Heart attacks… God’s revenge for eating his little animal friends.
—Anonymous
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 (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
For the most part, we carnivores do not eat other carnivores. We prefer to eat our vegetarian friends.
—Robert Brault
Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. 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 will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Architect
Most vegetarians I ever see looked enough like their food to be classed as cannibals.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Author, Writer, Humorist
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
—Samuel Butler
One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;” and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system 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 (1817–62) American Philosopher
We do not need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could.
—James Cromwell (b.1940) American Actor, Activist
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
—Paul McCartney (b.1942) English Pop Singer, Songwriter
Be kind to all that lives.
—Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king
There is no substitute for mother’s milk
—Martin H. Fischer
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 (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
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 (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
It is impossible that had Buonaparte descended from a race of vegetable feeders that he could have had either the inclination or the power to ascend the throne of the Bourbons.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
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) Irish Playwright
I, for my part, wonder what sort of feeling, mind or reason that man was possessed who was first to pollute his mouth with gore, and allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being; who spread his table with the mangled form of dead bodies, and claimed as daily food and dainty dishes what but know were beings endowed with with movement, with perception and with voice.
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
—A. Whitney Brown (b.1952) American Comedian, TV Personality
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?
—Plutarch (c.46–c.120 CE) Greek Biographer, Philosopher
Thou shall not kill does not apply to murder of one’s own kind only, but to all living beings; and this Commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been treated so with little respect and kindness just to make more meat.
—Jane Goodall (b.1934) British Primatologist, Conservationist
I eat everything that nature voluntarily gives: fruits, vegetables, and the products of plants. But I ask you to spare me what animals are forced to surrender: meat, milk, and cheese.
—Anonymous
I am not a complete vegetarian. I eat only animals that have died in their sleep.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-Up Comedian
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
—William Motter Inge (1913–73) American Playwright, Novelist
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 (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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