Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.- - - Missy Dizic
The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.- - - Doug Larso
The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: "What good is it?"
-Aldo Leopold (1886-1948), Round River, 1993
If thy heart be straight with God, then every creature shall be to thee a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine, for there is no creature so little or so vile, but that showeth and representeth the goodness of God.
-Thomas a Kempis (c.1379-1471)from the Imitation of Christ, 1426
I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the well-being of other human beings to the broader concern for the well-being of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth.
-John Wesley (1703-1791) quoted in J.R. Hyland's God's Covenant with Animals, 2000
Pain is pain, whether it be inflicted on man or on beast; and the creature who suffers it, whether man or beast, being sensible to the misery of it, whilst it lasts, suffers evil… The white man…can have no right, by virtue of his color, to enslave and tyrannize over a black man… For the same reason, a man can have no natural right to abuse and torment a beast.
-Dr. Humphrey Primatt, 1776
In relation to animals, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.
-Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
Wildlife is decreasing in the jungles, but it is increasing in the towns.
-Mohandes Karamchand Gandhi (1869)
I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.
-Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), Complete Works
Without free animal life, I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.
-Alice Walker
He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
-Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),Lectures on Ethics
Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
-Albert Schweitzer(1875-1965)
If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
-Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.
-Alice Walker
People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
-Isaac Bashevis Singer(1904-1991)
Behold…on the first night of Christ's life God honored the animal creation. You cannot get into that Bethlehem barn without going past the camels, the mules, the dogs and the oxen. The animals of that stable heard the first cry of the infant Lord. Some of the old painters represent the oxen and camels kneeling that night before the newborn babe. And well might they kneel. Have you ever thought that Christ came, among other things, to alleviate the sufferings of animal creation? Was it not appropriate that He should, during the first few days and nights of His life on earth, be surrounded by the dumb beasts whose moans and plaints have for ages been a prayer to God for the arresting of their tortures and the righting of their wrongs?
-Dr. DeWitt Talmage, quoted by Winkie Pratney inHealing the Land, 1993
It would not do for the consumer to know that the hamburger she is eating came from a steer who spent much of his life standing deep in his own excrement in a feedlot, helping to pollute the local streams. Or that the calf that yielded the veal cutlet on her plate spent its life in a box in which it did not have room to turn around.
-Wendell Berry,
It is difficult to picture the great Creator conceiving of a program of one creature (which He has made) using another living creature for purposes of experimentation. There must be other less cruel ways of obtaining knowledge.
-Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
"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 toward our fellow creatures." ~Gandhi
"But the most sinister thing about modern vivisection is this. If a mere sentiment justifies cruelty, why stop at a sentiment for the whole human race? ... Once the old Christian idea of total difference in kind between man and beast has been abandoned, then no argument for experiments on animals can be found which is not also an argument for experiments on inferior men. If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons." ~
C.S. Lewis in Vivisection, 1947
"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me," saith the Lord. "I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats ... and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes." ~Holy Bible, Isaiah 1:11, 1:15-16
"Flesh foods are not the best nourishment for human beings and were not the food of our primitive ancestors. There is nothing necessary or desirable for human nutrition to be found in meats or flesh foods which is not found in and derived from plant foods." ~Dr. J.H. Kellogg (1852-1943)
"To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to the protection by man from the cruelty of man." ~Gandhi
"When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man, we call him 'vandal.' When he wantonly destroys one of the works of God, we call him 'sportsman.'" ~Joseph Wood Krutch
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarians." ~Linda McCartney
"The average life expectancy of a meat-eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and I am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism." ~George Bernard Shaw
Only animals were not expelled from Paradise. - Milan Kundera
From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought. - - - Victor Hugo
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.- - - William Ralph (Dean) Inge
Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!- - - Anne Tyler "The Accidental Tourist"
Animals have these advantages over man:they never hear the clock strike,they die without any idea of death,they have no theologians to instruct them,their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies,their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills.- - - - Voltaire
A cat isn't fussy - just so long as you remember he likes his milk in the shallow, rose-patterned saucer and his fish on the blue plate. From which he will take it, and eat it off the floor.- - - Arthur Bridges
I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days.- - - Bill Dana (William Szathmary)
Some people say man is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Obviously those people have never met an angry cat.- - - Lillian Johnson
Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy....Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart.- - - P. J. O'Rourke
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.- - - Mark Twain
When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.- - - Edward Abbet
The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.- - - Samuel Butler
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.- - - Aldous Huxley
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.- - - Groucho Marx
You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.- - - Harry S Truman
Charity begins at home, but need not necessarily stop there
Every experience you have is designed to make you wiser and stronger.
