Gary L. Francione Quotes About Animals

Quotes about: Animals

• Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animals are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Fundamentals, Moral

• Michael Vick may enjoy watching dogs fight. Someone else may find that repulsive but see nothing wrong with eating an animal who has had a life as full of pain and suffering as the lives of the fighting dogs. It's strange that we regard the latter as morally different from, and superior to, the former.

  Gary L. Francione

  Dog, Pain, Fighting

• Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights movement is, at its core, a movement about ending violence to all sentient beings. It is a movement that seeks fundamental justice for all. It is an emerging peace movement that does not stop at the arbitrary line that separates humans from nonhumans.

  Gary L. Francione

  Peace, Animal, Rights

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

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Knowing, Violence

• If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for animals that you are not vegan.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Thinking, Vegan

• If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love.

  Gary L. Francione

  Confused, Animal, Thinking

• You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.

  Gary L. Francione

  Mean, Animal, Ideas

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

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Choices, Care

• Because animals are property, we consider as "humane treatment" that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Treatment, Torture

  Gary L. Francione (2009). “Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation”, p.69, Columbia University Press

• We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Abolition Of Slavery, Needs

  Gary L. Francione (2009). “Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation”, p.100, Columbia University Press

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

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, What Matters, Racism

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

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Matter, Vegan

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

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Vegetarianism, Choices

• Veganism is the application of the principle of abolition in your own life; it represents your recognition that animals are not things. Veganism is the recognition of the moral personhood of nonhuman animals.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Principles, Recognition

• Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among all humans. And nonhuman animals continue to be chattel property without any inherent value.

  Gary L. Francione

  Kings, Gay, Animal

• We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Important, Use

• It's really not rocket science. If animals are not mere things; if they have moral value, we cannot justify eating, wearing, or using them particularly when we have no better reason than palate pleasure or fashion. If you are eating, wearing, or using animals, then your actions say that you regard them as mere things, despite what your words say.

  Gary L. Francione

  Fashion, Animal, Rockets

• Humans treat animals as things that exist as means to human ends. That's morally wrong. Sexism promotes the idea that women are things that exist as means to the ends of men. That's morally wrong. We need to stop treating all persons - whether human or nonhuman - as things.

  Gary L. Francione

  Mean, Animal, Men

• If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Thinking, Needs

• Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Rights, Slavery

• When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is rally hideous, and 'compassionate' and 'certified humane' or whatever, which 'may' be 'slightly' less hideous. But it is all torture. It's all wrong. These 'happy' gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don't buy the propaganda of 'happy' exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism.

  Gary L. Francione

  Feel Better, Animal, Agriculture

• None of that is necessary. It's not as if we're in a situation where it is us or them.There's something peculiar about talking about the moral status of animals, when we are killing and eating them for no reason whatsoever.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Talking, Peculiar

• There is no meaningful distinction between eating flesh and eating dairy or other animal products. Animals exploited in the dairy industry live longer than those used for meat, but they are treated worse during their lives, and they end up in the same slaughterhouse after which we consume their flesh anyway. There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak.

  Gary L. Francione

  Meaningful, Animal, Glasses

  Gary L. Francione (2009). “Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation”, p.108, Columbia University Press

• We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.

  Gary L. Francione

  Animal, Rights, Slaughter

• We need to reshape the movement as one of grassroots activists, and not 'professional activists' who populate the seemingly endless number of national animal rights groups. For many people, activism has become writing a check to a national group that is very pleased to have you leave it to them. Although it is important to give financial support to worthy efforts only, giving money is not enough and giving to the wrong groups can actually do more harm than good.

  Gary L. Francione

  Writing, Animal, Numbers

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