Veganism and quotes about nonviolence

"A commitment to nonviolence begins with not putting violence in and on your body. Go vegan." -- Gary L. Francione

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

"The most violent weapon on earth is the table fork." Gandhi
“I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.”
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.""
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“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

“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
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I highly recommend: http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

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Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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Refusing to go vegan isn't about food (or clothing, etc.); it's about power and privilege. It's a refusal to acknowledge and relinquish power that was taken by force and privilege that was granted by virtue of being born human. Refusing to go vegan is an affirmation of one's support of the brutal systemic oppression of nonhuman animals.

The Abolitionist Vegan Society

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"Your worth and ability to contribute to society is not tied to your appearance. It is not tied to your gender. It is not tied to your sexuality. It is not tied to being handicapable or able-bodied. It is not tied to your mental health status. It is not tied to your species. Whoever you are and whatever your story, you are valued. You matter. Your voice counts."
-Alex Strain

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On the way home today, I was in traffic and was stopped for a moment next to a pig transport truck. I saw one pig's snout poking through a ventilation hole - it was super sad.
So many of the people that I know continue to pay for pigs like that one to be tortured and killed. It's truly saddening to know that most of these people are somewhat compassionate and pro-justice people. However, that compassion and justice falls short of being extended to other animals for a few moments of taste sensation.
-John Tallent

--------Commitment.. What can one person do

“When silence or verbal trickery helps to maintain an abuse that needs to be ended or suffering that needs to be soothed, there is no choice but to speak out and show the obscenity disguised by a cloak of words.” – Albert Camus

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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has".
Margaret Mead


"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 (1822-1909)

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“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas


 

Good quotes about slavery and the abolition of slavery

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.”
― Frederick Douglass (abolitionist), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

General quote, which can be applied both for human rights and rights of non-human animals.
"As I told my students at the start of my courses, "You can't be neutral on a moving train." That is, the world is already moving in certain directions—many of them horrifying. Children are going hungry, people are dying in wars. To be neutral in such a situation is to collaborate with what is going on. The word "collaborator" had a deadly meaning in the Nazi era. It should have that meaning still.

"Therefore, I doubt you will find in the following pages any hint of "neutrality." -- Howard Zinn (author, historian and social activist)

Non-violence, speaking up for the truth

Failure to critically engage and speak up honestly and directly against ideas and actions which support discrimination or violence of any kind constitutes collusion with same. That is not non-violence; that is moral cowardice.

 

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Linda McKenzie “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke

Sitting on our hands and looking the other way, refusing to speak up against injustice is not ahimsa. Ahimsa is not passivity, pacifism or quietism. It's understood in Eastern spiritual traditions as not just avoiding harm but as a dynamic, active engagement with truth and love. In practice, this often requires the courage to be unflinchingly honest and to oppose and resist immorality and injustice.

Citat om människors och alla djurens rättigheter; Quote about humans and other animal's rights

Definitivt tillämpbart på djurens rättigheter
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid….You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…..You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

----Veganism, abolitionist approach

"I am a vegan because after much learning and thought about the issue, I have come to see enslaving, exploiting, or intentionally killing an animal as morally equivalent to enslaving, exploiting, or intentionally killing a child. The only difference is one is socially acceptable and the other is socially unacceptable That may sound shocking or "extreme" to some people, but it is only because we are so acculturated to devalue sentient nonhuman beings to the status of "things". What is truly extreme is the violence of intentionally killing 10 billion land animals annually in the US (about 56 billion annually globally) for unnecessary food preferences alone. Unless you consider nonviolence and justice to be "extreme", veganism is not extreme. ". ~ Dan C

Please go vegan. It's a first step to a nonviolent life. Vegans do not use animals for food, clothing, entertainment or other reasons. If you are not vegan, please start here
http://veganismisnonviolence.com/becoming-vegan/

Understand this about ethical abolitionist veganism... It is NOT a "fanatical" philosophy:

"It is no more “absolutist” or “fanatical” to be a consistent vegan as it is to be consistent in one’s rejection of rape or pedophilia. Indeed, to characterize consistent veganism as “absolutist” is itself speciesist precisely because we would not so characterize our complete rejection of fundamental forms of human exploitation." ~ Gary L. Francione: The Abolitionist Approach to Animal Rights

 

Non-violence

"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." — Mahatma Gandhi

Religion

"If you celebrate Easter, think about what you are celebrating: the idea that love conquers everything, even death. So don’t celebrate the triumph of love over death by participating in death. That makes no sense whatsoever. Celebrate love every day: go vegan.”
Gary L. Francione

 

Animals

Hippocrates' quote: "The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different."

Charity / way of living`/capitalism

Manchester Abolitionist Vegan Society 
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.”

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Economy (Chapter 1-E)

 

Meditation, care for others

If you can’t stand beside a friendless man
your meditation is nothing.
If you can’t listen to pain and terror then
your meditation is nothing.
If you can’t befriend the insane and share from their bowl
your meditation is nothing.
If you cannot take the gun gently from the hand of the murderer
and embrace him in his horror then your meditation is nothing.
If you cannot see the beauty and life in the one without limbs then
your meditation is nothing.
If you cannot sit beside the aged in their loneliness then
your meditation is nothing.
If you can’t embrace your own pain and shout “Yes!” to Life then
your meditation is nothing.

If you can surrender all that you are, all that you have,
if you can embrace life without wanting it or wanting to change it,
if you can hear the sounds of pain and joy and know they come from the same source,
if you can sit in the fire, rain, snow, sun and in surrender open your heart
to the purity of love then
your meditation is the supreme gift of the Manu Pearl, the light of the Pure Land.

If you can meditate the Nothing knowing your meditation is nothing then
all serenity and bliss radiates like perfume from the Lotus.
Nothing and all are one in Joy.

Zhi Sheng January 2013