One of the secrets of success is to refuse temporary setbacks defeat us.
“ Begin at the beginning”, the king said gravely, “ and go till you come to the end, then stop.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
You have enemies? Good, That means you have stood up for something in life – Winston Churchill
Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it’s the courage to continue that counts.- Winston Churchil
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen _ Churchill
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere – Groucho Marx
I hope people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs… They are an obligation put on us, a responsibility we have no right to neglect, nor to violate by cruelty – James Herriot
It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens. ~Cynthia E. Varnado
In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him. ~Dereke Bruce
If cats could talk, they wouldn't. ~Nan Porter
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats. ~Albert Schweitzer
A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys. ~Barbara Holland
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. ~Mark Twain
Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia. ~Joseph Wood Krutch
The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it. ~Doug Larson
There is something about the presence of a cat... that seems to take the bite out of being alone. ~Louis J. Camuti
As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat. ~Ellen Perry Berkeley
The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer. ~Paula Poundstone
Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience. ~Pam Brown
After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference. ~Charlotte Gray
The reason cats climb is so that they can look down on almost every other animal - it's also the reason they hate birds. ~K.C. Buffington
A cat is an example of sophistication minus civilization. ~Author Unknown
There has never been a catWho couldn't calm me downBy walking slowlyPast my chair.~Rod McKuen
Your cat will never threaten your popularity by barking at three in the morning. He won't attack the mailman or eat the drapes, although he may climb the drapes to see how the room looks from the ceiling. ~Helen Powers
Cats do care. For example they know instinctively what time we have to be at work in the morning and they wake us up twenty minutes before the alarm goes off. ~Michael Nelson
Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives. ~Stephen Baker
I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days. ~Bill Dana
If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up. ~J.A. McIntosh
A dog, I have always said, is prose; a cat is a poem. ~Jean Burden
The cat is the only animal without visible means of support who still manages to find a living in the city. ~Carl van Vechten
There's no need for a piece of sculpture in a home that has a cat. ~Wesley Bates
One is never sure, watching two cats washing each other, whether it's affection, the taste, or a trial run for the jugular. ~Helen Thomson
A cat's got her own opinion of human beings. She don't say much, but you can tell enough to make you anxious not to hear the whole of it. ~Jerome K. Jerome
The cat seldom interferes with other people's rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life. ~Carl Van Vechten
Cats come and go without ever leaving. ~Martha Curtis
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. ~Joseph Wood Krutch
The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity. ~Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon
Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later. ~Mary Bly
My cat speaks sign language with her tail. ~Robert A. Stern
Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well. ~Missy Dizick
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. ~Terry Pratchett
The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends. ~Saki
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose. ~Garrison KeillorThe ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat. ~Jules Reynard
Most cats, when they are Out want to be In, and vice versa, and often simultaneously. ~Louis J. Camuti
Before a cat will condescendTo treat you as a trusted friend,Some little token of esteemIs needed, like a dish of cream.~T.S. Eliot
People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life. ~Faith Resnick
Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression. ~Beverly Nichols
Even if you have just destroyed a Ming Vase, purr. Usually all will be forgiven. ~Lenny Rubenstein
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. ~Albert Einstein
Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow. ~Monica Edwards
