Quotes About Vegetarianism

#1. The idea of vegetarianism is of immense value; it is based on great reverence for life.

Rajneesh

#2. I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.

Thomas Jefferson

#3. Being vegetarian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create enough determination for action.

Thich Nhat Hanh

#4. It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#5. 'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings and this commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai.

Leo Tolstoy

#6. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian.

Linda McCartney

#7. Vegetarianism is a link to perfection and peace.

River Phoenix

#8. It is all very well for 2% of the population to live in a monastic state of meatlessness while everyone else gorges their way towards environmental meltdown or the nearest heart clinic. Vegetarianism is good for the willing minority, but not much use as a campaign tool.

Tristram Stuart

#9. 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.

Sebastian Pole

#10. I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

Henry David Thoreau

#11. I became a vegetarian at 15. I was always an animal lover and, as a teenager, became increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of eating meat. It was then that I started to research vegetarianism.

Laura Mennell

#12. Vegetarianism is the first turning away from life, because life lives on lives. Vegetarians are just eating something that can't run away.

Joseph Campbell

#13. Unless we have courage to recognize cruelty for what it is-whether its victim is human or animal-we cannot expect things to be much better in the world.

Rachel Carson

#14. The statement by Paul McCartney that, although he was a pacifist, he couldn't be at this time of war. Which is as daft as being a vegetarian between meals.

Mark Steel

#15. Some of the best things about being a vegetarian include, of course, contributing towards the welfare of animals. Being a vegetarian can also make you a healthier person, and it helps the environment. All of these things make vegetarianism worthwhile. It's really a win-win situation.

Laura Mennell

#16. The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.

Gautama Buddha

#17. A vegetarian is not a person who lives on vegetables, any more than a Catholic is a person who lives on cats.

George Bernard Shaw

#18. 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.

Sebastian Pole

#19. It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

#20. If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how
strongly I feel in this regard.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

#21. Vegetarianism is a good idea.

Jerry Springer

#22. We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?

George Bernard Shaw

#23. Iscussing vaccination with a doctor is like discussing vegetarianism with a butcher ...

George Bernard Shaw

#24. We think of dogs as being more like people than pigs; but pigs are highly intelligent animals and if we kept pigs as pets and reared dogs for food, we would probably reverse our order of preference. Are we turning persons into bacon?

Peter Singer

#25. A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

George Bernard Shaw

#26. 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

#27. I know vegetarians don't like to hear this, but God made an awful lot of land that's good for nothing but grazing.

Molly Ivins

#28. Vegans and vegetarians are commonly baited by nonvegetarians with "what if" scenarios that typically have no relevance to or bearing on most people's real-life situations.

Joanne Stepaniak

#29. We need another and a wiser and a perhaps more mystical concept of animals.

Henry Beston

#30. The ultimate tendency of liberalism is vegetarianism.

Norman Mailer

#31. Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.

Leonardo Da Vinci

#32. I was in a sushi bar and it dawned on me - how could I discriminate between a cow and a fish?

Carre Otis

#33. These folk are hewers of trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends, and if they will not depart we shall afflict them in all ways that we can.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#34. I have a lot of time for vegetarians (though apparently not all of them have a lot of time for me), and that's because I respect anyone with principles about food.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

#35. I nearly always find, when I ask a vegetarian if he is a socialist, or a socialist if he is a vegetarian, that the answer is in the affirmative.

Katharine Fullerton Gerould

#36. Before you rush off trying to see everything you can, educate yourself.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#37. Understand: the task of an activist is not to negotiate systems of power with as much personal integrity as possible
it's to dismantle those systems.

Lierre Keith

#38. Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] - 'I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger.' What a sexy little paradox.

Russell Brand

#39. Vegetarianism as a moral position is no more coherent than saying that you think it morally wrong to eat meat from a spotted cow but not morally wrong to eat meat from a non-spotted cow.

Gary L. Francione

#40. The kind of funny irony is that a lot of people talk about ethical meat eating as if it's a way to care about things, but also not to alienate yourself from the rest of the world. But it's so much more alienating than vegetarianism.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#41. I think vegetarianism is a crucial ethical choice for an individual and a society.

Bernhard Goetz

#42. You won't hear me talk about my politics, you won't hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won't hear me comment on the Iraq war. You'll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.

Ian McKellen

#43. When people ask me why I don't eat meat or any other animal products, I say, 'Because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry.'

Casey Affleck

#44. We should remember in our dealings with animals that they are a sacred trust to us from our Heavenly Father. They are dumb and cannot speak for themselves.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

#45. Vegetarianism is a conscious effort, a deliberate effort, to get out of the heaviness that keeps you tethered to the earth so that you can fly - so that the flight from the alone to the alone becomes possible.

Rajneesh

#46. The basis of my vegetarianism is not physical, but moral. If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea or mutton, even on medical advice, I would prefer death.

Mahatma Gandhi

#47. If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ... its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing.

