Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid E. Newkirkis an English-born British-American animal rights activist and the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the world's largest animal rights organization. She is the author of several books, including Making Kind Choicesand The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights: Simple Acts of Kindness to Help Animals in Trouble. Newkirk has worked for the animal-protection movement since 1972. Under her leadership in the 1970s as the District of Columbia's first female poundmaster, legislation was passed to...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionActivist
Date of Birth11 June 1949
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.
The wonderful thing is that it's so incredibly easy to be kind.
Would I rather the research lab that tests animals is reduced to a bunch of cinders? Yes.
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.
We’re looking for good lawsuits that will establish the interests of animals as a legitimate area of concern in law.
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,
Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it,
If that hideousness came here [to the U.S.], 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.
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.
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.
Give your dog or cat respect, patience, understanding and love. And if you just change to one vegetarian day a week, that's a wonderful step that will save animal lives. It means you have chosen something kind instead of something cruel.
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.
The smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being
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.