Vegetarianism Quotes

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Vegetarianism Quotes

A vegetarian is a person who won't eat anything that can have children.

--David Brenner

 

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends. --George Bernard Shaw

 

How can you eat anything with eyes? --Will Kellogg

 

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it

is to the caterpillar. -- Bradley Miller

 

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. --Paul

McCartney

 

I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and

felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried

like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking.

I felt the death of the lamb. --Vaslav Nijinsky (dancer and choreographer)

 

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore. -- Franz Kafka-Novelist

(to the fishes in his aquarium)

 

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a

justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should

not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been

done since the earliest of times. --Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904- )

 

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who

sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. --Pythagoras (6th

century BC)

 

 

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he

eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his

appetite. --Leo Tolstoy

 

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same

impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our

own. --Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden

corpse of a tortured animal. ~Ingrid Newkirk, National Director of People for

the Ethical Treatment of Animals

 

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he

intends to eat until he eats them. -- Samuel Butler, Note-Books, 1912

 

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on

Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. --Albert Einstein

 

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same

impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our

own. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of

this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If

beef is your idea of " real food for real people " you'd better live real close to

a real good hospital. --Neal Barnard, M.D.

 

We all love animals. Why do we call some " pets " and others " dinner? " --k.d.

lang

 

Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the Christmas

turkey before us... a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird... a

social being... capable of actual affection... nuzzling its young with almost

human-like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give

our respects to its family. --Berke Breathed, Bloom County Babylon

 

We pray on Sundays that we may have light/To guide our footsteps on the path we

tread;/We are sick of war, we don't want to fight,/And yet we gorge ourselves

upon the dead. -- George Bernard Shaw

 

 

We don't need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could.

--James Cromwell

 

 

If you knew how meat was made, you'd probably lose your lunch. --k.d. lang

 

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses. --George Bernard Shaw

 

As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. --Leo Tolstoy,

author

 

The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion. --Mahaparinirvana

(Buddhist)

 

I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease

to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants. -- Gandhi

 

I will not eat anything that walks, runs, skips, hops or crawls. God knows that

I've crawled on occasion, and I'm glad that no one ate me. -----Alex Poulos

 

 

One farmer says to me, " You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it

furnishes nothing to make the bones with; " and so he religiously devotes a part

of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the

while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and

his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. --Henry David Thoreau

 

 

Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground,

and it explodes into an oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay.

--George Bernard Shaw

 

 

My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating

beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions

for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen,

sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all

wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow

creatures. --George Bernard Shaw

 

 

I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the

chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by

Ronald D. Fuchs

 

Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on

Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself

to be to other animals. Would they have the right to treat you as you treat the

animals you breed, keep and kill for food? --John Harris (1946- )

 

 

Heart attacks... God's revenge for eating his little animal friends. --Author

Unknown

 

Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world

adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind. -- Albert Einstein

 

Our task must be to free ourselves... widening our circle of compassion to

embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. -- Albert

Einstein

 

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its

animals are treated. -- Gandhi

 

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are

backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up

imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalist for the same reasons. -- C. S.

Lewis

 

Among the noblest in the land - Though man may count himself the least - That

man I honor and revere, Who without favor, without fear, In the great city dares

to stand, The friend of every friendless beast. --Henry W. Longfellow

 

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he

eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his

appetite. And to act so is immoral. -- Leo Tolstoy

 

 

Tongue - a variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly crosses the line

between a cut of beef and a piece of a dead cow. --Bob Ekstrom

 

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect

any ideal conditions on this earth? --George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

 

 

Coexistence... what the farmer does with the turkey - until Thanksgiving.

--Mike Connolly

 

 

A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. --George

Bernard Shaw

 

 

It is strange to hear people talk of Humanitarianism, who are members of

societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim

to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their

patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite.

--Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844-1936)

 

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better

about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to

their pain.

--Paul (1942- ) and Linda McCartney

 

You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and

plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. --Harvey Diamond

 

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he

eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his

appetite. And to act so is immoral.--Leo Tolstoy

 

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun

and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the

world to enjoy. --Plutarch (c.AD 46-c.120)

 

Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act, which

is contrary to moral feeling: killing. By killing, man suppresses in himself,

unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity, that of sympathy and pity towards

living creatures like himself and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel.

-- Leo Tolstoy

 

Flesh eating is unprovoked murder. -- Benjamin Franklin

 

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when

men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the

murder of men. --Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

 

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I

should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.

--Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

 

We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we

happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily in

the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were

eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field

herself. We looked at each other and said, " Wait a minute, we love these

sheep--they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them? " It was the

last time we ever did. --Linda and Paul McCartney (musicians)

 

" Those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be

shielded from the slaughterhouse or any other aspect of the production of the

meat they buy. If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be

like for the animals to experience it? " --Peter Singer

 

" My dream is that people will come to view eating an animal as cannibalism. "

--Henry Spira

 

In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison to

both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. --T. Colin Campbell, PhD Professor of

Nutrition, Cornell University (letter dated 3/29/98)

 

" Awareness is bad for the meat business. Conscience is bad for the meat

business. Sensitivity to life is bad for the meat business. DENIAL, however, the

meat business finds indispensable. " --John Robbins, Diet for a New America

 

" There will come a time...when civilised people will look back in horror on our

generation and the ones that preceded it: the idea that we should eat other

living things running around on four legs, that we should raise them just for

the purpose of killing them! The people of the future will say " meat-eaters! " in

disgust and regard us in the same way we regard cannibals and cannibalism "

--Dennis Weaver

 

" The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the

carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger after sweet

and gentle creatures who harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are

devoured by you as the reward of their service " --John Jacques Rousseau

 

" The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of

this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If

beef is your idea of `real food for real people,' you'd better live real close

to a real good hospital. " --Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians

Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C.