You own a dog but you feed a cat. ~Jenny de Vries
Everything I know I learned from my cat: When you're hungry, eat. When you're tired, nap in a sunbeam. When you go to the vet's, pee on your owner. ~Gary Smith
A cat isn't fussy - just so long as you remember he likes his milk in the shallow, rose-patterned saucer and his fish on the blue plate. From which he will take it, and eat it off the floor. ~Arthur Bridges
There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. ~Author Unknown
It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating little friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more. ~Agnes Repplier
No heaven will not ever Heaven beUnless my cats are there to welcome me.~Author Unknown
The cat is the animal to whom the Creator gave the biggest eye, the softest fur, the most supremely delicate nostrils, a mobile ear, an unrivaled paw and a curved claw borrowed from the rose-tree. ~Colette
A cat is the only domestic animal I know who toilet trains itself and does a damned impressive job of it. ~Joseph Epstein
Cats conspire to keep us at arm's length. ~Frank Perkins
I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior. ~Hippolyte Taine Prowling
Trouble with a kitten is thatEventually it becomes a cat.~Ogden Nash
Cats can be cooperative when something feels good, which, to a cat, is the way everything is supposed to feel as much of the time as possible. ~Roger Caras
The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way. ~Mark Twain
It always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can't see. ~Eleanor Farjeon
Way down deep, we're all motivated by the same urges. Cats have the courage to live by them. ~Jim Davis
Cats speak a subtle language in which few sounds carry many meanings, depending on how they are sung or purred. "Mnrhnh" means comfortable soft chairs. It also means fish. It means genial companionship... and the absence of dogs. ~Val Schaffner
People that don't like cats haven't met the right one yet. ~Deborah A. Edwards
You cannot look at a sleeping cat and feel tense. ~Jane Pauley
You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals. ~George Mikes
To err is human, to purr is feline. ~Robert Byrne
The cat loves fish, but she's loath to wet her feet. ~Proverb
Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don't think it is so much the actual bath that most cats dislike; I think it's the fact that they have to spend a good part of the day putting their hair back in place. ~Debbie Peterson
The way to keep a cat is to try to chase it away. ~E.W. Howe
Those who play with cats must expect to be scratched. ~Proverb
To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction - and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by. ~Stephen Baker
Cats are the ultimate narcissists. You can tell this because of all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren't like this. A dog's idea of personal grooming is to roll on a dead fish. ~James Gorman
The best kind of alarm clock is the purring kind. ~Alexis F. Hope
Cats as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by that fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. ~P.G. Wodehouse
Some people say man is the most dangerous animal on the planet. Obviously those people have never met an angry cat. ~Lillian Johnson
Time spent with cats is never wasted. ~May Sarton
A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes. ~Indian Proverb
People meeting for the first time suddenly relax if they find they both have cats. And plunge into anecdote. ~Charlotte Gray
Any household with at least one feline member has no need for an alarm clock. ~Louise A. Belcher
Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o' fur? ~Irish Saying
Dogs have owners, cats have staff. ~Author Unknown
One must love a cat on its own terms. ~Paul Gray
A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal. ~Agnes Repplier
Dogs eat. Cats dine. ~Ann Taylor
Of all the toys available, none is better designed than the owner himself. A large multipurpose plaything, its parts can be made to move in almost any direction. It comes completely assembled, and it makes a sound when you jump on it. ~Stephen Baker
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens. ~Abraham Lincoln
The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry. ~French Proverb
Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use. ~Mark Twain
Cats never strike a pose that isn't photogenic. ~Lillian Jackson Braun
A cat is a puzzle for which there is no solution. ~Hazel Nicholson
Always the cat remains a little beyond the limits we try to set for him in our blind folly. ~Andre Norton
If purring could be encapsulated, it'd be the most powerful anti-depressant on the pharmaceutical market. ~Alexis F.
