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used with Dr Murad Khan's kind permission
George
Bernard Shaw 1856-1950— British dramatist and critic
“While
we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts how can we expect
any ideal conditions on the earth?”
“Why
should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the
scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that.”
“I
am a human being and not a yard for dead animals.”
“Animals
are my friends ——and I don’t eat my friends.”
“My
will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by
mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry,
and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves
in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures.”
Arthur
Schopenhauer 1788-1860 — German philosopher
“Since
compassion for animals is so intimately associated with goodness of character,
it may be confidently asserted that whoever is cruel to animals cannot
be a good man.”
Michel
de Montaigne 1533-1592 — French essayist
“For
my part I have never been able to see, without displeasure, an innocent
and defenseless animal, from who we receive no offense or harm, pursued
and slaughtered.”
Ovid
43 BC-17 AD — Roman poet 43 BC
“Alas,
what wickedness to swallow flesh in to our own flesh, to fatten our bodies
by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death
of another!”
Leo
Tolstoy 1828-1920 — Russian novelist and social theorist
“Vegetarianism
serves as a criterion by which we know that the pursuit of moral perfection
on the part of man is genuine and sincere.”
“This
is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses
in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity — that of sympathy
and pity towards living creatures like himself — and by violating his own
feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart in the
injunction no to take life!”
Rabindranath
Tagore 1861-1941 — Nobel Prize winner Hindu poet
“We
manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful
thing we do — we persist in throttling our feelings simply in order to
join others in preying upon life, we insult all that is good in us. I have
decided to try a vegetarian diet.”
Leonardo
da Vinci 1452-1519 — Italian painter, sculptor, architect, scientist and
engineer
“I
have an early age abjured the use of meat, and time will come when men
such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the
murder of men (from da Vinci’s Notes).”
“Truly
man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by
the death of others: We are burial places! (from Merijkowsky’s Romance
of Leonardo da Vinci).”
Diogenes
412-323 BC — Greek philosopher
Ralph
Waldo Emerson 1803-1883 — American essayist, philosopher and poet
“You
have just dined; and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed
in a graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
John
Stuart Mill 1806-1873 — English philosopher and economist
“Granted
that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to
man; is that practice moral or immoral? And If, exactly in proportion as
human beings raise their heads out of the sloughs of selfishness, they
do not with one voice answer IMMORAL, let the morality of the principle
of utility be forever condemned.”
Mohandas
Gandhi 1869-1948 —Hindu social reformer and nationalist
“The
greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its
animals are treated — but there is something much higher which calls us
to vegetarianism.”
Franz
Kafka 1883-1924 — Austrian-Czech writer
Buddha
563-483 — from Lankavatara Sutra
“For
fear of causing terror to living beings — let the Bodhsattva who is disciplining
himself to attain compassion refrain from eating flesh.”
Annie
Besant 1748-1832 — English philosopher and social reformer
“
. . . . (people who eat meat) are responsible for all the pain that grows
out of meat-eating, and which is necessitated by the use of sentient animals
as food — all starvation and the thirst and the prolonged misery of fear
which these unhappy creatures have to pass through for the gratification
of the appetite of man — all pain acts as a record against humanity and
slackens and retards the whole of human growth . . .”
Henry
S. Salt 1851-1939 — English humanitarian and reformer; friend of Gandhi
and Shaw
“Vegetarianism
is the diet of the future, as flesh-food is the diet of the past — I suggest
that in proportion as man is truly humanized, not by schools of cookery
but by schools of thought, he will abandon the barbarous habit of flesh-eating,
and will make gradual progress towards a purer, simpler, more humane, and
therefore more civilized diet-system.”
“You
take a beautiful girl down to supper and you offer her — a ham sandwich!
It is proverbial folly to cast peals before swine. What are we to say of
the politeness which casts swine before pearls?”
Albert
Schweitzer 1875-1965— theologian and musician; and winner of Nobel Peace
Prize of 1952
“Wherever
any animal is forced into the service of man the sufferings which it has
to bear on that account are the concern of every one of us. No one ought
to permit, in so far as he can prevent it, pain or suffering for which
he will not take the responsibility. No one ought to rest at ease in the
thought that in so doing he would mix himself up in affairs which are not
his business. Let no one shirk the burden of his responsibility. When there
is so much maltreatment of animals, when the cries of thirsting creatures
go up unnoticed from the railway trucks, when there is so much roughness
in our slaughterhouses, when in our kitchens so many animals suffer horrible
deaths from unskillful hands, when animals endure unheard-of agonies from
heartless men, or are delivered to the dreadful play of children, then
we are all guilty and must bear the blame.”
“It
is good to maintain and cherish life; it is evil to destroy and to check
life.”
