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Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth."
The Folarians (such was their name) were a pacifistic people who believed in free will, free thought, free love, free land, free living, free rides, freeloading and freebies of all kinds. Bitter enemies of the Vegetarians, the Fruitarians (who lived exclusively on raw fruit), the Pietarians (or “New Fruitarians,” as they were sometimes called, who ate only raw fruit pies) and the Breatharians (who subsisted on air alone), the Folarians promoted a doctrine wherein eternal life was achieved by abstaining from all food sources save foliage—thus their name. Moreover, this foliage—whether leaves, stems or flowers—must already have fallen to the ground of its own accord. This way, eating only nature’s leftovers, the Folarians lived in perfect harmony with Mother Earth.
Only when lions have historians will hunters cease being heroes
All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based -- or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug -- it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Sri Aurobindo
Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude toward those who are at tis mercy: animals. And in this respect, human kind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
J. H. Kellogg
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.
Ben Franklin
When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.
Albert Einstein
Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.
Leonardo Da Vinci
As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
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? ... It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless,tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beautyand grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Washington, D.C.
About 2,000 pounds of grains must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten directly will support a person for a year. Thus, a given quantity of grain eaten directly will feed 5 times as many people as it will if it is eaten indirectly by humans in the form of livestock products....
Howard Lyman
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.
Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882) The Descent of Man
Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.
Heart attacks... God's revenge for eating his little animal friends.
Yesterday I saw a child wearing a T-shirt that said, "If you love me, don't feed me junk food." I was delighted to see this, but I also know how difficult it can be to feed our children well, particularly when the foods that are most convenient and the most heavily advertised are often the ones we should avoid. Joel Fuhrman's new book is a blessing, because it makes it so much easier. It is excellent, and full of clarity, wisdom, and guidance you can trust. It can indeed give you the power to shape your child's health destiny - John Robbins
Every day a parent asks, "When is your pediatric nutrition book coming out?" Parents are eager for information. They don't know what to feed their kids. They know that the diet of their household and of their community are unhealthy, but they don't know what to do. They are stumped because they want to make changes, but they don't know how to get their kids to like healthy foods. This book has the answers. Not only will it explain what a healthy diet is, it will show you how to implement the best diet for your children in such a way that they will love it, eat it, and adopt a healthy approach to nutrition that will last a lifetime.
American children are the heaviest worldwide, and they are getting heavier at a faster rate than other children around the globe. This spread of obesity foreshadows an explosion in degenerative diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer waiting to erupt in our children's future. Together we can stop this tragedy from ever happening.
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men. ~Alice Walker
Ultimately, living with compassion means striving to maximize the good we accomplish, not following a set of rules or trying to fit a certain label. From eating less meat to being vegan, our actions are only a means to an end: decreasing suffering.
What we choose to eat makes a powerful statement about our ethics and our view of the world -- about our very humanity. Whenever we choose not to buy meat, eggs, and dairy products, we withdraw our support from cruelty to animals, undertake an economic boycott of factory farms, and support the production of cruelty-free foods.
Regardless of any other beliefs we hold and however else we choose to lead our lives, each of us can decide to act with kindness and compassion. Making humane choices is the ultimate affirmation of our humanity.
As a matter of strict logic, perhaps, there is no contradiction in taking an interest in animals on both compassionate and gastronomic grounds. If a person is opposed to the infliction of suffering on animals, but not to the painless killing of animals, he could consistently eat animals that had lived free of all suffering and been instantly, painlessly slaughtered. Yet practically and psychologically it is impossible to be consistent in one's concern for nonhuman animals while continuing to dine on them. If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end. In time we will come to regard pigs, cattle, and chickens as things for us to use, no matter how strong our compassion may be; and when we find that to continue to obtain supplies of the bodies of these animals at a price we are able to pay it is necessary to change their living conditions a little, we will be unlikely to regard these changes too critically. The factory farm is nothing more than the application of technology to the idea that animals are means to our ends. Our eating habits are dear to us and not easily altered. We have a strong interest in convincing ourselves that our concern for other animals does not require us to stop eating them. No one in the habit of eating an animal can be completely without bias in judging whether the conditions in which that animal is reared caused suffering.
