animal quotes Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9A 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. Count Leo Tolstoy '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. Count Leo Tolstoy 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. Count Leo Tolstoy As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. Count Leo Tolstoy Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore. Franz Kafka If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. Sir Paul McCartney We don't need to eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could. James Cromwell, the farmer in the movie Babe Thousands of animals [now billions] are butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. It cries vengeance upon all the human race. Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize Literature To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a 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. And that is the unpardonable crime. Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize Literature 1915 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 Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals who are suffering; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry….We entreat for them all Thy mercy and pity, and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words. Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessings of the merciful. Albert Schweitzer |