All great movements, it is written, go through three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption. It is the realisation of this third stage, adoption, that requires our passion and our discipline, our hearts and our heads. The fate of animals is in our hands.

Tom Regan

Categorized in : Heart Passion Fate

Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.

learning rights animal

It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is... by Tom Regan

It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice.

kindness justice animal

The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.

nature animal life

To be 'for animals' is not to be 'against humanity.' To require others to treat animals justly, as their rights require, is not to ask for anything more nor less in their case than in the case of any human to whom just treatment is due. The animal rights movement is a part of, not opposed to, the human rights movement. Attempts to dismiss it as anti human are mere rhetoric.

humanity rights animal

Veganism affirms what is best for us, what is best for the animals, and what is best for the environment. Everywhere you look, you find veganism entwined with what is best.

environment animal looks

It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands...but empty cages; not traditional animal agriculture but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not more humane hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.

hunting practice animal

What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than animals? Their lack of reason, or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to make the same judgment in the case of humans who are similarly deficient.

judgment reason animal

If abandoning animal research means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it ... We have no basic right ... not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to.

disease animal mean

In a perfect world, we would not keep animals for our benefit, in... by Tom Regan

In a perfect world, we would not keep animals for our benefit, including pets.

pet perfect animal

If you were aboard a lifeboat with a baby and a dog, and the boat capsized, would you rescue the baby or the dog?" Regan, "If it were a retarded baby and a bright dog, I'd save the dog.

dog animal baby

Even granting that we [humans] face greater harm than laboratory animals presently endure if ... research on these animals is stopped, the animal rights view will not be satisfied with anything less than total abolition.

rights views animal

I would encourage them never to forget that they were not always vegans. The self-righteousness of the recently converted hurts, it does not help, other animals.

helping-others hurt animal

Live your life in ways that do not support wars, whosoever are th... by Tom Regan

Live your life in ways that do not support wars, whosoever are the victims.

live-your-life support war

The world is not going to change overnight, nor in my lifetime, nor in my grandchildren's lifetime. But it will change, if we change, not for a day or a year, but for a lifetime. Yes, it will change, if we change.

grandchildren world years

If it were a retarded baby and a bright dog, I'd save the dog. by Tom Regan

If it were a retarded baby and a bright dog, I'd save the dog.

retarded dog baby

The culture isn't set up to embrace what we think and feel. Any doubt about that, just watch the ads on TV. They tell you where the dominant culture's values are - and they're not vegan!

doubt watches thinking

When I say a vegan diet can be "the healthiest dietary option we can live by," I mean an informed vegan diet.

vegan live-by mean

Never give other people another reason to ignore other animals. That's what we do when we come across as being so much better than the next guy or gal.

animal giving people

Make vegan friends! It's a tough row to hoe doing it alone. by Tom Regan

Make vegan friends! It's a tough row to hoe doing it alone.

hoe vegan tough

There is no question in my mind: reading Gandhi's autobiography c... by Tom Regan

There is no question in my mind: reading Gandhi's autobiography changed my life.

changed reading mind