“And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
-- Genesis 1:30
“For as long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
-- Socrates
“To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.”
-- Buddha
“My refusing to eat meat occasioned inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.”
-- Benjamin Franklin
“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
-- Abraham Lincoln
“It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarous habit. That we can subsist on plant food and perform our work even to advantage is not a theory, but a well-demonstrated fact."
-- Nikola Tesla
“Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he’s the one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”
-- Mark Twain
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
-- Albert Einstein
“I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat. It is only some carnivorous animals that have to subsist on flesh. Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality . . . Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to a man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do other creatures.”
-- Dalai Lama
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
-- Paul McCartney
“I personally chose to go vegan because I educated myself on factory farming and cruelty to animals. And I suddenly realized that what was on my plate were living things, with feelings. I just couldn’t disconnect myself from it any longer.”
-- Ellen DeGeneres