1 Year of Vegan Quotes
"In quoting others, we cite ourselves."
-Julio Cortázar
Though I only began this blog a year ago, on July 1, 2019, I feel as if I've learned a lot. (So please don't judge me solely based on some of my first blog posts.) I've been saving quotes for most of my life, as I find them so empowering and enlightening, and I wanted to share some of the wisdom I gain through them with my readers. Though I have many more years' worth of quotes to share, here is an entire list of every single quote used in my first year of blogs. (You may be surprised by some of the names you'll see.) Enjoy!
A Rational Explanation of Veganism from an Ex-Nonvegan
“If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.”
–Paul Watson
The Irony of Independence Day
“What do they know – all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world – about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
-Isaac Bashevis Singer
How to Become an Introverted Vegan Activist, Pt. 1
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
-Buddha
Matador
“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
How to Become an Introverted Vegan Activist, Pt. 2
“If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path.”
-Buddha
Is It Ok to Buy Pets?
“If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”
-St. Francis of Assisi
Vegan for Dummies
“We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
–Immanuel Kant
Japan's Whale of a Problem
“Culture or tradition or taste or habit – they don’t justify our belief that we can use them as we wish because they are not one of us.”
-Sandra Higgins
A Vegan Introvert's Guide to the Grocery Store
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
–Hippocrates
Cows vs. Dogs
“I don’t feel superior because I’m vegan. The truth is I am vegan because I don’t feel superior to others.”
-Michele McCowan
A Guide to Vegan Education & Activism
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
–Nelson Mandela
Should Vegans Acquaint with Nonvegans?
“When you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself.”
-Unknown
Should Vegans Watch Graphic Footage?
“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 he who suffers, and try to help him.”
-Leo Tolstoy
Will There Ever Be a Vegan World?
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
-John Lennon
How to Talk to Nonvegans
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
-Winston Churchill
Why Is It So Hard to Get People to Go Vegan?
“It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.”
-Margaret Mead
The Power of One: How One Vegan Changes the World
“I found in you what was lost in me, in a world so cold and empty.”
-Starset,
“Dark on Me”
"The Lottery" - A Vegan Review
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.”
-Shirley Jackson
Does Language Matter?: How Carnist Euphemisms Threaten Peace
“All things truly wicked start from innocence.”
-Ernest Hemingway
How to Be Vegan When You Don’t Have Time to Be Vegan
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
-Maya Angelou
My First Cube of Truth
“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
-Albert Einstein
Is Veganism a Privilege?
“There is such a thing as morality, and morality is higher than economics.”
-Robert Fogel
Should Vegans Eat with Nonvegans?
“Peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
My Journey Towards Zero-Waste
“Isn’t it bizarre that the most intelligent animal to ever walk this planet is destroying its only home?”
-Jane Goodall
Scythe: A Vegan Interpretation
“And as I see it, they’re all innocents. Even the guilty. Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.”
-Neal Shusterman,
Scythe
Thunderhead: A Vegan Interpretation
“There is a fine line between freedom and permission. The former is necessary. The latter is dangerous—perhaps the most dangerous thing [humanity] has ever faced…. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.”
-Neal Shusterman,
Thunderhead
Is Fishing Worse Than Hunting?
“Now at last I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you anymore.”
-Franz Kafka
What's A Carnist?
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Happy Victims: A Discussion of Animal Welfare
“How we treat the vulnerable is how we define ourselves as a species.”
-Russell Brand
Easy Ways to Veganize Your Halloween, Pt. 1
“My body is not a tomb for animals.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
When I Lost My Humanity: My Vegan Story
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
–Edward Everett Hale
Easy Ways to Veganize Your Halloween, Pt. 2
“The things that really scare us are the things that are going on just outside the spotlight that you can’t quite see.”
-Stephen King
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, A Vegan Allegory
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
–Jiddu Krishnamurti
S.P.E.W: Veganism in Harry Potter
“Always the innocent are the first victims.”
