General Quotes

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou

“The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.” – John Lennon

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“We’re all just walking each other home.” - Ram Dass

“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.” – Thoreau

“All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” – Helen Keller

“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” – Ram Dass

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” – Thoreau

“Every saint has a past; every sinner has a future.” – Oscar Wilde

“If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that's a problem. Peace and love are eternal.” – John Lennon

“You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'” – George Bernard Shaw

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” – Robert Kennedy

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.” – Helen Keller

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people. – Cesar Chavez

“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever. – Malcolm X

“I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence. – Malcolm X

As you know, the founding fathers were not a multicultural group. There were no women, no Native Americans, no blacks, and virtually no poor people.” – HOWARD ZINN, Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009

Quotes on Race

“We gave up some of our country to the white men, thinking that then we could have peace. We were mistaken. The white man would not let us alone.” - Chief Joseph

“I've heard 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe's pen hasn't begun to paint what slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I've seen de real thing, and I don't want to see it on no stage or in no theater.” – Harriet Tubman

“As far back as I can remember, I knew there was something wrong with our way of life when people could be mistreated because of the color of their skin.” – Rosa Parks

“I had felt for a long time that, if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.” – Rosa Parks

“People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” – Rosa Parks

“I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.” Huey Newton

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” – Abraham Lincoln (Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858)

“I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people ... I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] ... Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.” – John Wayne

“In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.” – Kareem Abdul Jabbar

“I tell kids to pursue their basketball dreams, but I tell them to not let that be their only dream.” – Kareem Abdul Jabbar

“History proves that the white man is a devil.” – Malcolm X

“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!” – George Wallace

“As one who was born and reared in the atmosphere of the Old South, with six generations of my forebears now resting beneath Southern soil, I am willing to go as far and make as great a sacrifice to preserve and insure white supremacy in the social, economic, and political life of our state as any man who lives within her borders.” – Georgia Senator Richard Russell, 1936

“The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.” – Malcolm X

“The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to 400 years of the conscious racism of the American whites.” – Malcolm X

The (Vietnam era) draft is about “white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from the red people.” – Muhammad Ali

“America in its entirety is segregationist and is racist. It's more camouflaged in the north, but it's the same thing.” – Malcolm X

“If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.” – Robert Kennedy

“We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.” President Lyndon B. Johnson

“Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?” – Robert Kennedy

Quotes on Religion

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” – George Bernard Shaw

"Religion is man's interpretation of God. But it's not God." - Kip Sieger

“Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.” – John Lennon

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.” – George Berhard Shaw

“The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.” – Chief Joseph

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Vietnam War Quotes

“Join the army, travel to unusual places, meet interesting people. And Kill Them.” Quote appearing on bumper stickers and posters as opposition to the War in Vietnam grew; Author unknown

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” ~George McGovern

“The Vietnamese see their history as an unending series of struggles of resistance to aggression, by the Chinese, the Mongols, the Japanese, the French, and now the Americans.” – Noam Chomsky

“I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Compnay, Inc., 1963), p. 372

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” – Journalist Peter Arnett, quoting an unnamed U.S. Army major in February, 1968, in reference to the provincial capital of Ben Tre

“Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.” – Noam Chomsky

“The U.S. has strategic and economic interests in Southeast Asia that must be secured. Holding Indochina is essential to securing these interests. Therefore, we must hold Indochina.” – Noam Chomsky

“Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.” – Noam Chomsky

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” – Thoreau

“Since the civil war in Laos was resumed in earnest in 1963, American participation has been veiled in secrecy.” – Noam Chomsky

“In the 1960s, there was a point, 1968, '69, when there was a very strong antiwar movement against the war in Vietnam. But it's worth remembering that the war in Vietnam started - an outright war started in 1962.” – Noam Chomsky

“In 1961, the United States began chemical warfare in Vietnam, South Vietnam, chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock. That went on for seven years. The level of poison - they used the most extreme carcinogen known: dioxin. And this went on for years.” Noam Chomsky

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” – Edward R. Murrow

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?” – Dr. Benjamin Spock

“The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate... we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.” John F. Kennedy

“Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.” President Lyndon B. Johnson

“The United States is a violent military state. It's been involved in military action all over the place.” – Noam Chomsky

“There is no plausible theory under which the record of the Pentagon Papers can be interpreted as relating to the national defense. – Noam Chomsky

“One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The loss of Indochina will cause the loss of Southeast Asia like a set of dominos.” – President Dwight Eisenhower.

“If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promises, or in American protection. In each land, the forces of independence would be considerably weakened. And an Asia so threatened by Communist domination would imperil the security of the United States itself . . . .

We learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another, bringing with it larger and perhaps even crueler conflict . . . .” – President Lyndon B. Johnson

“I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.” – President Lyndon B. Johnson

“Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right.” President Lyndon B. Johnson

“The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.” President Lyndon B. Johnson

“Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!” – President Lyndon B. Johnson

“Whoever won't fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.” – President Lyndon B. Johnson

“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” Noam Chomsky

“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘Beyond Vietnam,’ April 4, 1967

“Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.” – Edwar R. Murrow.

“One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression. Patriotism becomes the order of the day, and those who question the war are seen as traitors, to be silenced and imprisoned.” – HOWARD ZINN, Howard Zinn on War

“They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954—in 1945 rather—after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its re-conquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Beyond Vietnam,’ April 4, 1967

“Reviewing the record of American intervention in Indochina in the Pentagon Papers, one cannot fail to be struck by the continuity of basic assumptions from one administration to the next. Never has there been the slightest deviation from the principle that a noncommunist regime must be imposed and defended, regardless of popular sentiment.” – Noam Chomsky

“Any humane and reasonable person must conclude that if the ends, however desirable, are uncertain and the means are horrible and certain, these means must not be employed.” – HOWARD ZINN, Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice

“Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.” – Howard Zinn

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” – Howard Zinn

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.” – Howard Zinn

“When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.” – Howard Zinn

“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.” – Howard Zinn

“We all grow up with the notion that the law is holy. They asked Daniel Berrigan's mother what she thought of her son's breaking the law. He burned draft records--one of the most violent acts of this century--to protest the war, for which he was sentenced to prison, as criminals should be. They asked his mother who is in her eighties, what she thought of her son's breaking the law. And she looked straight into the interviewer's face, and she said, ‘It's not God's law.’ Now we forget that. There is nothing sacred about the law. Think who makes the laws.” The law is not made by God, it is made by Strom Thurmond. – HOWARD ZINN, Voices of a People's History of the United States

“In 1968, America was a wounded nation. The wounds were moral ones; the Vietnam War and three summers of inner-city riots had inflicted them on the national soul, challenging Americans' belief that they were a uniquely noble and honorable people. – Thurston Clark, American author, historian.

“To win in Vietnam, we will have to exterminate a nation.” – Dr. Benjamin Spock

“I'm not a pacifist. I was very much for the war against Hitler and I also supported the intervention in Korea, but in this war we went in there to steal Vietnam.” – Dr. Benjamin Spock

“I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.” – Dr. Benjamin Spock

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it. Edward R. Murrow

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” – Muhammad Ali

“You will kill ten of us, we will kill one of you, but in the end, you will tire of it first.” – Ho Chi Minh

“I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.” John Kerry

“One of the questions asked in that study was, How many Vietnamese casualties would you estimate that there were during the Vietnam war? The average response on the part of Americans today is about 100,000. The official figure is about two million. The actual figure is probably three to four million. The people who conducted the study raised an appropriate question: What would we think about German political culture if, when you asked people today how many Jews died in the Holocaust, they estimated about 300,000? What would that tell us about German political culture?” – Noam Chomsky

"I gave up my job, my career, my clearance, and I staked my freedom on a gamble: If the American people knew the truth about how they had been lied to, about the myths had led them to endorse this butchery for 25 years, that they would choose against it. And the risk that you take when you do that, is that you'll learn something ultimately about you're fellow citizens that you won't like to hear, and that is that they hear it, they learn from it, they understand it, and they proceed to ignore it."

- Daniel Ellsberg, from transcript of "The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers."

Violence, Non-Violence and War

"He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." - Isaiah 2:4

“The most persistent sound which reverberates through men's history is the beating of war drums.” ~Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up

“When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~Aeschylus

“Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.” ~Charles Sumner

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.” ~Bertrand Russell

“Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” ~Herbert Hoover

“The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his.” ~George Patton

“War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.” ~Charles Evans Hughes

“The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.” ~Louis Simpson

“In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign…. Secondly, a just cause…. Thirdly … a rightful intention.” - Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” ~Ernest Hemingway

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” ~Jeanette Rankin

“All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?” ~Benjamin Franklin

“What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.” ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

“War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” ~John F. Kennedy

“It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers.” ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs

“If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.” ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“An unjust law is itself a species of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.” – John F. Kennedy

“The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” ~Albert Einstein

“If we do not end war — war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything.” ~H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal (Thanks Bill!)

