The Top 100 Vegan Quotes

UPDATE: I have added the user submitted quotes as the top ten.

The following quotes are only the top 90 vegan quotes, we are missing some of the best ones. We need your help to complete this post! Submit your favorite vegan quote in the comments area and we will add the ten best quotes to the top of this blog post tomorrow abd share the top quote on our Facebook page. You can offer up a famous quote, or better yet, make one up...

1. "My body will not be a tomb for other creatures." ~ Leonardo Da Vinci (resubmitted by Annar Dagard)
2. "Eat pussy not animals" ~ Des Revol
3. "In a burning building I would save a cat before a Rembrandt." ~ Alberto Giacometti (submitted by Angela Hughes)
4. "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." ~ Albert Einstein (submitted by Yana Tengalas)
5. "All creatures are deserving of a life free from fear and pain" ~ Maura Cummings ‎
6. ”Let food be thy medicine” ~ Hippocrates (submitted by Kelly Irish)
7.  “People eat meat and think they will become as strong as an ox, forgetting that the ox eats grass." ~ Pino Caruso (submitted by Natasha Annastassia Amanda Butchart and Allie Subria) 
8. Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself. ~ Lorene Lavora (submitted by Allie Subria) 
9. ‎"Getting your nutrients from meat is like running your water through a sewer before you drink it." ~ Colleen Riordan
10. I will just share what caused my mom to become first a vegetarian and later on a vegan (with us kids in tow, for which I'm very grateful), a friend lent her a health book and in that book there was a simple statement that caught her eye: "Don't Eat Corpses!" The rest is history. ~  Delicioso, Another Name for Delicious
11. "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." ~ Marcus Aurelius
12. "There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it" and every day confirms my belief of inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense." ~ Jane Austen
13. "Suffering is suffering. It is always ugly. It is always unwelcome. It always needs to be stopped. There are no exceptions. A person with the capacity but not the inclination to cease suffering is morally incomplete." ~ Mirko Bagaric
14. "The question is not, 'Can they reason?' nor, 'Can they talk?' but rather, 'Can they suffer?' - Jeremy Bentham
15. “My perspective of veganism was most affected by learning that the veal calf is a by-product of dairying, and that in essence there is a slice of veal in every glass of what I had thought was an innocuous white liquid - milk.” ~ Rynn Berry
16. "We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." ~ Henry Beston
17. "If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit." - Robert Brault
18. “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.” ~ Brigid Brophy
19. “Take away Love and our earth is a tomb” ~ Robert Browning
20. "An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." - Martin Buber
21. "I just could not stand the idea of eating meat - I really do think that it has made me calmer.... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us cannot really be right, and if you have seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it cannot understand why its calf isn't by, it can make you think a lot." ~ Kate Bush
22. “Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.” ~ Samuel Butler, Note-Books, 1912
23. "One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed, nor should one incite another to kill. Do not injure any being, either strong or weak, in the world." ~ Buddha
24. "It is more important to prevent animal suffering, rather than sit to contemplate the evils of the universe praying in the company of priests." ~ Buddha
25. "We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature." ~ Rachel Carson
26. "Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes and dingoes - by the million in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal- health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year, sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth." - from Old MacDonald's Factory Farm by C. David Coats
27. "The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." ~ Leonardo Da Vinci
28. "There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery." ~ Charles Darwin
29. “You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car.” ~ Harvey Diamond
30. " We will love and respect only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught or allowed to experience.” ~ Baba Dioum - Senegalese Conservationist.
31. "If people are good only because they fear punishment, then we are a sorry lot indeed" ~ Albert Einstein
32. “Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages” ~ Thomas Edison
33. “The minority, the ruling class at present, has the school and the press, usually the church as well under its thumb. This enables it to organise and sway the emotions of the masses, and thereby make tools of them” ~ Albert Einstein
34. "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein
35. "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." ~ Anatole France
36. "We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defence of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience." - Gary L. Francione
37. “The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.” ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian-American economist (1908–2006)
38. “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi
39. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mohandas Gandhi
40. "I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man" ~ Mohandas Gandhi
41. "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do." ~ Edward Everett Hale
42. "In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people" - Ruth Harrison
43. “When a human being dies, there is a bridge they must cross to enter into Heaven. At the head of the bridge waits every animal that human encountered during their lifetime. The animals, based on how that person treated them, decide which humans may cross the bridge… and which are turned away." ~ An Indian legend
44. "We have enslaved the rest of 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 Ralph Inge
45. “The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk. ~ Michael Klaper
