quotations about vegetarianism
Man alone consumes and engulfs more flesh than all other animals put together. He is, then, the greatest destroyer, and he is so more by abuse than by necessity. Instead of enjoying with moderation the resources offered him, in place of dispensing them with equity, in place of repairing in proportion as he destroys, of renewing in proportion as he annihilates, the rich man makes all his boast and glory in consuming, all his splendour in destroying, in one day, at his table, more material than would be necessary for the support of several families. He abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess.
GEORGE BUFFON
L'Histoire Naturelle
We manage to swallow flesh, only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing we do.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Glimpses of Bengal Letters
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
attributed, The Perfectly Contented Meat-eater's Guide to Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is not only optimally healthy for your body, but your environment and the planet's animals. It allows you to live more harmoniously with the world around you, which improves mental and emotional health accordingly.
WINGS OF SUCCESS
The Advantages of Being a Vegetarian
Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.
ANTHONY BOURDAIN
Kitchen Confidential
The repugnance I have come to feel about eating such animals is an extension of what I would feel about eating my pet cat rather than the product of some calculation of quanta of suffering.
THOMAS WELLS
"The Incoherence of Peter Singer's Utilitarian Argument for Vegetarianism", ABC Online, October 25, 2016
We were all brainwashed to believe that the only source of protein was meat and cheese.
SUZANNE HAVALA
101 Reasons why I'm a Vegetarian
I'm a postmodern vegetarian -- I eat meat ironically.
BILL BAILEY
Part Troll
Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially.
DOUGLAS ADAMS
Last Chance to See
Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables at second hand; for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and the vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct by eating the food that God provided for our use!
ELLEN WHITE
Health and Happiness
When a man of normal habits is ill, everyone hastens to assure him that he is going to recover. When a vegetarian is ill (which fortunately very seldom happens), everyone assures him that he is going to die, and that they told him so, and that it serves him right. They implore him to take at least a little gravy, so as to give himself a chance of lasting out the night.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Saturday Review, May 21, 1898
I tell vegetarians, "Hey, vegetables are living things too. They're just easier to catch."
KEVIN BRENNAN
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
attributed, Food and Drink: A Book of Quotations
If we each had to butcher our own meat, there would be a great increase in the number of vegetarians.
ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY
Tolstoy and His Message
Many refined people will not kill a fly, but eat an ox.
ISAAC LEIB PERETZ
Taanis Gedanken
Sooner or later, we'll all be on the menu.
ROD SERLING
"To Serve Man", The Twilight Zone
Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal amount of dead flesh. This will sound a surprising and incredible statement to many people, because they have been brought up to believe that they cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh, and this delusion is so widely spread that it is difficult to awaken the average man from it.
C. W. LEADBEATER
Vegetarianism and Occultism
I advance no exaggerated or fanciful claim for Vegetarianism. It is not, as some have asserted, a "panacea" for human ills; it is something much more rational -- an essential part of the modern humanitarian movement, which can make no true progress without it. Vegetarianism is the diet of the future, as flesh-food is the diet of the past.
HENRY S. SALT
"The Humanities of Diet", Ethical Vegetarianism
The meat-free lobby has been rebranding quietly for a while. Certainly, all but the most entrenched dinosaurs have forsworn the prejudice that all vegans and vegetarians are a feeble cohort of joyless neurotics, trussed up in hemp. Today, vegetarians especially are a mainstream minority: they've smartened up their menus and their look. Indeed, perhaps you would even consider going out with one.
PHOEBE LOCKHURST
"Vegetarian London: the best new dishes", Evening Standard, April 5, 2017
First, how do you prove that mankind is invested with the right of killing them, and that brutes have been created for the purpose you assert them to be? Secondly, it is to be observed that the flesh of man himself possesses the same nourishing and palatable qualities? Are we then to become cannibals for that reason?
LEWIS GOMPERTZ
Moral Inquiries