Top 50 Gary L. Francione Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “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

Featured in: Be Kind Quotes, Morality Quotes, Compassion Quotes, Quotes About Giving, Quotes About Veganism

2. “It costs us so little to go vegan. It costs animals so much if we don’t.”

— Gary L. Francione

3. “If you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for animals that you are not vegan.”

— Gary L. Francione

4. “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

5. “Veganism is not a “sacrifice.” It is a joy.”

— Gary L. Francione

6. “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

7. “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

8. “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

9. “We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defence of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.”

— Gary L. Francione

10. “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

11. “If you love animals but think that veganism is extreme, then you are confused about the meaning of love.”

— Gary L. Francione

12. “Animal rights without veganism is like human rights with slavery. It makes no sense. None whatsoever.”

— Gary L. Francione

13. “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

14. “Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.”

— Gary L. Francione

15. “Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.”

— Gary L. Francione

16. “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

17. “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

18. “You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan.”

— Gary L. Francione

19. “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

20. “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

21. “Welfare reforms and the whole “happy” exploitation movement are not “baby steps.” They are big steps–in a seriously backward direction.”

— Gary L. Francione

22. “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

23. “In order to be a teacher you’ve got to be a student first.”

— Gary L. Francione

24. “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

25. “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

26. “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

27. “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

28. “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

29. “People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices.”

— Gary L. Francione

30. “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

31. “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

32. “All sentient beings should have at least one right – the right not to be treated as property.”

— 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. “If you claim to ‘love’ animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.”

— Gary L. Francione

35. “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

36. “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

37. “We cannot talk simultaneously about animal rights and the ‘humane’ slaughter of animals.”

— Gary L. Francione

38. “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

39. “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

40. “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

41. “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

42. “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

43. “We do not think clearly about our moral obligations to animals.”

— Gary L. Francione

44. “Who I’ve been is not as important as who I’m becoming.”

— Gary L. Francione

45. “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

46. “We should stop bringing more domestic animals into existence.”

— Gary L. Francione

47. “I maintain that we ought to abolish the institution and stop causing or facilitating the existence of more ‘companion’ animals.”

— Gary L. Francione

48. “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

49. “Ethical veganism represents a commitment to nonviolence.”

— Gary L. Francione

50. “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