46. “Society does not want individuals that are alert, keen, revolutionary, because such individuals will not fit into the established social pattern and they may break it up. That is why society seeks to hold your mind in its pattern and why your so called education encourages you to imitate, to follow, to conform” ~ Krishnamurti
47. “We all love animals. Why do we call some ‘pets’ and others ‘dinner?’” ~ K.D. Lang
48. "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
49. "I became a vegan the day I watched a video of a calf being born on a factory farm. The baby was dragged away from his mother before he hit the ground. The helpless calf strained its head backwards to find his mother. The mother bolted after her son and exploded into a rage when the rancher slammed the gate on her. She wailed the saddest noise I’d ever heard an animal make, and then thrashed and ...dug into the ground, burying her face in the muddy placenta. I had no idea what was happening respecting brain chemistry, animal instinct, or whatever. I just knew that this was deeply wrong. I just knew that such suffering could never be worth the taste of milk and veal. I empathized with the cow and the calf and, in so doing, my life changed." ~ James McWilliams
50. "Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe" - Moby
51. “If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behaviour towards anyone, be they human or not.” ~ Moby
52. "Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?” ~ Moby
53. "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
54. “Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal.” ~ Ingrid Newkirk
55. “We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are” ~ Anais Nin
56. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." ~ Optimus Prime, Transformers
57. "The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds." ~ Plato, Greek philosopher, (circa 428-347 B.C.)
58. "Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? ... It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defence; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being." ~ Plutarch
59. "But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy." ~ Plutarch
60. "For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." ~ Pythagoras
61. "I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth." ~ John Ruskin
62. "Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them whenever they require it... 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
63. “Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
64. “Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it, a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.” - Albert Schweitzer
65. “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.” - Albert Schweitzer
66. “Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.” - Albert Schweitzer
67. The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies. - Albert Schweitzer
68. “The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret.....It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.” - Albert Schweitzer
69. "In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet." - Albert Schweitzer
70. “A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.” - Albert Schweitzer
71. “Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always.” - Albert Schweitzer
72. "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." ~ Seneca (A Roman philosopher)
73. “Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
74. "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity." - George Bernard Shaw 
75. "Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness." - George Bernard Shaw 
76. "Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same." - George Bernard Shaw
77. “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, writer and Nobel laureate (1902–1991)
78. “People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing to the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times" ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer
79. "150 years ago, they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery. 100 years ago, they would have laughed at you for suggesting that women should have the right to vote. 50 years ago, they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under the law. 25 years ago they would have called you a pervert if you advocated for gay rights. They laugh at us now for suggesting that animal slavery be ended. Some day they won't be laughing." ~ Gary Smith
80. "How can people spend this Christmas season talking of "peace on earth" and "love" and then sit down to devour someone who never knew love or peace?" - Judy Stephens Snook
81. “All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth” ~ Socrates
82. "Thou should eat to live; not live to eat." ~ Socrates
83. "We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson (novelist and poet, 1850 - 1894)
84. “One farmer says to me, ‘You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;’ and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
85. "Let us not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around us in awareness." ~ James Thurber
86. "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
87. "Refrain at all times from such foods as cannot be procured without violence and oppression." ~ Thomas Tryon
88. “For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day” – Evelyn Underhills
89. "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
90. "Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he's the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot." ~ Mark Twain
91. "I believe I am not interested to know whether Vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. To know that the results are profitable to the race would not remove my hostility to it. The pains which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity towards it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further." ~ Mark Twain (1899)
92. “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
93. “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
94. “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
95. “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
96. “We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
97. “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” - Voltaire
98. “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” - Voltaire
99. “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” - Voltaire
100. “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” - Voltaire