“A
man is really ethical only when he obeys the constraint laid on him to
help all life which he is able to succor, and when he goes out of his way
to avoid injuring anything living. He does not ask how far this or that
life deserves sympathy as valuable in itself, nor how far it is capable
of feeling. To him life as such is sacred. He shatters no ice crystal that
sparkles in the sun, tears no leaf from its tree, breaks off no flower,
and is careful not to crush any insect as he walks. If he works by lamplight
on summer evening, he prefers to keep the window shut and to breathe stifling
air rather than to see insect after insect fall on his table with singed
and sinking wings.”
“The very fact
that the animal, as a victim of research, has in his pain rendered such
services to suffering men has itself created a new and unique relation
of solidarity between him and ourselves. The result is that a fresh obligation
is laid on each of us to do as much god as we possibly can to all, creatures
in all sorts of circumstances. When I help an insect
out
of his troubles all that I do is to attempt to remove some of the guilt
contracted through theses crimes against animals.”
Mahavira
. . . from Acranga Sutra — Jainism
“You
only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which
follow you, serve you and are devoured by you as the reward of their service.”
“Those
whose minds are at peace and who are free from passions do not desire to
live at the expense of others . . .”
“To
a man whose mind is free, there is something even more intolerable in the
suffering of animals than that in the sufferings of men. For with the latter
it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes
it is 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 — it cries vengeance upon all the human race. If
God exists and tolerates it, it cries vengeance upon God. If there is no
justice for the weak and lowly, for the poor creatures who are offered
up as a sacrifice to humanity, then there is no such thing as justice.”
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Fredrich
Nietzche
“All
ancient philosophy was based on plain living. In this sense the few vegetarian
philosophers have contributed more for the welfare of man than all the
other philosophers together.”
“How
can he be possessed of kindness who to increase his own flesh, eats the
flesh of other creatures?”
“Let
us not forget that we can all take life, but none of us can give it. There
is no possession more precious than self-control. Watch therefore as you
would watch treasure.”
“Life
is short,
The
vanities of the world are transient,
but
they alone live who live for others,
the
rest are more dead than alive.”
“We feel quite
content to pollute our mouths, make a graveyard of our stomachs and rob
thousands of animals of their dearest possession just because we are accustomed
to and like the taste of flesh — Man is the only one to whom the torture
and death of the fellow creatures is amusing itself.”
“If we really
know a 100th part of the agony of animals we should rather starve
than profit by it.”
“Vegetarianism,
in its highest moral form, can do much to level the sagging equilibrium
of our chaotic world. In an unbalanced world where man is the victim of
the tragic conflict between the rational laws of nature and human liberty,
moral vegetarianism and a rational and scientific mode of living and thinking
can do much to restore the world to its normal equilibrium.”
“As
soon as one knows the truth contained in vegetarianism and continues to
eat meat he is no more innocent and ignorant of his mistake. He is guilty
of crime.”
Ella
Wheeler Wilcox 1853-1919 — American poet and novelist
I
am the voice of the voiceless.
Through
me the dumb shall speak
Til’
the deaf world’s ear shall be made to hear
The
wrongs of the wordless weak.
The
same force formed the sparrow
That
fashioned man, the king.
The
God of the whole gave a speak of soul
To
furred and feathered thing;
And
I am my brother’s keeper,
And
I will fight his fight.
And
speak the word for beast and bird
Till
the world shall set things right
Song
of Peace by George Bernard Shaw
We
are the living graves of murdered beasts,
Slaughtered
to satisfy our appetites.
We
never pause to wonder at our feasts,
If
animals, like man, can possibly have rights.
We
pray on Sundays that we may have light,
To
guide our foot-steps on the paths we tread.
We’re
sick of war, we do not want to fight,
The
thought of it now fills our hearts with dread
And
yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead.
Like
carrion crows, we live and feed on meat,
Regardless
of the suffering and pain
We
cause by doing so. If thus we treat
Defenseless
animals for sport or gain,
How
can we hope in this world to attain
The
Peace we say we are so anxious for?
We
pray for it, o’er hecatombs of slain,
To
God, while outraging the moral law,
Thus
cruelty begets its offspring—War.
An
ancient Chinese verse. Translation by Gold Mountain Monastery Staff
For
hundreds of thousands of years
the
stew in the pot
has
brewed hatred and resentment
that
is difficult to stop.
If
you wish to know why there are disasters
of
armies and weapons in the world,
listen
to the piteous cries
from
the slaughterhouse at midnight.
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Back to Vegetarianism and Beyond
Permission
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 17:47:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Dr. Murad Khan"
Subject: your quotes page
To: Jaya Tirtha Charan dasan
Dear Jaya Tirtha Charan dasan
Thank for your email. It is a matter of honor and pleasure for me if
you include "the quotations" page in your website. You are fully allowed
to include this page. I expect that the link of PVS with the name of compiler
should remain intact.
I visited your site on Hare Krishna ... I love Hare Krishna.
Best regards
Murad Khan