 

" When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their

flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for

human beings. " --William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of

Cardiology

 

" All red meat contains saturated fat. There is no such thing as truly lean meat.

Trimming away the edge ring of fat around a steak really does not lower the fat

content significantly. People who have red meat (trimmed or untrimmed) as a

regular feature of their diets suffer in far greater numbers from heart attacks

and strokes. "

--Michael Klaper, M.D., Medical Director, EarthSave Foundation, Santa Cruz,

California

 

" If you step back and look at the data, the optimum amount of red meat you eat

should be zero. "

--Walter Willett, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, director of a study

that found a close correlation between red meat consumption and colon cancer.

 

" Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development

is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a very

smart move and the Chinese are listening. They are realizing that animal-based

agriculture is not the way to go.... We are basically a vegetarian species and

should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of

animal foods.... " Once people start introducing animal products into their diet,

that's when the mischief starts. " --T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., of Cornell

University, director of a study of 6,500 Chinese that found a close correlation

between meat consumption and the incidence of heart disease and cancer.

 

" The thousands of people who have suffered food poisoning after eating beef

will, no doubt, appreciate that their beef was aesthetically acceptable, even

though it made them ill. `Lovely to look at, dangerous to eat' is not a standard

that is likely to help beef sales. " --Carol Tucker Foreman, Assistant Secretary

of Agriculture during the Carter administration, commenting on the inadequacy of

the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Streamlined (Meat) Inspection System (SIS).

 

If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man is the king

of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We

are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the

time will come when men such as I look upon the murder of animals as they now

look upon the murder of men. -- Leonardo da Vinci

 

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on

earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. -- Albert Einstein

 

Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die by those fated instruments

more than the weapons of their enemies. -- Thomas Moffett

 

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in

the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their

mental faculties... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and

pain, happiness, and misery. -- Charles Darwin

 

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. -- Ingrid Newkirk

 

If experiments on animals were abandoned on grounds of compassion, mankind would

have made a fundamental advance. -- Richard Wagner

 

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who

sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love. -- Pythagoras

 

It were much better that a sentient being should never have existed, than that

it should have existed only to endure unmitigated misery. -- Percy Bysshe

Shelley

 

What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right

to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there

will be no limit for their cruelty. -- Leo Tolstoy

 

I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might

manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that

which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them:

as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a

man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. -- Ecclesiastes

 

Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is

not enough. -- St. Francis of Assisi

 

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual

improvement to leave off eating animals. -- Henry David Thoreau

 

Your choice of diet can influence your long term health prospects more than any

other action you might take. -- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop

 

Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not

himself find peace. -- Albert Schweitzer

 

If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of

compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewisewith their fellow

men. -- St. Francis of Assisi

 

Basically we should stop doing those things that are destructive to the

environment, other creatures, and ourselves and figure out new ways of existing.

-- Moby

 

Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used

bread instead of flesh and wine in place of blood at the Lord's Supper. --

German Composer Richard Wagner

 

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it

is dumb to his dull perceptions. --Mark Twain

 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the

world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever does. -- Margaret Mead

 

We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs

with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

 

To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the

sufferings of animals than in the suffering of man. For with the latter it is at

least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a

criminal. But thousands (now billions) of animals are uselessly butchered every

day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be

thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. -- Romain Rolland--Nobel

1915

 

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.

Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. -- Thomas

Edison

 

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana. --

Buddha

 

40 years ago on the set of Gunsmoke I read the book The Holy Science. Since then

I have not eaten meat. -- Dennis Weaver

 

Since visiting the abbatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat. -- Vincent

Van Gogh (in a letter to his brother Theodore)

 

The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the

vegetarian miners of Chile. -- Charles Darwin

 

I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog

Boycott who led me to question to right of humans to eat other sentient beings.

-- Cesar Chavez (pacifist head of the United Farm Workers)

 

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do

not trouble their joy, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness,

don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to

animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by

your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you-alas, it

is true of almost every one of us! -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be

indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity. -- Isaac Bashevis Singer

 

It is man's sympathy with all creatures that first makes him truly a man. -- Dr.

Albert Schweitzer--Nobel 1952

 

Gandhi on Vegeterianism ( Link)

 

Living Graves

 

- By George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

 

 

 

We are the living graves of murdered beasts,

Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.

We never pause to wonder at our feasts,

If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.

We pray on Sundays that we may have light,

To guide our footsteps on the path we tread.

We're sick of war, we do not want to fight -

The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread,

And yet - we gorge ourselves upon the dead.

 

 

Like carrion crows we live and feed on meat,

Regardless of the suffering and the pain

we cause by doing so, if thus we treat

defenceless animals for sport or gain,

how can we hope in this world to attain,

the PEACE we say we are so anxious for.

We pray for it o'er hecatombs of slain,

to God, while outraging the moral law,

thus cruelty begets its offspring - WAR.