All great movements, it is written, go through three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption. It is the realisation of this third stage, adoption, that requires our passion and our discipline, our hearts and our heads. The fate of animals is in our hands.

Being kind to animals is not enough. Avoiding cruelty is not enough. Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.

If you were aboard a lifeboat with a baby and a dog, and the boat capsized, would you rescue the baby or the dog?" Regan, "If it were a retarded baby and a bright dog, I'd save the dog.

I would encourage them never to forget that they were not always vegans. The self-righteousness of the recently converted hurts, it does not help, other animals.

If abandoning animal research means that there are some things we cannot learn, then so be it ... We have no basic right ... not to be harmed by those natural diseases we are heir to.

It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice.

There is no question in my mind: reading Gandhi's autobiography changed my life.