Hope Even overweight cats instinctively know the cardinal rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses. ~John Weitz
Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet. ~Colette
The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing. Like all pure creatures, cats are practical. ~William S. Burroughs
One cat just leads to another. ~Ernest Hemingway
I put down my book, The Meaning of Zen, and see the cat smiling into her fur as she delicately combs it with her rough pink tongue. "Cat, I would lend you this book to study but it appears you have already read it." She looks up and gives me her full gaze. "Don't be ridiculous," she purrs, "I wrote it." ~Dilys Laing,
"Miao"Who among us hasn't envied a cat's ability to ignore the cares of daily life and to relax completely? ~Karen Brademeyer
Cats only pretend to be domesticated if they think there's a bowl of milk in it for them. ~Robin Williams
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. ~Mark Twain
A meow massages the heart. ~Stuart McMillan
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. ~Alfred North Whitehead
Cats are to dogs what modern people are to the people we used to have. Cats are slimmer, cleaner, more attractive, disloyal, and lazy. It's easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponsible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people (expensive girlfriends, for instance) that it's often hard to tell the people and the cats apart. ~P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners
It's really the cat's house - we just pay the mortgage. ~Author Unknown
Some people have cats and go on to lead normal lives. ~Author Unknown
Cats have an infallible understanding of total concentration - and get between you and it. ~Arthur Bridges
I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food which they take for granted, but his or her entertainment value. ~Author Unknown
It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their masters is one of perpetual boredom. ~Robley Wilson, Jr.
He swings from the chandelier, he paws my peanut butter, and he knocks over my drink in the most unfortunate places in the house - but I still love him like crazy. It's like a hairball in my heart. ~Audra Foveo-Alba
The smart cat doesn't let on that he is. ~H.G. Frommer
I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. ~William Shakespeare, Henry IV
If we treated everyone we meet with the same affection we bestow upon our favorite cat, they, too, would purr. ~Martin Buxbaum
Meow is like aloha - it can mean anything. ~Hank Ketchum
Cats were put into the world to disprove the dogma that all things were created to serve man. ~Paul Gray
If the claws didn't retract, cats would be like Velcro. ~Bruce Fogle
Most cats do not approach humans recklessly. The possibility of concealed weapons, clods or sticks, tend to make them reserved. Homeless cats in particular - with some justification, unfortunately - consider humans their natural enemies. Much ceremony must be observed, and a number of diplomatic feelers put out, before establishing a state of truce. ~Lloyd Alexander
God made the cat in order that man might have the pleasure of caressing the lion. ~Fernand Mery
Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow. ~Jeff ValdezIf only cats grew into kittens. ~R. Stern
If there were to be a universal sound depicting peace, I would surely vote for the purr. ~Barbara L. Diamond
If it wasn’t for dogs, some people would never go for walks
Be a good animal, true to your animal instincts – D.H. Lawrence
Drinking when we are not thirsty, and making love all year round, madam, that is all there is to distinguish us from other animals – Pierre De Beaumarchais
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them – Samuel Butler
Nothing to be done really about animals . Anything you do looks foolish. The answer isn’t in us. Its almost as if we’re put here on earth to show how silly they aren’t – Russell Hoban
Four legs good, two legs bad – George Orwell
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile – Albert Schweitzer
In a few generations more there will probably be no room at all allowed for animals on earth: no need of them, no toleration of them. An immense agony will have then ceased, but with it there will also have passed away the last smile of the world’s youth – Ouida
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago “
What is man without beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected” – Walt Whitman
The best thing about animals, they don’t talk much – Thornton Wilder
Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind." Albert Einstein
"There is just no reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. Man can live without meat."
The Dalai Lama
"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age abjured the use of meat."
Leonardo-da-Vinci
"I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants."
Gandhi
"Flesh eating is unprovoked murder."
Benjamin Franklin
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, so that he may know the evil from the good."
