Vegetarianism Quotes
82 quotes
"I am glad to find you persist so heroically in a mode of living, which you will one day or other find to have been of essential service both to your body and mind, by preserving health and a good conscience, neither of which you could possibly have, if you addicted yourself to the unnatural and diabolical practice of devouring your fellow creatures, as pigs and geese undoubtedly are … I am to signify to you that eggs are henceforward to be considered as animal food, and, consequently prohibited to be eaten."
"As human sacrifices were a natural effect of that superstitious cruelty which first produced the slaughter of animals, so is it equally natural that those accustomed to eat the brute, should not long abstain from the man: more especially as; when toasted or broiled on the altar, the appearance, savour, and taste of both would be nearly, if not entirely, the same."
"You will certainly find yourself healthier, and if you have either conscience or humanity, happier, in abstaining from animal food than you could possibly be in depriving, by the indulgence of an unnatural appetite and the adherence to a barbarous custom, hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent creatures of their lives, to the enjoyment of which they have as good a right as yourself."
"The consciousness of a mind disposed to contribute to the happiness of the minutest being … shall afford you a much greater and more heartfelt satisfaction than to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day."
"I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our non-human friends - the fear, the terror, the pain - and I will not cause such suffering to a fellow living being."
"God loves and cares for creation and has the right to expect this loving care be replicated by humans. Creation exists, not for the glory of humanity, but for the glory of God. God has the right to see that earthly creatures are free to live according to their nature and without unnecessary abuse, exploitation, and pain, so that their lives can glorify their Creator.…[S]ince God values and cares for all creation, creation has a derived right to be valued and cared for by humans for God’s glory."
Richard A. Young, Is God a Vegetarian?: Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights
"Because we cannot scrub our inner body we need to learn a few skills to help cleanse our tissues, organs, and mind. This is the art of Ayurveda."
"Love is at the heart of the world, just as it is at the heart of your life. Your relationships with your lover, your family, your friends, and the world around you define the quality of your emotional wholeness and reflect your relationship with yourself."
"As we embrace our passions and delve into the mystery of life, we unite with the majestic complexity of nature; and if we follow the signs, this can help us understand who we really are."
"We can’t talk about our own health without understanding our place in our environment, because in order to fulfill our potential we have to live in the context of our surroundings.We have to know our place in the ecosystem of which we are a part, and this means living 'consciously': being aware of nature and how it affects us and how we, in turn, affect nature."
"Meditation is both the symbol and expression of our intention to grow. Sitting still, alone with our thoughts and feelings, we can honor missed opportunities, passing desires, remembered disappointments, as well as our inner strength, personal wisdom, and ability to forgive and love."
"A peculiarity of the nature of your mind is that, in contrast to your physical constitution (dosha) that is fixed from birth, it can be altered through discrimination and choice."
"Possessing strength and stillness is a sign of balance: power and serenity combined in one moment. It’s challenging enough to hold either one, let alone both, in perfect equipoise, but that is the goal if we want to be balanced."
"For all the types of pain that can lead to suffering there is a solution. Through opening our hearts with compassion to the pain that life brings, we can truly cure our pain and avoid our suffering. Then we can walk in the valley of love and experience the vast space within our heart."
"Through knowing death we can hold a beacon of love for every moment that has just passed, for every friend who has lost a friend, for every child who has lost a parent, for every parent who has lost a child; for any suffering anywhere."
"Killing or eating animals is an act of beasts. Stirs within the devil. Sorry. It spurs evil. Thus is truth - at least the metaphysical."
"As per the law of karma, that which is your meat today, this dear beloved animal will make mincemeat of you tomorrow. In another birth."
"Needless to say, jamming deformed, drugged, overstressed birds together in a filthy, waste-coated room is not very healthy. Beyond deformities, eye damage, blindness, bacterial infections of bones, slipped vertebrae, paralysis, internal bleeding, anemia, slipped tendons, twisted lower legs and necks, respiratory diseases, and weakened immune systems are frequent and long-standing problems on factory farms."
"I was proud to be brown in my own way. Well, I was at school; at school I was brown about the funky stuff that came with being vegetarian, like being really arrogant about it, declaring proudly to a room full of beefeaters when Mad Cow disease initially broke that it was 'Vishnu's way of telling y'all to stop eating and start worshipping'."
"Humans do have authority over creation—but it is a delegated authority to care for animals as God would and not to destroy them. All life still belongs to the Creator of life, as it did the in the beginning."
Richard A. Young, Is God a Vegetarian?: Christianity, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights
"Mankind does not have dominion over the Earth, mankind has a relationship with the Earth."
"By eating meat we share the responsibility of climate change, the destruction of our forests, and the poisoning of our air and water. The simple act of becoming a vegetarian will make a difference in the health of our planet."