“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.” ~Omar Bradley

“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.” ~David Friedman

“‘There are no atheists in foxholes,’ isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes.” ~James Morrow

“Are bombs the only way of setting fire to the spirit of a people? Is the human will as inert as the past two world-wide wars would indicate?” ~Gregory Clark

“If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "no" to war. For one does not create a human society on mounds of corpses.” ~Louis Lecoin

“Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people.” Howard Zinn

“Nobody should teach the black man in America to turn the other cheek, unless someone is teaching the white man in America to turn the other cheek.” – Malcolm X

“All you gotta do is tell them your going to bring the dogs. Look at em run.I want to see the dogs work." – Birmingham Police Chief Bull Connor

“If you turn the other cheek, you can be enslaved for 1,000 years.” – Malcolm X

“If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of.” – George Wallace

“Nonviolence is fine as long as it works.” – Malcolm X

“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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

“What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.” ~Aldous Huxley

“If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons.” ~Pope John Paul II

“War can be avoided, and it ought to be avoided. I want no war.” – Chief Joseph

“What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.” – Thoreau

“. . . Innocent and well people – of whom I considered myself one – are capable of the most brutal acts and the most self-righteous excuses, whether they be Germans, Japanese, Russians, or Americans.” – Howard Zinn

“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Peace is not merely a goal which we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.” – John F. Kennedy

“Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy

“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realizing Him.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” – Albert Einstein

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

“I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth — rocks!” – Albert Einstein

Animal Quotes

"Violence begins with the fork." ~ Mohandas Gandhi

“Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.” – George Bernard Shaw

"If slaughter was really humane, it would be the farmers sharing the pictures, not the animal rights activists." - Gus Duffy

A holy man gave two men each a chicken and said, “Go kill them where no one can see.” One guy went behind the fence and killed the chicken. The other guy walked around for two days and came back with the chicken. The holy man said, “You didn’t kill the chicken?” and the guys said, “well, everywhere I go, the chicken sees.” - related by Ram Dass, among others.

“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 able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.” – William Ralph Inge

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.” - Pythagoras

"The longer I am a vegetarian, the more I feel how wrong it is to kill animals and eat them. I think that eating meat or fish is a denial of all ideals, even of all religions. How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? Every kind of killing seems to me savage and I find no justification for it." – Isaac Beshevis Singer

“. . . Innocent and well meaning people . . . are capable of the most brutal acts and the most self-righteous excuses . . .” – Howard Zinn (describing people’s capacity for war, though he could just as easily have been describing how we treat farmed animals)

"In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka." (From a character in Isaac Beshevis Singer’s short story ‘The Letter Writer.’)

“While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth?” – George Bernard Shaw

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’” – Genesis 1:29

“ . . .Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven . . . ” – from the Lord’s Prayer

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” – Gospel of Matthew, 7:12

"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

“By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet.” - Thich Nhat Hanh, The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology.

“We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet . . . Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products.''

“I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of 2 years. Other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have.'' – Dr. Benjamin Spock, in Baby and Child Care, 7th edition

"I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings." ~ Cesar Chavez

"The question is not, 'Can they reason?' nor, 'Can they talk?' but rather, 'Can they suffer?" ~ Jeremy Bentham

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature." ~ Rachel Carson

"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 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

"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

"I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man." ~ Mohandas Gandhi

"The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk. " ~ Michael Klaper

"Could you look an animal in the eyes and say to it, 'My appetite is more important than your suffering'?" ~ Moby

"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

"If you don’t like seeing pictures of violence towards animals being posted, you need to help stop the violence, not the pictures." ~ Johnny Depp

"Some people think the plant-based, whole-foods diet is extreme. Half a million people a year will have their chests opened up and a vein taken from their leg and sewn onto their coronary artery. Some people would call that extreme." ~ Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn

“It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.” – Albert Einstein

"The sixteen hundred dairies in California’s Central Valley alone produce more waste than a city of twenty-one million people-that’s more than the populations of London, New York, and Chicago combined." ~ Gene Baur

"Becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species." ~ Chris Hedges

"There is something about veganism that is not easy, but the difficulty is not inherent in veganism, but in our culture." ~ Will Tuttle

“This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!” – Leo Tolstoy, The First Step: An Essay on the Morals of Diet, to Which Are Added Two Stories

I've come to realize, the fear of being cut out from the group of people you respect and whose respect you want and normally expect, that keeps people participating in anything, no matter how terrible.

- Daniel Ellsberg (speaking in the context of voicing opposition to the Vietnam War; from transcript of "The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers."

Nature Quotes

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

“We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.” – Barry Lopez

“Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium. Sigurd Olson

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” – John Muir

“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” – Thoreau

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” – John Muir

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.” – Thoreau

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” – Throeau

Critiques on Capitalism

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.” – Huey Newton

“There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.” George Bernard Shaw

“Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.” – HOWARD ZINN, A People's History of the United States

“You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a CIA that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home.” – Abbie Hoffman

“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.” – HOWARD ZINN, A People's History of the United States

“What happened in the missile crisis in October 1962 has been prettified to make it look as if acts of courage and thoughtfulness abounded. The truth is that the whole episode was almost insane.” – Noam Chomsky

“One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses. – Noam Chomsky

“If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.” – Edward R. Murrow

“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” – Jesus Christ

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