Top 80 Ingrid Newkirk Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

52. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

53. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

54. “It’s the 21st century. It’s healthier for us, better for the environment and certainly kinder to be a vegetarian.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

55. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

56. “By adopting a wonderful mutt, you’ll save a life and help reduce animal homelessness while also boosting your chances of a more robust new furry friend, as mixed-breed dogs have demonstrated better health and longer life spans than their purebred cousins.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

57. “I hope SeaWorld is exploring how, like Ringling, it can get out of the wild animal business.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

58. “Consumers of meat, eggs and dairy products might well ask what they are supporting. Do farmers care about anyone but themselves? Can’t anyone see the cow for the cheese?”

— Ingrid Newkirk

59. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

60. “Ninety-five percent of the eggs produced in America come from factory-farmed birds. Even if free-range farms were hugely more humane, the sheer number of animals raised to satisfy people’s desire for eggs, meat, and milk makes it impossible for us to raise them all on small, free-range farms.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

61. “Elephants have the largest brains of any mammal on the face of the Earth. They are creative, altruistic and kind.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

62. “One hates to be absolute, but in my view, there is no such thing as humane meat.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

63. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

64. “Being asked to support humane meat means being asked to support the suffering of animals in transport, to approve of treatment that causes them palpable fear, their bodies shaking and their eyes wide as saucers, as they are slung by their legs into crates that are slammed onto the back of a truck.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

65. “Real nutrition comes from soybeans, almonds, rice, and other healthy vegetable sources, not from a cow’s udder.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

66. “Businesses are terrified. They have no idea what I’m going to do next.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

67. “We all have prejudices to dispel: the need to get away from thinking that ‘I’ am important and special and ‘you’ are not, and the frightened mindset that tells us that certain ‘others’ are of no consequence.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

68. “It’s time to face facts: Most people stop being environmentalists when they sit down to eat.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

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

— Ingrid Newkirk

70. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

71. “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.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

72. “Everything we do is based at adults.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

73. “Why go for a costly, sickly, mass-produced purebred when shelters are full of one-of-a-kind mixed breeds who are literally dying for a home?”

— Ingrid Newkirk

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

— Ingrid Newkirk

75. “There’s nothing humane about the flesh of animals who have had one or two or even three improvements made in their singularly rotten lives on today’s factory farms.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

76. “Cheap meat is the problem. The answer is to replace meat recipes with vegan meals.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

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

— Ingrid Newkirk

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

— Ingrid Newkirk

79. “Going meat-free can make a huge difference. Studies show that vegetarians are, on average, 10 to 20 pounds lighter than meat-eaters and that a vegetarian diet reduces our risk of heart disease by 40 percent and adds seven or more years to our lifespan.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

80. “I don’t have the luxury of having a dog myself because I travel too much, but I love walking and cuddling somebody else’s dog.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

81. “I think if you’re against cruelty and you look at what happens to animals in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, you have to be completely against eating meat.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

82. “Most Americans, like most Japanese, view their dogs, cats, and other animal companions as family members, and rightly so.”

— Ingrid Newkirk

83. “All of us in society are supposed to believe that cruelty to animals is wrong and that it is a good thing to prevent needless suffering. So if that is true, how can meat be acceptable under any but the most extraordinary circumstances, such as perhaps roasting the bird who died flying into a window?”

— Ingrid Newkirk