-J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Frankenstein Society: Animal Use in Science
“People can be monsters. Whether it’s just their actions, or whether it’s who they really are, it doesn’t matter. The result is the same.”
-Neal & Jarrod Shusterman,
Dry
Vegan Themes in Horror
“All monsters are human.”
–American Horror Story: Asylum,
“Welcome to Briarcliff”
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 1
“One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life.”
-Unknown
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 2
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
-Frank Zappa
How to Handle Holidays, Birthdays & Other Occasions with Nonvegans
“Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
–Albert Schweitzer
Is ‘The Game Changers’ Game-Changing?
“The easiest way to protect other animals is to not put them in your mouth.”
-Damien Mander,
The Game Changers
7 Reasons Why Your Family Isn't Vegan
“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
What Is Speciesism?
“As far as morality is concerned, a chicken weighs as much as an elephant.”
-Gary Francione
Dress to Impress: Wearing Your Veganism
“The opposite of love is not hate but indifference.”
–Dr. Will Tuttle,
The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony
7 Interesting Facts About Turkeys
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or women created for men.”
-Alice Walker
Easy Ways to Reduce Your Waste, Pt. 1
“But man is a part of nature, and a war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
-Rachel Carson
Easy Ways to Reduce Your Waste, Pt. 2
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
–Mahatma Gandhi
How the Education System Brainwashes Children
“We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”
-J.K. Rowling
Veganizing Christmas Carols
“There will never be peace on earth as long as we fill our stomachs and cover our bodies with the products of suffering, death, and injustice.”
-Gary Francione
7 Ways to Handle Being an Angry Vegan
“Raise your words, not your voice! It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
-Rumi
22 Vegan-Friendly Christmas Carols
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
-Hans Christian Andersen
The Most Terrible Time of the Year
“It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.”
–Margaret Mead
Animal Use in College Football
“Animals weren’t put on the earth for us – we’re here for them.”
–Anjelica Huston
2019: The Year of the Vegan, In Review
“The dawn right before the sun rises is the darkest.”
-BTS,
“Tomorrow”
How to Go Vegan in 2020
“There’s being vegan and there’s actively participating in animal exploitation. There is no third choice.”
-Gary Francione
Is Veganism Healthy?
“People eat meat and think they will become as strong as an ox, forgetting that the ox eats grass.”
-Pino Caruso
Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare
“Animal rights are not a gift we give to animals. They are a birthright we have taken from them.”
–Ryan Phillips
How to Become an Introverted Vegan Activist, Pt. 3
“One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life.”
-Unknwon
14 Vegan Staples to Always Keep in Your Kitchen
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
–Jane Goodall
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 3
“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light.”
-Plutarch
The Difficulties of Being a Vegan Dog Sitter
“In their capacity to feel pain and fear, a pig is a dog is a bear is a boy.”
–Philip Wollen
The #PrayForAustralia Problem
“For most of the wild things on Earth, the future must depend on the conscience of mankind.”
–Dr. Archie Carr
QUIZ: Are You an Herbivore or an Omnivore? (+ free printout!)
“Let your mouth be free of their blood and enjoy food ripe and gentle.”
–Pythagoras
Why Are Vegans So Heavily Censored?
“Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.”
–Theodor Adorno
An Analysis of Super Bowl Advertising
“We obey people we don’t trust to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like, using money we don’t have, for gratifications that don’t last, killing animals we don’t hate, for pleasures that don’t satisfy, dreaming of a life we don’t deserve, and praying for an afterlife that doesn’t exist. We are a stupid species.”
–Philip Wollen
Is Meat Manly?
“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
-Leo Tolstoy
The Importance of Self-Love in the Vegan Movement
“How do you love when your heart is broken?
How do you speak when you feel outspoken?
I can forgive and be forgiven
By learning to heal with a heart wide open”–Nothing More,
“I’ll Be OK”
Proof That Dairy is Rape
“Living is easy with eyes closed,
Misunderstanding all you see.”–The Beatles,
“Strawberry Fields Forever”
'The Animal People' -- Film Review
“Without struggle, there is not progress.”