Isaiah 7:14-15
"The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion"
Mahaparinirvana (Mahayana Version)
The 13th Century Zen Master Doyen, while visiting China, asked this question: "What must the mental attitude and daily activities of a student be when he is engaged in Buddhist meditation and practice? Ju-Ching answered that one of the things he should avoid is eating meat.
"The salvation of birds and beasts, oneself included - this is the object of Shakyamuni's religious austerities." Zen Master Ikkyu
"...Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat..."
Genesis 1:29
I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking. I felt the death of the lamb.
Vaslav Nijinsky
"Thou shalt not kill."
Exodus 20:13
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, Queen Mab Notes.
"One should treat animals such as deer, camels, asses, monkeys, mice, snakes, birds and flies exactly like one's own son. How little difference there actually is between children and these innocent animals."
Srimad Bhagavatam 7.14.9
We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. Cruelty... is a fundamental sin, and admits of no arguments or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us – in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank.
Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize 1913
"Every act of irreverence for life, every act which neglects life, which is indifferent to and wastes life, is a step towards the love of death. This choice man must make at every minute. Never were the consequences of the wrong choice as total and as irreversible as they are today. Never was the warning of the Bible so urgent: "I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your children may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Erich Fromm
"Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God."
Cardinal John H. Newman
"Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used bread instead of flesh and wine in place of blood at the Lord's Supper."
German Composer Richard Wagner (1813)
"Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. To harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator."
Native American Chief (1854)
"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
"We pray on Sundays that we may have light/To guide our footsteps on the path we tread;/We are sick of war, we don't want to fight,/And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead."
George Bernard Shaw
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, (quoted in You Said a Mouthful)
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.
Leo Tolstoy
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 the savage tribes have left off eating each other.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
"Killing is a denial of love. To kill or to eat what another has killed is to rejoice in cruelty. And cruelty hardens our hearts and blinds our vision, and we are unable to see that they whom we kill are our fellow brothers and sisters in the One Family of Creation."
G.L. Rudd, author of Why Kill For Food?
"Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should
all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity."
Father Thomas Berry, Fordham University, New York
"The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass. 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."
Pythagoras
"One who, while seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other living beings who also desire happinesss, will not find happiness hereafter."
Lord Buddha, Dhammapada, 131
"He who has renounced all violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither kills nor causes others to kill - him I do call a holy man."
Lord Buddha, Dhammapada, 405
"Anyone familiar with the numerous accounts of the Buddha's extraordinary compassion and reverence for living beings - for example his insistence that his monks strain the water they drink lest they inadvertently cause the death of any micro-organisms - could never believe that he would be indifferent to the sufferings of domestic animals caused by their slaughter of food"
Roshi Philip Kapleau, 'To Cherish All Life'
"The inhabitants are numerous and happy... Throughout the country the people do not kill any living creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, they do not keep pigs and fowl, and do not sell live cattle; in the markets there are no butcher shops and no dealers in intoxicating drink... Only the Chandalas (lowest cast) are fisherman and hunters and sell flesh meat."
Famous 4th century Chinese Buddhist traveller Fa-hsien, travelling in India
"I have enforced the laws against killing certain animals and many others. But the greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favour of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living things. "
Pillar Edict of King Ashoka (268-233 BC)
"To be non-violent to human beings and to be a killer or enemy of poor animals is Satan's philosophy. In this age there is always enmity against animals, and therefore the poor creatures are always anxious. The reaction of the poor animals is being forced on human society, and therefore there is always the strain of cold or hot war between men, individually, collectively or nationally..."
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
"For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of mind the first man touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, 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 sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds? It is certainly not lions or 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. 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."
Plutarch in his essay 'On Eating Flesh'
"If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax."
Plutarch
"The steam of meat darkens the light of the spirit...One hardly can have virtue when one enjoys meat meals and feasts..."
St. Basil (AD 320 - 79)
"...Therefore the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall not eat one day or two days, or ten days or twenty days, but till it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord..."
