Michael Shermer Quotes

I don't myself believe that, even when we fulfil our minimum obligation not to cause pain, we have the right to kill animals.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

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

Nothing can be more obvious than that all animals were created solely and exclusively for the use of man.

And there begins a lang digression about the lords o' the creation.

There is increasing social concern about our use of nonhumans for experiments, food, clothing and entertainment. This concern about animals reflects both our own moral development as a civilization and our recognition that the differences between humans and animals are, for the most part, differences of degree and not of kind.

Although we have, in theory, abolished human slavery, recognized women's rights, and stopped child labor, we continue to enslave other species who, if we simply pay attention, show quite clearly that they experience parental love, pain, and the desire for freedom, just as we do.

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal.

I support the rights of non-humans wholeheartedly with my voice, my money, my presence, my writing and any other way I can.

If an animal has any rights at all, it's got the right not to be eaten.

Not only are the philosophies of animal rights and animal welfare separated by irreconcilable differences... the enactment of animal welfare measures actually impedes the achievement of animal rights... Welfare reforms, by their very nature, can only serve to retard the pace at which animal rights goals are achieved.

What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.

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

Human cruelty knows no limits and that one needs immense courage and a will of iron to help others understand that animals are made of flesh and blood like us, that they suffer the same pains as us, that they deserve the same respect as us and that their continuous slaughter should not be part of human entertainment.

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.

In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.

I'm in favor of animal liberation. Why? Because I'm an animal.

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.

The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights.

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.

We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.

I have never really been fond of animals. I certainly wasn't an 'animal lover' when I became involved in the movement. I just came to be persuaded that animals should be treated as independent sentient beings, not as means to human ends.

We eat animals because they taste good. And if that's O.K., what's wrong with wearing fur? We need as a society to think seriously about our institutionalized animal use.

We're all animals.

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals.