, the well-being of my children is the most important. … I want them to be healthy and also to understand that when they say ‘No!’ to meat, they’re saying ‘No!’ to animal cruelty. We talk about our pets, and I say, ‘You wouldn’t eat Biscuit, would you? Well, then let’s not eat any animal, O.K.? … I don’t think I really realized what I was putting into my body and the actual effects that it was having on me, so now I feel so much healthier, and I have so much more energy, and foods taste better!"

"I'm an animal lover and my two cats are my world, so I don't wear any fur. I don't support the fur industry. And I'm not really into animal prints either, I just don't like the idea of me saying "I'm wearing a big cat today.""

"As long as I'm the director of Miss Nevada, we will never award fur coats as prizes, and I urge my fellow pageant directors to make the same pledge. Kind people today are taking a stand against cruelty to animals—so a fur coat is no prize for a compassionate, socially-aware woman."

"Animals are just always a passion of mine. … I would like to use my voice to promote anti-fur. … Throughout my reign, I was offered a lot of gifts, you know, either they were fur shoes or fur coats. Sometimes, sponsors of course wanted me to wear their products, but I would always put my foot down, because it's just so cruel and I don't want to be a supporter of that. I don’t want to show anyone that I support what they do to animals for the benefit of fashion. It doesn’t make any sense to me."

"Our economic order is tightly woven around the exploitation of animals, and while it may seem easy to dismiss concern about animals as the soft-headed mental masturbation of people who really don't understand oppression and the depths of actual human misery, I hope to get you to think differently about suffering and pain, to convince you that animals matter, and to argue that anyone serious about ending domination and hierarchy needs to think critically about bringing animals into consideration."

"We can argue about their intelligence (which we would likely define in human-centric terms anyway), their ability to understand human language, or even the extent to which they really understand and know the world around them, but there’s no argument that can convincingly show that animals don’t feel pain, and that they have no interest in avoiding that pain. If anything, animals are more sensitive to the world around them than we are, given their heightened sensory abilities."

"Celebrating our culture is very important to me. But one thing I cannot support is the senseless killing of animals in bullfights. From the moment the bull enters the ring, he’s destined to die. Outnumbered, frightened, even drugged or injured, his death will be slow and painful. … Tradition is no excuse for cruelty."

"If a man abuses his spouse, do we ask him to stop, or do we throw our hands up in exasperation, saying that if he’s going to do it, he should at least not hit so damn hard? Similarly, if a person is going to eat meat, do we ask her to stop, or do we throw our hands up in exasperation, saying instead if one is going to eat meat, at least eat free-range? … Welfarism is accepting defeat before we’ve even begun the battle. It accepts as a premise, that genuine vegan and abolitionist outreach can’t be and aren’t effective enough … Veganism is living abolition in your daily life. Not only a consumptive practice, veganism is also an overt political act illustrating how the consumption and abuse of animals is unacceptable. Unlike welfarist measures, veganism is not at conflict with the ends of our movement: it is living what we want our world to be."

"We have created a false dichotomy between behaviors attributable to companion animals and those of other species that blinds us to the inherent worth and needs of all animals. The problem is that we have constructed a society in which we are rarely forced to think about where what we consume comes from, and this extends to the animals reared for our consumption. While we pamper one set of animals, another set of animals becomes our food. The main difference is that we come to know one set of these animals, while the other set is raised and killed for us, delivered in plastic wrap and Styrofoam, and served up as dinner. If nothing else, this belies the deep moral confusion that we have about animals as a culture."

"Growing up, I was always in and out of the hospital with stomach problems, and no one could figure out what was wrong. I decided to give up meat and become a vegetarian, and I haven’t had stomach problems since! I love eating healthy, delicious vegetarian meals and the options are endless. No matter where I go, I can find vegetarian dishes that satisfy my hunger and my taste for great food."

"Inevitably, people tell me that poor folks are lazy or unintelligent, that they are somehow deserving of their poverty. However, if you begin to look at the sociological literature on poverty, a more complex picture emerges. Poverty and unemployment are part and parcel of our economic order. Without them, capitalism would cease to function effectively, and in order to continue to function, the system itself must produce poverty and an army of underemployed or unemployed people."

"Much as we live in an economic and social order that is structured to exploit people, we live in one that is structured to exploit animals. We’re encouraged to understand both are natural and inevitable, but neither are. Both exploitations have long and contentious histories as part of the development of our modern economic order."