–Josh Harper,
The Animal People
Starbucks & Panera: Why Environmentalism Isn’t Enough
“Your words mean nothing to me,
It’s time to eat what you speak”–Nothing More,
“Take a Bullet”
'Mother!' -- Vegan Film Analysis
“Violence begets violence.”
–Neal Shusterman,
The Toll
The Importance of Connecting with Nature
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
–William Shakespeare
The Dark Side of Dogsled Racing
“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche
Animal Origins of Deadly Disease Outbreaks
“[H]umans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”
–J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 4
“The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong in the world.”
–Dr. Paul Farmer
Proof That Meat is Murder
“All beings tremble before danger. All fear death. When you consider this, you will not kill or cause someone else to kill.”
-Buddha
Why Are There So Many Ex-Vegans?
“It’s funny how the stories that I tell myself
leave so many things out,
Do I believe myself or someone else?
It’s funny how I know what’s wrong
about everything and everyone else,
When I don’t know myself”–Nothing More,
“Funny Little Creatures”
Answering Common Questions About Veganism (from Facebook Followers)
“I think the world would be a better place if people stopped every once in a while and questioned everything they thought they knew.”
–Tamara Ireland Stone,
Little Do We Know
The Best & Worst of Zero-Waste
“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”
–Rabindranath Tagore
‘Diet Fiction’ — Why Diets Don’t Work (Film Review)
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”
–Alexander den Heijer
Easy Ways to Veganize Your Easter
“We do so many things for tradition’s sake … that few of us can remember why we really did them in the first place.”
–Jessica Cluess,
A Shadow Bright and Burning
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 5
“There’s a time to die and a way to live.”
–Nothing More,
“Tunnels”
Proof That Eggs Are Infanticide
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures, there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
–Isaac Bashevis Singer
Are Vegans Brainwashing Themselves?
“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
–George Orwell,
1984
Meat, Masculinity & Sexism
“Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.”
–Leonardo da Vinci
10 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day Every Day
“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.”
-Alice Walker
COVID-19 & Unspoken Tragedies
“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”
–J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Exploring the Role of Faith in Veganism: ‘A Prayer for Compassion’ Film Review
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
–Dalai Lama
QUIZ: Are You an Animal Lover? (+ free download!)
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
-George Orwell,
1984
Carnism & Our Fear of Death
“The soul is the same thing in all living creatures, though the body is different.”
-Hippocrates
Animal Insults: How We Use Animals to Degrade Humans (Part 1)
“If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.”
–Thomas Jefferson
Why Health is an Important Part of Veganism
“The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
-Thomas Edison
Is Vegetarianism Worse Than Carnism?
“Vegetarianism is more of a problem than meat-eating. It’s created the idea that there’s this second version of veganism that exists whereby you can feel like an animal defender without actually having to be one.”
-Paul Bashir
Is Cross-Contamination Anti-Vegan?
“I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvements, to leave off eating animals.”
–Henry David Thoreau
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 6
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
How to Talk About Veganism with People You Know
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
-Dr. Seuss
Is Veganism a Religion?
“We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.”
-William Inge
Proof That Wool is an Environmental Hazard
“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
QUIZ: How Much Do You Know About the Food You Eat? (+ free download!)
“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”
–Albert Schweitzer
The Dangers of Anti-Activism Media
“The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.”
-George Orwell
The Best & Worst of Zero-Waste, Pt. 2
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
-Dr. Angela Davis
Is the Death Penalty Vegan?
“Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.”
-Rumi
Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This Film: Understanding Humane Hollywood Guidelines
"Cruelty isn’t a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit."
-Rick Yancey,
The 5th Wave
Am I Really An Animal Lover?
"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."
-Charles Darwin
Standard Arguments Against Veganism, Pt. 7
To know, and not to do, is not to know.
Proverb
Healthy Cherry-Pineapple Smoothie Recipe
"The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies. They are the trees, the plants, and the seeds."
-Plato
be conscious, be kind, be vegan