Veganism Activists

"I may not be here to titillate, but I am not sorry if I have that edge. People aren't coming to the theaters to see me in a burqa"

"To undress is the dress code these days and I didn't start it. We are all voyeurs, so why the complaints? Until girls don't walk in a swimsuit on the stage they don't get the crown so why is everyone so holier-than-thou?"

"Isn't it great that I evoke a reaction from people? Whether it is good or bad is secondary. The thing is that I like being myself. I find it very tiresome to put up a fake smile, say the right things, and be diplomatic. It's just not in my personality to be like that."

"The activists of the and the are merely emulating the strategies and tactics of every other social and political movement that has ever existed but with one distinct difference – they have not killed anyone. Yet environmentalists and animal rights activists have been murdered, and the media is reluctant to portray the deaths as terrorism."

"A virus kills its host and that is exactly what we are doing with our planet's life support system. We are killing our host the planet Earth."

"In a way, the event could also be called the "Holocenic hominid collective suicide event.""

"V Stands for Verity, Virtue, Valor, Validity and Veganism. … Veganism is real conservation in action. It goes beyond talking about climate change and diminishment of biodiversity and actually does something to address the problems."

"It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Harare and a man ran out of Barclays Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in... Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans."

"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a conservative organization. I am a conservative. You can't get more conservative than being a conservationist. Our entire raison de etre is to conserve and protect. The radicals of the world are destroying our oceans and our forests, our wildlife and our freedom."

"Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that you cannot commit an act of violence against a non-sentient object. Back in 1986, the Green Party of Canada tried to toss me out of the Party for sinking whaling ships on the ground that it was a violent act. I pointed out that the Green Party of Canada supported violence when it was convenient politically — for example they supported and continue to support abortion which is, like it or not, a violent act, certainly more violent than sinking some metal into the sea. Violence is not violent when we justify it, be it abortion, or war, or eating meat for example. I support abortion but I'm not a hypocrite about it — it's violent, I accept that. Every American taxpayer accepts the violence that their tax-dollars fund."

"We cannot allow activism to be stifled because of all the paranoia going around."

"We have intelligent species on our planet that we are not even trying to communicate with."

"The oceans are dying."

"I don't eat fish because there is no such thing as sustainable fishing in the world right now."

"Intelligence is the ability of a species to live in harmony with its environment."

"We are pirates of compassion hunting down, hunting down and destroying pirates of profit."

"All of our targets were criminals, they were all operating in violation of international whaling laws."

"We're now in the midst of a 3rd World War, but this time the enemy is ourselves, and the objective is to save the planet FROM ourselves. There's no hope for masses of humanity to do anything — they never have, they never will. All social change comes from the passion and intervention of individuals or small groups of individuals. Slavery wasn't ended by any government or any institution. Women got the right to vote not because of any government. The civil rights movement, the same thing. India with Mahatma Gandhi, South Africa with Nelson Mandela. Again, it's always individuals. You need those individuals with the passion and the energy to get involved. In fact, I don't know of any government or any institutions that are doing anything to solve any of these problems. All over the world, all I am seeing is individuals and non-government organizations that are passionately involved in protecting ecosystems and species, and that's where I see some optimism. That's where I see results are happening."

"I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control."

"I am unconcerned if people do not approve of this approach, but my position is: find a whale that disapproves of our actions and we might reconsider. We didn’t ram and sink those whaling ships for people. We did so for the whales. They are our clients."

"When it comes to whaling, I believe that direct action is the most effective approach. There is no argument to say otherwise. Our actions speak for themselves. In the Southern Ocean we saved the lives of 6,500 whales. Overall, through the decades, I believe that we’ve saved the lives of tens of thousands of whales that would have been killed illegally if not for our intervention."

"Driven by his profound love of animals, Paul Watson is perhaps the ultimate animal defender....."

"“You’re up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion. It’s a fine spring day. We’re riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is a clear blue." I had barely got to the end of the sentence when she closed her eyes and gently slipped away. She was unique, and the world is a better place for having known her. I love you, Linda."