"If we're all led to believe that poverty is just a matter of laziness or stupidity or whatever other justifications we can come up with, then we're not likely to be in a real position to do much about it when it comes to attacking the root causes of the problem. Instead of demanding a more equitable system for the distribution of social and economic goods, we blame the victim. This is insidious, because ideology is something we carry around with us in our heads; it forms the basis of our day-to-day understanding of the world."

"My healthiest transformation was going vegan. … I don’t think words can describe seeing an animal tortured like [in factory farms]. It’s unethical, and it’s something I want to fight against. You are what you eat, and I’d rather be a fruit than a dead, rotting carcass."

"I read a few books like Skinny Bitch, a bunch of books on vegan lifestyles and my mother always brought me to vegetarian restaurants, so I was really into diets and studying health. And I just thought it would be the best step, so I went vegetarian. … I watched a lot of PETA videos on YouTube, and it was heartbreaking."

"Imagine being left out in the freezing cold, without shelter and bedding for warmth or a friend to ease your loneliness. … Be your dog's biggest defender and keep them indoors with you, and give them the love and companionship they deserve."

"At 13, I decided to give up all meat and fish. My parents were even more surprised and cautiously supportive – provided I learned how to get enough protein. The first vegetarian cookbook I ever bought to learn more about how to be a healthy vegetarian was "Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking." In a very pragmatic way, Linda McCartney helped me meet my mother’s conditions for being a vegetarian, to get enough protein and eat a well-balanced diet and, in the process, helped both my mom and me feel good about the choice I had made."

"I’ve cut way back on animal products (especially dairy), and I try to only eat organic. Because of Alicia Silverstone], I’m way more conscious of what I put in my mouth and also about how my dollar is spent. Her book The Kind Diet was a real eye-opener for me. … [In the film Vamps] Alicia and I play vampires who abstain from human blood. So we were very kind in that we weren’t killing people and drinking their blood! … All the people in my life joke that I’m vampire in real life. Not because I drink blood or anything but because I prefer to stay indoors with the blinds closed. I’m not really a SUN person. I come out of my coffin (bedroom) when the sun goes down."

"I think it's something that people don't think about. It's hot outside—your car is like a fishbowl. So the light comes in, and it gets trapped, and it gets really hot in there really quickly. If you see a dog in a hot car, and you think that he's in danger or that he's been there for a while, it's good to speak up... go into whatever businesses it's parked outside of, and just raise awareness about it."

"I'm passionate about animals. … I think animal protection is so important because they need love, too, just like we do. They’re with us through thick and thin, and it’s very important to protect them."

"I don’t think a living being should suffer for the sake of fashion, period. End of story. When I realized what went into—not just, we’re not just even talking about a full-length fur coat, I’m talking about just the fur on your gloves or on your jacket or even—what goes into making that little piece of fur ripped my heart out!! And as humans, we have control. What if someone said, ‘Black skin is the new fur’?"

"You don’t have to kill an animal because you want to be hot and fly. It’s not the 16th century anymore. We’ve got central heating for God’s sake. And you can get a fake fur coat. I have one. It’s fabulous."

"Dogs, to me, are like children. They are the closest thing to God. They are so pure in their love, and all they do is aim to please."

"People are a bit blind. They don’t see life. Being a photographer I see life, every inch of it. I’m obsessed with nature and animals and the earth; I find concrete things that distract me. Most people are the opposite… they find life boring, squirrels or sparrows boring, whereas I find them fascinating. It has to do with the way we live. It probably started with religion which leads some people astray. To fight over whose god is better has nothing to do with love or spirituality. Perhaps it’s guilt. We are suppressed and spend our time trying to figure out who we are. The most shocking thing I’ve learned concerns abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, abuse to every living creature. There is a world of little Hitlers out there. Slaughterhouses, vivisection and experimenting on animals for no reason is sick. Luckily younger people are becoming more aware."

"I'm trying to reproduce healthily in a vegetarian way every kind of flesh there is — bacon, smoked salmon, roast meat. We're working on it. A lot of vegetarians complain that my book [Linda McCartney's Home Cooking] is meat-oriented and some of the products look like meat. For me, though, it's a matter of not just preaching — I hate to do it and it doesn't work — but helping to make the alternatives more attractive to more people. Change the eating habits and maybe you change the thinking habits. … I'm convinced that part of the reason the world is so sick is that so many people eat flesh. What are you doing but eating a slab of fear? … Look how long it took to abolish slavery. There was a time when much of the "civilized" world thought it was acceptable. And then they saw that it was wrong. I think the same thing will happen with eating animals. I have faith that the day will come when the world looks back and says, "How could we have done that?""