Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by Ingrid Newkirk - Page 2

Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line.

I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's speciest language. I prefer 'companion animal.' We would no longer allow... pet shops... Eventually companion animals would be phased out.

Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.

Eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance.

Even painless research is fascism, supremacism, because the act of confinement is traumatizing in itself.

I plan to send my liver somewhere in France, to protest foie gras (liver pate) ... I plan to have handbags made from my skin ... and an umbrella stand made from my seat.

We are not in the home finding business, although it is certainly true that we do find homes from time to time for the kind of animals people are looking for. Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death to animals who no one wants.

If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women are pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend. We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways.

It's interesting that one of the definitions of the word "human" is "sympathetic." More and more people are beginning to show that they understand why that is important.

Eating meat is primitive, barbaric, and arrogant.

A burning building doesnt help melt peoples hearts, but times change and tactics, Im sure, have to change with them. If you choose to carry out ALF-style actions, I ask you to please not say more than you need to, to think carefully who you trust, to learn all you can about how to behave if arrested, and so to try to live to fight another day.

We are opposed to all cruelty, so as advocates of non-violence, opponents of oppression, people who abhor the cruelty inherent in slaughtering we say the only ethical way to consume flesh is to pick up the carcass of an animal who has died naturally or been killed accidentally, say by being hit by a car, and eat that.

[I believe] that animals have a worth in and of themselves, and that they are not inferior to human beings but rather just different from us, and that they really don't exist for us nor do they belong to us...it should not be a question of how they should be treated within the context of their usefulness, or perceived usefulness, to us, but rather whether we have a right to use them at all.

If that hideousness came here, it wouldn't be any more hideous for the animals — they are all bound for a ghastly death anyway. But it would wake up consumers... I openly hope that it comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment.

Euthanasia is the kindest gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved.

It is dangerous to engage in even the most innocuous-seeming discourse with the FBI/ Homeland Security/ a local detective.

Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth.

I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.

We do not advocate 'right to life' for animals.

I am just trying to make the best possible case for the animals. That is clearly what I have been put on earth to do. Even after I am gone I will try to continue.

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that.

...no movement for social change has ever succeeded without 'the militarism component'....Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out

Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it.

When we build an attractive home, we raze land on which animals have already built their homes. They have nowhere to go.

More power to [Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty] if they can get someone's attention.

Anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can't take the position that it's all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.

A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all animals.

If a girl gets sexual pleasure from riding a horse, does the horse suffer? If not, who cares? If you French kiss your dog and he or she thinks it's great, is it wrong? We believe all exploitation and abuse is wrong. If it isn't exploitation and abuse, it may not be wrong.

Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all mammals.

Even painless research is fascism, supremacism...

When I hear of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, my heart sings.

Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works.

When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.

The best bet for the horses would be to stop betting on the Derby and other horse races, and to stop breeding, racing and killing thoroughbreds altogether

Even if animal experiments did result in a cure for AIDS, of which there is no chance, I'd be against it on moral grounds.

Seriously, I think everybody needs to be more disciplined; nobody needs any meat. But from a perspective of how many animals suffer, it's probably better to kill and eat one whale than it is to eat fish, chickens, cows, lambs and eggs.

Society is celebrity-based and we are determined to use [celebrities'] voices to make sure no one forgets there are issues over the use of animals. Celebrities can be great for our cause and can really make people sit up and think for the first time about animal abuse.

I know it's illegal [trespassing], but I don't think it's wrong.

The bottom line is that people dont have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.

Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes.

Businesses are terrified. They have no idea what I'm going to do next.

I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn't be harming anything.

I find that as I get older I seem to become more of a Luddite... And hearing animal experimenters describe me as a Luddite--which used to think I was not. And now I think Ned Lud had the right idea and we should have stopped all the machinery way back when, and learned to live simple lives.

One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals.

In order to be kind, one must do. There is no point in thinking good thoughts and not acting on them. There is no currency in wishing things were better but not rolling up one's sleeves and helping to change them.

We’re looking for good lawsuits that will establish the interests of animals as a legitimate area of concern in law.

Perhaps the mere idea of receiving a nasty missive will allow animal researchers to empathize with their victims for the first time in their lousy careers. I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren't all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I'd light a match.

You dont have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them ... One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV.

Look out for your baby or your friend, of course. That is easy. The test of moral fiber is to stick up for those you relate to least, understand minimally, and do not think are that much like you.

If my father had a heart attack it would give me no solace at all to know his treatment was first tried on a dog.

I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front].

We are complete press sluts.

Everything we do is based at adults.

Medical research is "immoral even it it's essential."

Winners don't eat wieners.

That's what the Nazis did, isn't it? Treated those "others" they thought subhuman by making them lab subjects and so on. Even the Nazis didn't eat the objects of their derision.