Leo Tolstoy

#48. 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.

Edward Sanchez

#49. He who, seeking his own happiness, punishes or kills beings who also long for happiness, will not find happiness after his death.

Gautama Buddha

#50. But ... meat eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited ... Meat eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit.

Gautama Buddha

#51. Meat is necessary when there is hard physical work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or when edible plants cannot be found ... Animal flesh provides all the substances we need, both for the intensive working of our organism and for maintaining a normal temperature in cold climates.

G.I. Gurdjieff

#52. 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.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#53. Man is the only animal that can be bored.

Erich Fromm

#54. I have made my own choice, which is vegetarianism, but it's not the choice I'm imposing on anybody else.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#55. Flesh-eating by humans is unnecessary, irrational, anatomically unsound, unhealthy, unhygienic, uneconomic, unaesthetic, unkind and unethical. May I elaborate?

Helen And Scott Nearing

#56. I became a vegetarian because I was persuaded that life is as valid for other creatures as it is for humans. I do not need dead animal bodies to keep me alive, strong and healthy. Therefore, I will not kill for food.

Helen And Scott Nearing

#57. For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahamati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh.

Gautama Buddha

#58. 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.

Abhijit Naskar

#59. Since I first went to India twenty some years ago, there's been a palpable change. There's now pizza everywhere, meat is much more popular than it's ever been. Vegetarianism is "that quaint thing our parents did."

Neal Barnard

#60. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension. Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.

Benjamin Franklin

#61. Empathy, he once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow omnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated.

Philip K. Dick

#62. 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.

Sebastian Pole

#63. In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

T. Colin Campbell

#64. Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.

Anton Chekhov

#65. 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.

Sebastian Pole

#66. Every time we sit down to eat, we make a choice: Please choose vegetarianism. Do it for animals. Do it for the environment and do it for your health.

Alec Baldwin

#67. 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

#68. Therefore, vegetarianism alone can give us the quality of com-passion, which distinguishes man from the rest of the animal world.

Morarji Desai

#69. I did it for political, moral reasons, thinking that I was making this great sacrifice, but it was absolutely necessary; I was not going to contribute to the violence in the world anymore.

Alicia Silverstone

#70. Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.

Seneca The Younger

#71. Coexistence: what the farmer does with the turkey - until Thanksgiving.

Mike Connolly

#72. If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?

George Bernard Shaw

#73. 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

#74. I can't think of anything better in the world to be but a vegan.

Alicia Silverstone

#75. It almost seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore.

Albert Einstein

#76. To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today ... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

#77. Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer

#78. Animal rights is a part of my everyday life. When you live by example, you create a certain level of awareness. Friends of mine - people I have never discussed animal rights or vegetarianism with - are adopting vegetarian habits because they see it.

Joaquin Phoenix

#79. Animals are nicer than humans and they're conscious beings. If you stick your grandmother in an oven, she will probably be tasty. But is that any reason to eat your grandmother?

Steven Morrissey

#80. If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.

Paul McCartney

#81. You take this meat eating. Many people have to kill the animals because of your non-vegetarianism. You are responsible for the death of those animals. They are killed because you eat them. This is a sin. What a sin to kill innocent animals and eat them.

Sathya Sai Baba

#82. Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another!

Pythagoras

#83. Everyone has a religion, whether they admit it or not. For some it's Catholicism; for others, Vegetarianism or Elvis or Linux/Macintosh/Windows.

Guy Consolmagno

#84. Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity.

Thomas Berry

#85. I, however, cannot force myself to use "meat drugs" to cheat on my loneliness.

Franz Kafka

#86. 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.

Albert Einstein

#87. Vegetarianism is a way of living consciously on the planet.

Amy Smart

#88. 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.

Sebastian Pole

#89. 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.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#90. Life in its infinite forms exists as one organic unity. We are part of it: the part should feel reverence for the whole. That is the idea of vegetarianism. It simply means: don't destroy life. It simply means: life is God - avoid destroying it, otherwise you will be destroying the very ecology.

Rajneesh

#91. 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.

Nicholson Baker

#92. It is necessary to correct the error that vegetarianism has made us weak in mind, or passive or inert in action. I do not regard flesh-food as necessary at any stage

Mahatma Gandhi

#93. Given that eating animals is in absolutely no way necessary for my family - unlike some in the world, we have easy access to a wide variety of other foods - should we ear animals?

Jonathan Safran Foer

#94. It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed.

Albert Schweitzer

#95. Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.

Albert Schweitzer

#96. I was convinced that there was more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism.

Han Kang

#97. Vegetarianism is a healthier diet.

Deepak Chopra

#98. I treat vegetarianism as a phase that might any second end without warning.

Amit Chaudhuri

#99. Some people are still going to want to eat meat. We do agree though that vegetarianism is a healthier diet.

Dave Stroud

#100. The persistence of the story of animal consent into the contemporary era tells of a human appreciation of the stakes, and a desire to do the right thing.

Jonathan Safran Foer