80+ Ingrid Newkirk Quotes On Education, Compassion And Advocacy

Ingrid Newkirk is a British activist and the president and co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). She is a strong advocate for animal rights and has been an active campaigner since the 1980s. Newkirk has also been involved in many other animal rights and environmental causes, such as fighting against animal testing, factory farming, and the fur trade. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Ingrid Newkirk on education, life, leadership.

Top 10 Ingrid Newkirk Quotes

1. Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal.
2. I will be the last person to condemn ALF [the Animal Liberation Front].
3. I'd go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself...I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day.
4. The extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on Earth - social and environmental.
5. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They're all animals.
6. When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.
7. Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation.
8. Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.
9. In the end, I think it would be lovely if we stopped this whole notion of pets altogether.
10. 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 Short Quotes

• Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it.
• Eating meat is primitive, barbaric, and arrogant.
• Humans have grown like a cancer. We're the biggest blight on the face of the earth.
• Euthanasia is the kindest gift to a dog or cat unwanted and unloved.
• I wish we all would get up and go into the labs and take the animals out or burn them down.
• One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals.
• Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes.
• Even painless research is fascism, supremacism...
• More power to [Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty] if they can get someone's attention.
• Pet ownership is slavery. Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or be entertained by.

Ingrid Newkirk Quotes About Life

The smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being — Ingrid Newkirk

We do not advocate 'right to life' for animals. — Ingrid Newkirk

I am not a morose person, but I would rather not be here. I don't have any reverence for life, only for the entities themselves. I would rather see a blank space where I am. This will sound like fruitcake stuff again but at least I wouldn't be harming anything. — Ingrid Newkirk

I find that as I get older I seem to become more of a Luddite... And hearing animal experimenters describe me as a Luddite--which used to think I was not. And now I think Ned Lud had the right idea and we should have stopped all the machinery way back when, and learned to live simple lives. — Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid Newkirk Quotes About Love

When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. — Ingrid Newkirk

PETA's campaign should be included in school curricula. If we can open children's hearts and minds to animals' needs, teach them to treat a dog or a chicken as if they feel fear and love and pain - as they do - then they will grow up to understand that we are all worthy of respect. — Ingrid Newkirk

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. — Ingrid Newkirk

Ingrid Newkirk Famous Quotes And Sayings

We have to be aggressive when those we stick up for have no voice. I don't consider it radical to say cruelty is wrong and that animals should be respected. I consider it radical to eat corpses, put electrodes in animals' heads, make elephants live in chains in the circus, and poison animals we consider a nuisance. — Ingrid Newkirk

Bulls can do nothing to demand justice. They can only defend themselves as best they can in a fight with a pre-determined ending and die never knowing why they were forced to endure such a painful and prolonged death. It's up to us, as a civilized society, to call for an end to the Running of the Bulls and bullfighting. — Ingrid Newkirk

You dont have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment from them ... One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV. — Ingrid Newkirk

Probably everything we do is a publicity stunt ... we are not here to gather members, to please, to placate, to make friends. We're here to hold the radical line. — Ingrid Newkirk

Our nonviolent tactics are not as effective. We ask nicely for years and get nothing. Someone makes a threat, and it works. — Ingrid Newkirk

We are not in the home finding business, although it is certainly true that we do find homes from time to time for the kind of animals people are looking for. Our service is to provide a peaceful and painless death to animals who no one wants. — Ingrid Newkirk

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. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

I'm not only uninterested in having children. I am opposed to having children. Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog; it is nothing but vanity, human vanity. — Ingrid Newkirk

...no movement for social change has ever succeeded without 'the militarism component'....Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out — Ingrid Newkirk

I plan to send my liver somewhere in France, to protest foie gras (liver pate) ... I plan to have handbags made from my skin ... and an umbrella stand made from my seat. — Ingrid Newkirk

The bottom line is that people dont have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind. — Ingrid Newkirk

If my father had a heart attack it would give me no solace at all to know his treatment was first tried on a dog. — Ingrid Newkirk

Since we can't count on the meat, egg, and dairy industries to protect animals from the most egregious forms of cruelty, what can we, as consumers, do? Opting out of paying someone to allow animals to die in a barn fire or at the slaughterhouse seems pretty reasonable. — Ingrid Newkirk

It is dangerous to engage in even the most innocuous-seeming discourse with the FBI/ Homeland Security/ a local detective. — Ingrid Newkirk

If you like to bake with eggs, you can substitute Ener-G egg replacer, bananas, tofu, or many other ingredients. You get the hang of it quickly enough. — Ingrid Newkirk

Eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship - enjoyment at a distance. — Ingrid Newkirk

