Vegetarians. Quotes

Chipotle veggie burgers

"A vegetarian is a person who won't eat anything that can have children. [David Brenner]

"Animals do not 'give' their life to us, as the sugar-coated lie would have it . . . They struggle and fight to the last breath, just as we would do if we were in their place. [John Robbins]

"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction. [Charles R. Magel]

"Avoiding harm to all creatures. . . this is true knowledge. All else is ignorance. [Krishna, in Bhagavad-gita 13:8]

"Haunting involves many terrible Karmic aspects. In murdering a father or mother animal, very likely some young creatures are made orphans, left unprotected in the wilderness. And, often, clumsy haunters only succeed in wounding the creatures; thus escaping immediate destruction, the maimed animals may roam in agony for days upon days, until Death finally supervenes. More misery in trapping: caught in the wicked traps, many creatures actually gnaw off their own paws, to gain the precious freedom. [Cf. Swami Noshervanji on hunting]

"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game. [Paul Rodriguez]

"He who . . . who serves it up, and he who eats it, may be considered as co-slayers of the animal. [With Manu]

"I think, therefore I am . . . a vegetarian. [Author Unknown]

"I wish that more and more adventurous young men would give up the gun in favour of the camera. [Jawaharlal Nehru]

"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 likewise with their fellow men. [Francis of Assisi]

"Injury to sentient beings is detrimental to heavenly bliss. [Manu]

"Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed. [Seneca]

"Nonviolence . . . and mercy to all life forms are the goals of godly persons who are endowed with My nature. [Krishna, Bhagavad-gita 16:1]

"One should treat animals such as deer, camels, asses, monkeys, mice, snakes, birds and flies exactly like one's own son . . . these innocent animals. [Narada Muni, Bhagavata Purana 7:14:9]

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans. [Alice Malsenior Walker]

"The factory farm is . . . an obvious moral evil so sickening and horrendous. . . All this so we can have our accustomed veal or lamb or fried chicken or pork chop or hot dog. [Matthew Scully, abr.]

"The first man . . . 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]

"The smell of factory farms . . . many notice these places only when the odours reach their homes, affecting their own quality of life. We create these animals for our profit and pleasure, playing with their genes, violating their dignity as living creatures, forcing them to lie and live in their own urine and excrement, turning pens into penitentiaries and frustrating their every desire except what is needed to keep them breathing and breeding. And then we complain about the smell. [With Matthew Scully]

"Thou shalt 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]

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

"We have found ways . . . to torture and maim animals and make their lives a misery, almost a living hell . . . in the multinational food industry, . . . and in laboratories where often the most important thing being researched is the latest in lipstick or face cream. [David Oderberg (Professor of Philosophy at Oxford)]

Apart from the sensitive approach, where we attempt to cause as little harm as feasible on sensitive, higher life forms like humans, it also matters that we survive in too hard conditions where eating meat is not folly. [T. Kinnes]

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. [Mark Twain]

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]

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. [Fran Lebowitz]

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]

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]

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. . .. [Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854]

I think there are several gliding scales into it when it comes to the food to eat; it is often not so much an either-or matter, for example either vegetarian or meat-eating. So, many vegetarians have milk and milk products, eat eggs, fish, and light meat, and still count for vegetarians. I for my part is no meat-eater in between meals. [T. Kinnes]

In Norway we have a word for sushi: bait. [From José Simons]

[It] boils down to priorities. What do you consider more important in your life? Disregard for the suffering of others? Your taste buds? Or what? [Yajnavalkya Dasa]

My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better . . . 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]

One of the very nicest things about a pleasant life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are singing and devote our attention to eating. [Cf. Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, hum]

People take to bad stimulants like coffee, smokes, and further, after overtaxing their systems for some time. These things tell they could profit from calming down substantially some way or other instead of stabilising or step up stresses. But for those who cannot stay away from red meat, their overall conditions could be too hard, not gentle. If so, life in the USA is far too taxing today. [T. Kinnes]

The increased meat intake in a nation suggests life is getting harder on the common man, believe it or not. [T. Kinnes]

Vegetarians are more intelligent, research shows. [London Evening Standard on the bright side of vegetarianism]*

*A study of thousands of men and women revealed that those who stick to a vegetarian diet have IQs that are around five points higher than those who regularly eat meat. Writing in the British Medical Journal, researchers from the University of Southampton tracked the fortunes of more than 8,000 volunteers for 20 years. Those who were brainiest as children were more likely to have become vegetarian as adults, shunning both meat and fish, and were also more likely to have gained degrees and hold down high-powered jobs. There was no difference in IQ between strict vegetarians and those who classed themselves as veggie but still ate fish or chicken. However, vegans - vegetarians who also avoid dairy products - scored significantly lower.

[Extracts from London Evening Standard's article "Vegetarians are more intelligent, research shows." 15 December 2006.]