Thich Nhat Hanh, The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology
"From the Buddhist point of view, all living beings -- that is, beings with feelings, experiences, and sensations -- are considered equal. Human beings can live without eating meat. As human beings, I think that deep down our nature tends towards vegetarianism and leads us to do everything in our power to prevent harming other species."
Dalai Lama XIV, The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Inner Peace: The Essential Life and Teachings
"I cut our paper dinner with a pair of scissors borrowed from the front desk of the hotel. I cooked with a spice rack box of crayons – sixteen colors. I seasoned the pumpkin pie with orange crayon, and basted the turkey's crisp skin in brown. I was remorseless with my sketchbook abattoir, playing the part of carnivore just as surely as I was play-acting the role of wife. I may as well have been a wax figure in a dollhouse eating the wax-scented food."
Jalina Mhyana, Dreaming in Night Vision: A Story in Vignettes
"I haven’t been to a temple in years, never been forced. My folks always said, marry a nice human being, religion doesn’t matter. They said your god is inside you! Don’t you forget that. Krishna, Jesus, Allah, are all one. Follow vegetarianism as far as you can, but you can choose your own diet, doesn’t matter. Believe in god, but for you and not because the world asks you to. Forgive and forget to be at peace. Do not believe in revenge, believe in karma!!"
"The heart of vegetarians is healed sooner than those of flesh-eaters."
"Research shows that what works and is healthy for adults also works well for children, if adjusted to be age-appropriate. Children, like adults, do not suffer from a deficiency of white sugar, white flour, junk food, or processed foods. A growing child as well as an adult is hurt by junk foods and benefited by healthy foods."
"There's plenty of food, other than non-vegetarian, here, on this earth. So, don't hurt, kill and eat animals to increase your girth"
"Thanksgiving dinner's sad and thankless. Christmas dinner's dark and blue. When you stop and try to see it From the turkey's point of view.Sunday dinner isn't sunny. Easter feasts are just bad luck. When you see it from the viewpoint of a chicken or a duck. Oh how I once loved tuna salad Pork and lobsters, lamb chops too Till I stopped and looked at dinner From the dinner's point of view."
"I love animals, especially with barbeque sauce."
"The "civilized" man of today ridicules the idolatry of bygone ages, but he does not realize that he is a far worse idolater than the idolaters of the past. In former times, men set up images of various animals and adored them; today they slaughter those animals and worship their putrefied carcasses."
Arshavir Ter Hovannessian, Raw Eating: Or a New World Free from Diseases, Vices and Poisons
"Before you rush off trying to see everything you can, educate yourself."
"People said things to me like "They're just animals. They're here for our use." I had a visceral reaction to that phrase, maybe because I was told countless times during my growing-up years that I was "just like an animal." I had suffered much of my life because I was considered less than human. Animals were suffering because they were less than human. And it seemed to me that human didn't have much to be proud of, if they treated other living things with such blind cruelty."
Elizabeth Kim, Ten Thousand Sorrows : The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan
"People eat meat and think they will become strong as an ox, forgetting that the ox eats grass."
"Once you come to terms with why you don't eat cats, dogs, monkeys, and dolphins, you will begin to understand why I don't eat cows, pigs, chickens, and lambs."
"Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight."
"He soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians."
"Don't wait for a better world. Start now to create a world of harmony and peace. It is up to you, and it always has been. You may even find the solution at the end of your fork."
Sharon Gannon, Yoga and Vegetarianism: The Path to Greater Health and Happiness
"Hindus and Westerners alike see in the meat-eating taboos of India a triumph of morals over appetite. This is a dangerous misrepresentation of cultural processes. Hindu vegetarianism was a victory not of spirit over matter but of reproductive over productive forces."
"...Food serves two parallel purposes: it nourishes and it helps you remember. Eating and storytelling are inseparable—the saltwater is also tears; the honey not only tastes sweet, but makes us think of sweetness; the matzo is the bread of our affliction."
"You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals."
"Morally it may be better to not kill any creature for their flesh, but biologically, meat was one of the greatest factors involved in the rise of the psychology of thinking humanity."
"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
"The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me."
"Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society."
"It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself."
"Meat may taste good, but the guilt of eating it tastes far worse."
"Fed by plants, fed up with the world"
"Will you dance for me? Let your breasts roam for a moment -- I need to see how they dance.''Okay.' She danced, and as she danced, she tried to think of the most delicious salads she could imagine -- with artichokes and sundried tomato and blue cheese dressing, and beets, lots of beets."
"This for many people is what is most offensive about hunting—to some, disgusting: that it encourages, or allows, us not only to kill but to take a certain pleasure in killing. It's not as though the rest of us don't countenance the killing of tens of millions of animals every year. Yet for some reason we feel more comfortable with the mechanical killing practiced, out of view and without emotion by industrial agriculture."
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
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