I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's speciest language. I prefer 'companion animal.' We would no longer allow... pet shops... Eventually companion animals would be phased out. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

We’re looking for good lawsuits that will establish the interests of animals as a legitimate area of concern in law. — Ingrid Newkirk

Even painless research is fascism, supremacism, because the act of confinement is traumatizing in itself. — Ingrid Newkirk

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do for human beings is wean them off an animal-based diet. It hardens the arteries and runs up our health-care costs. The last thing a poor person can afford is a heart attack or cancer or a stroke. And that's all linked to a meat-based diet. I think animal liberation is human liberation. — Ingrid Newkirk

I am just trying to make the best possible case for the animals. That is clearly what I have been put on earth to do. Even after I am gone I will try to continue. — Ingrid Newkirk

Society is celebrity-based and we are determined to use [celebrities'] voices to make sure no one forgets there are issues over the use of animals. Celebrities can be great for our cause and can really make people sit up and think for the first time about animal abuse. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

Whether or not we are religious, respecting others should be seen as just as important as looking out for ourselves, yet it requires discipline to change our bad habits that cause pain to animals. — Ingrid Newkirk

It's time for the State Department to permanently change its official policy to allow all members of U.S. citizens' families - no matter what size they are or how many legs they have - to evacuate together when disaster strikes. — Ingrid Newkirk

I hope SeaWorld is exploring how, like Ringling, it can get out of the wild animal business. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

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

One hates to be absolute, but in my view, there is no such thing as humane meat. — Ingrid Newkirk

We are opposed to all cruelty, so as advocates of non-violence, opponents of oppression, people who abhor the cruelty inherent in slaughtering we say the only ethical way to consume flesh is to pick up the carcass of an animal who has died naturally or been killed accidentally, say by being hit by a car, and eat that. — Ingrid Newkirk

[I believe] that animals have a worth in and of themselves, and that they are not inferior to human beings but rather just different from us, and that they really don't exist for us nor do they belong to us...it should not be a question of how they should be treated within the context of their usefulness, or perceived usefulness, to us, but rather whether we have a right to use them at all. — Ingrid Newkirk

I know it's illegal [trespassing], but I don't think it's wrong. — Ingrid Newkirk

Businesses are terrified. They have no idea what I'm going to do next. — Ingrid Newkirk

A burning building doesnt help melt peoples hearts, but times change and tactics, Im sure, have to change with them. If you choose to carry out ALF-style actions, I ask you to please not say more than you need to, to think carefully who you trust, to learn all you can about how to behave if arrested, and so to try to live to fight another day. — Ingrid Newkirk

Medical research is "immoral even it it's essential." — Ingrid Newkirk

The best bet for the horses would be to stop betting on the Derby and other horse races, and to stop breeding, racing and killing thoroughbreds altogether — Ingrid Newkirk

Pigeon racing is a lousy, greedy, and often unlawful activity. One thing that it is not is kind to birds. — Ingrid Newkirk

Every animal has his or her story, his or her thoughts, daydreams, and interests. All feel joy and love, pain and fear, as we now know beyond any shadow of a doubt. All deserve that the human animal afford them the respect of being cared for with great consideration for those interests or left in peace. — Ingrid Newkirk

Winners don't eat wieners. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

If that hideousness came here, it wouldn't be any more hideous for the animals — they are all bound for a ghastly death anyway. But it would wake up consumers... I openly hope that it comes here. It will bring economic harm only for those who profit from giving people heart attacks and giving animals a concentration camp-like existence. It would be good for animals, good for human health and good for the environment. — Ingrid Newkirk

If a girl gets sexual pleasure from riding a horse, does the horse suffer? If not, who cares? If you French kiss your dog and he or she thinks it's great, is it wrong? We believe all exploitation and abuse is wrong. If it isn't exploitation and abuse, it may not be wrong. — Ingrid Newkirk

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

We are complete press sluts. — Ingrid Newkirk

Look out for your baby or your friend, of course. That is easy. The test of moral fiber is to stick up for those you relate to least, understand minimally, and do not think are that much like you. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

Everything we do is based at adults. — Ingrid Newkirk

When I hear of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, my heart sings. — Ingrid Newkirk

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

When we build an attractive home, we raze land on which animals have already built their homes. They have nowhere to go. — Ingrid Newkirk

Life Lessons by Ingrid Newkirk

1. Ingrid Newkirk's work has taught us the importance of advocating for animal rights and the need to challenge the status quo.
2. Her dedication to the cause has shown us that we can make a difference in the world and that our voice matters.
3. Ingrid Newkirk has also demonstrated that we can be effective agents of change by standing up for what we believe in and inspiring others to do the same.