Top 64 Gary L. Francione Quotes
#1. We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.
Gary L. Francione
#2. Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.
Gary L. Francione
#3. It costs us so little to go vegan. It costs animals so much if we don't.
Gary L. Francione
#4. We are vegans not simply because being vegan will reduce suffering. We are vegan because every sentient being values her or his life even if no one else does. We are vegan because justice minimally requires that we not take life for trivial purposes.
Gary L. Francione
#5. The idea that we have the right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the trivial reasons of palate pleasure and fashion is, without doubt, one of the most arrogant and morally repugnant notions in the history of human thought.
Gary L. Francione
#6. Speciesism is morally objectionable because, like racism, sexism, and heterosexism, it links personhood with an irrelevant criterion. Those who reject speciesism are committed to rejecting racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination as well.
Gary L. Francione
#7. Veganism is not a limitation in any way; it's an expansion of your love, your commitment to nonviolence, and your belief in justice for all.
Gary L. Francione
#8. If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for animals that you are not vegan.
Gary L. Francione
#9. All sentient beings should have at least one right - the right not to be treated as property
Gary L. Francione
#10. Veganism is not about giving anything up or losing anything; it is about gaining the peace within yourself that comes from embracing nonviolence and refusing to participate in the exploitation of the vulnerable
Gary L. Francione
#11. Veganism must be the baseline if we are to have any hope of shifting the paradigm away from animals as things and toward animals as nonhuman persons.
Gary L. Francione
#12. 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
#13. 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
#14. Vegetarianism as a moral position is no more coherent than saying that you think it morally wrong to eat meat from a spotted cow but not morally wrong to eat meat from a non-spotted cow.
Gary L. Francione
#16. There is no morally coherent difference between fur and other animal clothing, such as leather, wool, etc., just as there is no morally coherent distinction between meat and milk or eggs.
Gary L. Francione
#17. Sentience is a means to the end of continued existence. Sentient beings, by virtue of their being sentient, have an interest in remaining alive; that is, they prefer, want, or desire to remain alive.
Gary L. Francione
#18. 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
#19. To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death - however "humane" - is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.
Gary L. Francione
#20. Eating animals involves an intentional decision to participate in the suffering and death of nonhumans where there is no plausible moral justification.
Gary L. Francione
#21. We should take good care of the domestic animals we have brought into existence until they die. We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence.
Gary L. Francione
#22. Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever.
Gary L. Francione
#24. Being vegan is not a matter of "lifestyle." It is a matter of fundamental moral obligation. Is being vegan a matter of "choice"? Only insofar as we are able to choose to ignore our moral obligations not to exploit the vulnerable.
Gary L. Francione
#26. 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
#27. There is nothing more 'elitist' than thinking our palate
pleasure can ever justify a second of suffering or
a single death. Please go vegan.
Gary L. Francione
#28. If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love.
Gary L. Francione
#29. Does veganism require a "sacrifice"? Yes. It requires that you give up that which you never had any right to in the first place.
Gary L. Francione
#30. Domesticated animals such as dogs and cats are vulnerable and entirely dependent on us for all of their needs. They live very unnatural lives because they are not part of the human world and they are not part of the animal world.
Gary L. Francione
#32. Beyond the economics of production efficiency, animal welfare laws that require "humane" treatment are really not about animals; they're about humans and making humans feel better about using animals. We can comfort ourselves with the idea that we are acting in a "humane" way.
Gary L. Francione
#33. Because animals are property, we consider as 'humane treatment' that we would regard as torture if it were inflicted on humans.
Gary L. Francione
#34. There is no 'need' for us to eat meat, dairy or eggs. Indeed, these foods are increasingly linked to various human diseases and animal agriculture is an environmental disaster for the planet.
Gary L. Francione
#35. You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan.
Gary L. Francione
#36. 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
#37. We cannot justify treating any sentient nonhuman as our property, as a resource, as a thing that we an use and kill for our purposes.
Gary L. Francione
#38. We should never present flesh as somehow morally distinguishable from dairy. To the extent it is morally wrong to eat flesh, it is as morally wrong - and possibly more morally wrong - to consume dairy
Gary L. Francione
#39. The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare ... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights.
Gary L. Francione
#40. Veganism is about nonviolence:
nonviolence to other sentient beings;
nonviolence to yourself;
nonviolence to the earth.
Gary L. Francione
#42. We eat animals because they taste good. And if that's O.K., what's wrong with wearing fur? We need as a society to think seriously about our institutionalized animal use.
Gary L. Francione
#43. People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices
Gary L. Francione
#44. The notion that animals are not self-aware is based on nothing more than a stipulation that the only way to be self-aware is to have the self-awareness of a normal adult human. That is certainly one way to be self-aware. It's not the only way.
Gary L. Francione
#45. Most of the time, those who use animals in experiments justify that use by pointing to alleged benefits to human and animal health and the supposed necessity of using animals to obtain those benefits.
Gary L. Francione
#46. 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
#47. The proposition that humans have mental characteristics wholly absent in non-humans is inconsistent with the theory of evolution.
Gary L. Francione
#48. If an animal has any rights at all, it's got the right not to be eaten.
Gary L. Francione
#49. If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.
Gary L. Francione
#50. Being vegan is not just a matter of being 'kind' to animals. First and foremost, it is a matter of being just and observing our moral obligation to not treat other sentient beings as things.
Gary L. Francione
#51. Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.
Gary L. Francione
#52. 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
#53. 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
#54. 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
#55. We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the 'humane' slaughter of animals.
Gary L. Francione
#56. If we can live and prosper without killing, why would we not do so? I do not see veganism as 'extreme' in any way. I see killing for no reason as extreme in every way.
Gary L. Francione
#57. If you really care about animals, then stop trying to figure out how to exploit them 'compassionately'. Just stop exploiting them.
Gary L. Francione
#58. There is no moral distinction between fur and other materials made from animals, such as leather, which also is the result of the suffering and death of sentient beings.
Gary L. Francione
#59. An aim of an argument should be progress, but progress ultimately means little without victory.
Gary L. Francione
#60. There is no difference between sitting around the pit watching dogs fight and sitting around a summer barbecue roasting the corpses of tortured animals or enjoying the dairy or eggs from tortured animals.
Gary L. Francione
#61. Every sentient being values her/his life even if no one else does. That is what is meant by saying that the lives of all have inherent value.
Gary L. Francione
#62. If you are not vegan, please consider going vegan. It's a matter of nonviolence. Being vegan is your statement that you reject violence to other sentient beings, to yourself, and to the environment, on which all sentient beings depend.
Gary L. Francione
#63. Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.
Gary L. Francione
#64. 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
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