"I wasn't really dead."

"We probably seem to be anti-religious...none of us believes in God."

"Among Sir Paul's accomplishments with the Beatles and as a massively successful solo artist, McCartney's talent as a bassist is often downplayed. Music fans of any real level or generation understand what a phenomenal songwriter McCartney was and still is. However, his bass playing on such Beatles' classics as "Nowhere Man," "Come Together," and "A Day in the Life" were innovative for the time. The latter is also an example of just how melodic his playing can be. McCartney's talent on the instrument is worth paying attention to the next time a Beatles tune comes on."

"Even legendary musician Paul McCartney weighed in. In his foreword to a new book against Arctic drilling by Greenpeace activist Ben Stewart, McCartney wrote, "As the ice retreats, the oil giants are moving in. Instead of seeing the melting as a grave warning to humanity, they are eyeing the previously inaccessible oil beneath the seabed at the top of the world. They're exploiting the disappearance of the ice to drill for the very same fuel that caused the melting in the first place.""

"Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord why don't we?"

"You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs I look around me and I see it isn't so Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know 'Cause here I go again... I love you."

"I thought the only lonely place was on the moon."

"The long and winding road that leads to your door Will never disappear, I've seen that road before it always leads me here, Leads me to your door."

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

"Obladi oblada life goes on bra Lala how the life goes on"

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better."

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

"Lovely Rita, Meter Maid, nothing could come between us. When it gets dark I'll tow your heart away"

"I want her everywhere and if she's beside me I know I need never care. But to love her is to need her Everywhere, knowing that love is to share each one believing that love never dies watching her eyes and hoping I'm always there."

"To lead a better life, I need my love to be here. Here, making each day of the year, Changing my life with a wave of her hand. Nobody can deny that there's something there."

"Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play Now I need a place to hide away. Oh, I believe in yesterday."

"Why she had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday."

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday."

"I'd like to be able to go on holiday and not to have to hold my belly in for two whole weeks."

"I tend not to say much on the phone now. If I leave a message, it's benign. You edit yourself according to the new circumstances of the new world. I think it would be quite good to get some sort of laws."

"What a fucking great band we were."

"We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool."

"For cruelty to animals, vegetarianism is the great thing to get rid of that. For the planet, to prevent depleting the water and the land and everything, it’s a great idea. And I think it’s a great thing for your health, and doctors nowadays agree with that. There are plenty of great books and organizations, so no matter where you are, there is someone to help you. That’s your first step, and I think your second step is just look in the supermarket for good vegetarian food, and I think it’s so much more readily available now."

"With life and all I've been through, I do have a belief in goodness, a good spirit. I think what people have done with religion is personified good and evil, so good's become God with 'o' out, and evil's become Devil with a 'd' added. That's my theory of religion."

"While the others had got married and moved out to suburbia, I had stayed in London and got into the arts scene through friends like Robert Fraser and Barry Miles and papers like The International Times. We opened the Indica gallery with John Dunbar, Peter Asher and people like that. I heard about people like John Cage, and that he’d just performed a piece of music called 4’33” (which is completely silent) during which if someone in the audience coughed he would say, ‘See?’ Or someone would boo and he’d say, ‘See? It’s not silence—it’s music.’ I was intrigued by all of that. So these things started to be part of my life. I was listening to Stockhausen; one piece was all little plink-plonks and interesting ideas. Perhaps our audience wouldn’t mind a bit of change, we thought, and anyway, tough if they do! We only ever followed our own noses—most of the time, anyway. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was one example of developing an idea."

"I don't have any desire to learn. I feel it's like a voodoo, that it would spoil things if I actually learnt how things are done."

"We're constantly being asked all sorts of very profound questions. But we're not very profound people. People say, 'What do you think of the H-bomb, of religion, of fan worship?' But we didn't really start thinking about these things until people asked us. And even then we didn't get much time to consider them. What do I think of the H-bomb? Well, here's an answer with the full weight of five O levels and one A level behind it: I don't agree with it."