Quotes about veganism

O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,

Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:

While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,

And planted orchards bend their willing load;

While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,

And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;

Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,

But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;

While kine to pails distended udders bring,

And bees their hony redolent of Spring;

While Earth not only can your needs supply,

But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;

A guiltless feast administers with ease,

And without blood is prodigal to please.

O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,

Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:

Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;

Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.

'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides

The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,

If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,

And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:

What else is this, but to devour our guests,

And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!

We, by destroying life, our life sustain;

And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.

The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable foods, such as milk, pastry, fruit, etc. Beware of changing this natural taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their health's sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one explain away the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer and more cruel than other men; this has been recognised at all times and in all places.

Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. That is not a gift of life; it is a theft.

a true beauty, real and lasting, [is] achieved by a healthy diet, without eating meat or drinking alcoholic beverages, by practicing gymnastics and taking walks in the open air, not a fictitious beauty such as that of adornment, without which, she is no longer herself.

[W]e call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

[W]e shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.

[T]here is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.

The sight of slabs of flesh should horrify and disgust any sensitive person if they exercised their inborn compassion. Habit has dimmed their native kindliness. Their palates have become abnormally corrupted and conditioned by a taste for dead food, its flavoring and odors. People who eat slaughtered creatures every day find it hard to imagine what to substitute for meat, not realizing that meat is the substitute for vegetables.

This book on simple food is vegetarian, of course. It is the simplest, cleanest, easiest way to eat. I take it for granted that to live on plants and fruits, seeds and nuts is the way for rational, kindly and perceptive people to live.

The word "vegetarian" derives from the Latin "vegetus"—whole, sound, fresh, lively. The meat humans eat is neither whole, sound, fresh or lively. It is dis-limbed, tainted, decaying, stale and dead. A diet consisting of green leafy vegetables, root crops, grains, berries, nuts and fruits supplies all the body needs for strength and well-being. It is healthful food, aesthetic, economical, harmless to our brother animals, easy to grow, to prepare and to digest. Flesh-eating by humans is unnecessary, irrational, anatomically unsound, unhealthy, unhygienic, uneconomic, unaesthetic, unkind and unethical.

The animals are our brothers; another nation living on earth, growing up beside us. They are not lesser beings; they are selves in different forms. Some of them have flippers, some wings for motivation; some have two propelling legs, some have four; we have only two. Some have thumbs, some have claws. We have manufactured claws and worse. We have no rights over these creatures; yet we exploit and imprison them. They should run wild and be on their own but we have corrupted them, enslaved them and modified their behavior and opportunities. Some of them like it, some don't. We have made friends of some and slaves of others.