What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is
not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Jeremy Bentham (philosopher)
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing.
Edmund Burke (statesman and orator)
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 (biologist)
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 (artist and scientist)
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 (physicist, Nobel 1921)
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is
concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (author)
It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God,
the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion
towards our fellow creatures.
Mahatma Gandhi (statesman and philosopher)
First it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. Now it
is necessary to civilize man in relation to nature and the animals.
Victor Hugo (poet, novelist, and playwright)
Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.
Franz Kafka (novelist)
When I was 12, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He
was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill
this creature [who] was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.
Marv Levy (football head coach)
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore
only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its
fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its
attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect
mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all
others stem from it.
Milan Kundera (author and playwright)
It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the
existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been
intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else.
Maimonides (physician and philosopher)
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what
they don't want to hear.
George Orwell (author)
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 (essayist and biographer)
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 (philosopher and mathematician)
To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable
in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings 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 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 (author, Nobel 1915)
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will
not himself find peace.
Albert Schweitzer (missionary and statesman, Nobel 1952)
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how
can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
George Bernard Shaw (playwright, Nobel 1925)
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 (poet)
As long as human beings go on shedding the blood of animals, there
will never be any peace.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (author, Nobel 1978)
And in fasting, if he be really and seriously seeking to live a good
life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the
use of animal food, because...its use is simply immoral, as it involves
the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling--killing.
Leo Tolstoy (author)
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of
appearing ridiculous.
Emile Zola (author)