Numbers 11:18-20
"...He who gives permission, he who kills the animal, he who sells the slaughtered animal, he who cooks the animal, he who administers the distribution of the flesh, and at last he who eats the flesh are all murderers and all of them are punishable under the law of karma."
The Laws of Manu (5:51)
"Meat can never be obtained without injury to living creatures, and injury to sentient beings is detrimental to the attainment of heavenly bliss; let him therefore shun the use of meat."
The Laws of Manu (5:48)
"Having well considered the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying of corporeal beings, let him entirely abstain from eating flesh."
The Laws of Manu
"Those who never harm others by (physical deeds), by thought and speech, in whatever condition they may be, do not go to Yama's abode. Men who harm other creatures do not go to heaven, in spite of their reciting Vedas, giving gifts, practicing austerities or performing sacrifices. Harmlessness is a great form of piety. Harmlessness alone is a great penance. Harmlessness is a great gift. This what the sages say."
Padma Purana III 31-25-28
"...Ethics has not only to do with mankind but with the animal creation as well. This is witnessed in the purpose of St. Francis of Assisi. Thus we shall arrive that ethics is reverence for all life. This is the ethic of love widened universally. It is the ethic of Jesus now recognized as a necessity of thought...Only a universal ethic which embraces every living creature can put us in touch with the universe and the will which is there manifest..."
Albert Schweitzer
I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician.
Marty Feldman
There is not an animal on the earth, or a flying creature flying on two wings, but they are peoples like unto you."
Koran, surah 6 verse 38
"Flesh eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling: killing. By killing, 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."
Leo Tolstoy
Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw
If slaughterhouses had glass walls everyone would be a vegetarian-Paul Mc cartney
Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.
Robert Louis Stevenson
"For the sake of love of purity, let the Bodhisattva refrain from eating flesh, which is born of semen, blood etc. To avoid causing terror to living beings, let the disciple, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating meat...It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order to kill it, when it was not especially meant for him. There may be some people in the future who, being under the influence of taste for meat will string together in various ways sophisticated arguments to defend meat eating. 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 and will not permit..."
Lord Buddha (Lanka vatara Sutra)
"Devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin."
Bhagavad Gita 3:13
"One who loves Krishna will give Him whatever He wants, and he avoids offering anything which is undesirable or unasked for. Thus, meat, fish and eggs should not be offered to Krishna...Vegetables, grains, fruits, milk and water are the proper foods for human beings and are prescribed by Lord Krishna Himself. Whatever else you eat, can not be offered to Him, since He will not accept it."
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
"All tremble at Violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill or cause another to kill." Dhammapada 130
"He who has renounced all Violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither kills nor causes other to kill - him do I call a holy man" Dhammapada 405
"We cannot separate ourselves from those whom we call the 'lower' animals. They are lower in the scale of evolution, but they, like us, are members of the One Family. We must not take away the life of any creature. Indeed, we must never take away that which we cannot give. And as we cannot restore a dead creature to life, we have no right to take away its' life." J.P. Vaswani , Why Kill For Food?
"Therewith He causes crops to grow for you, and the olive and the date-palm and grapes and all kinds of fruit. Lo! Herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect." Koran, surah 16, verse 11
"A token unto them is the dead earth. We revive it, and we bring forth from it grain so that they will eat thereof. And we have placed therein gardens of the date-palm and grapes, and We have placed therein. That they may eat of the fruit thereof, and their hands created it not. Will they not, then, give thanks?"
Koran, surah 36, verses 33-35
"Maim not the brute beasts...Whoever is kind to the lesser creatures is kind to himself...He who takes pity (even) on a sparrow and spares its life. Allah will be merciful on him on the day of judgement." Prophet Mohammed
Once someone asked George Bernard Shaw how it was that he looked so youthful. "I don't," Shaw retorted. "I look my age. It is the other people who look older than they are. What can you expect from people who eat corpses?"
---Compiled by Shakuntala Majumdar
