“Wherefore I say to all those who desire to be disciples, keep your hands from bloodshed and let no flesh meat enter your mouths, for the Lord is just and bountiful; who ordains that man shall live by the fruits and seeds of the earth alone.” Jesus, Gospel of the Nazirenes, Chapter 38, Verse 4
“There is not an animal that lives on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, that does not form communities like you. They all shall be gathered to their Rabb (Lord) in the end.” Qur’an, Sura 6:38
“A disciple of the Buddha should have a mind of compassion and cultivate the practice of liberating sentient beings. He must reflect thus: throughout the eons of time, all male sentient beings have been my father, all female sentient beings my mother. I was born of them, if I slaughter them, I would be slaughtering my parents as well as eating flesh that was once my own. This is so because all elemental earth, water, fire and air—the four constituents of all life—have previously been part of my body, part of my substance. I must therefore always cultivate the practice of liberating sentient beings and enjoin others to do likewise—as sentient beings are forever reborn, again and again, lifetime after lifetime. If a Bodhisattva sees an animal on the verge of being killed, he must devise a way to rescue and protect her, helping her to escape suffering and death. The disciple should always teach the Bodhisattva precepts to rescue and deliver sentient beings.” From the Brahma Net Sutra
“Cow-killers and cow-eaters are condemned to rot in hell for as many thousands of years as there are for each hair on the body of every cow they eat from.” Srimad Bhagavad-Gita, Sri Caitanya Caritamrita adi lila, Chapter 17, Verse 166
“When I look at animals held captive by circuses, I think of slavery. Animals in circuses represent the domination and oppression we have fought against for so long. They wear the same chains and shackles.” Dick Gregory, comedian, civil rights activist, humanitarian, vegan
“If you had to kill your own calf before you ate him, most likely you would not be able to do it. To hear the calf scream, to see the blood spill, to see the baby being taken away from his momma, and to see the look of death in the animal’s eye would turn your stomach. So you get the man at the packing house to do the killing for you.” Dick Gregory, The Shadow That Scares Me
“Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life. We don’t have to be a part of it.” Dick Gregory
“Kindness and compassion towards all living beings is a mark of a civilized society. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and rodeos are all cut from the same defective fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.” Cesar Chavez
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are all still savages.” Thomas Alva Edison, inventor
“It is a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.” Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1811-1896)
“People ask me how I look so young; I tell them I look my age. It is other people who look older; what do you expect from people who eat corpses?” George Bernard Shaw, British playwright (1856-1950)
“Animals are my friends. And I do not eat my friends.” George Bernard Shaw
“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
“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.” George Bernard Shaw
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
“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 towards our fellow creatures.” Gandhi
“I do not regard flesh food as necessary for us. I hold flesh food to be unsuited to our species. 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. The more helpless the creature, the more it is entitled to protection from humans from the cruelty of humans.” Gandhi
“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor, ‘Can they talk?’ but, ‘Can they suffer?’” Jeremy Bentham, British philosopher (1748-1832)
“It is not an act of kindness to treat animals respectfully. It is an act of justice. It is not ‘the sentimental interests’ of moral agents that grounds our duties of justice to children, the retarded, the senile, or other moral patients, including animals. It is respect for their inherent value. The myth of the privileged moral status of moral agents has no clothes.” Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights
“Housing animals in more comfortable, larger cages is not enough. Whether we exploit animals to eat, to wear, to entertain us, or to learn, the truth of animal rights requires empty cages, not larger cages.” Tom Regan, Empty Cages
“Veganism acknowledges the intrinsic legitimacy of all life. It recognizes no hierarchy of acceptable suffering among sentient creatures. It is no more acceptable to kill creatures with primitive nervous systems than those with highly developed nervous systems. The value of life to its possessor is the same, whether it’s the life of a clam, a crayfish, a carp, a cow, a chicken, or a child.” Stanley Sapon, Ph.D., of www.VeganValues.org
“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.” Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.” Leo Tolstoy
“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 (1452-1519)
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures, there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.” Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
“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
“What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.” Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Letter Writer
“Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.” Theodor Adorno, German philosopher (1903-1969)
“Our grandchildren will ask us one day: ‘ Where were you during the Holocaust of the animals? What did you do against these horrifying crimes?’ We won’t be able to offer the same excuse for the second time: that we didn’t know.” Dr. Helmut Kaplan (b. 1952)
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” Albert Einstein
“Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” Albert Schweitzer
“What an amount of suffering and cruel punishment the poor creatures have to endure in order to give pleasure to men devoid of thought.” Albert Schweitzer, on the training and exhibition of animals in circus acts
“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.” Albert Schweitzer, on meat-eating
“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 man.” St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, philosopher (1803-1882)
“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.” Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty (1820-1878)
“My refusing to eat meat occasioned inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.” Benjamin Franklin, politician, writer, scientist (1706-1790)
“Dave Scott, considered the world’s greatest tri-athlete, holds a degree in exercise physiology. In his words, it’s a ‘ridiculous fallacy’ to think that athletes need animal protein. He is joined in his views by such Olympians as Edwin Moses, the gold medalist who went eight years without losing the 400-meter hurdle competition, and Murray Rose, who, at age 17, won three gold medals in the Olympic swim competition. This year, I was glad to see Olympic champion Carl Lewis crown his career with his best long jump in two years to win a record-tying ninth gold medal. Lewis, of course, is a longtime vegan whose dietary changes developed out of his moral and religious convictions. Several years ago Leroy Burrell and Carl Lewis traded titles back and forth when they were being hailed as the fastest sprinters in the world—and both were vegetarians. Whether you are a world-class athlete, a weekend athlete, or simply a recreational exerciser, we know that you can meet your performance objectives, and improve your health by eating a plant-based diet that meets your energy needs. Even at my present age of 93, I found that switching to a plant-based diet improved my health dramatically.” Dr. Benjamin Spock, world’s foremost pediatrician; author of Baby and Child Care (1903-1998)
“The only way we can guarantee our continued survival on earth is to recognize the importance of other non human life forms and stop pretending we’re on top of some pyramid of domination over other beings.” Rod Coronado, activist who served five years in prison for destroying mink research lab at MSU
“Animals have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.” Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
“We have enslaved the rest of animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.” William Ralph Inge, Deacon and Professor of Divinity, Cambridge (1860-1954)
“[T]he very fact that an animal is going to be eaten seems to remove it from the category of intelligent beings, and causes it to be regarded as mere animated ‘meat.’ ” Henry S. Salt, British social reformer, animal rights activist (1851-1939)
“Philosophers…have been emotionally stroked for their intellects. They often think that logical debate is the highest mode of living. It boils down to an ego problem. I’m so glad I no longer think that the intellect is what matters most. I’m very clear that compassion is a far better quality to cultivate than intellectual acumen. The latter can be used to make life, all life, worse for the entire planet. Compassion cannot be misused in such a harmful way.” Judy Barad, Professor of Philosophy, Indiana State U.
“The victim feels the suffering in his own mind and body, whereas the victimizer…can be quite unaware of that suffering. The sword does not feel the pain that it inflicts.” Philip Hallie, From Cruelty to Goodness
“Whenever people say ‘we mustn’t be sentimental,’ you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, ‘we must be realistic,’ they mean they are going to make money out of it.” Brigid Brophy
“One day, I reached out to eat something and he ran away. Obviously, he didn’t want to be eaten.” Dave Allen, musician
“Hunting is not a sport; in a sport, the contestants must know they’re in the game.” Paul Rodriguez, comedian
“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.” Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“Damn these human beings. If I had invented them, I would go hide my head in a bag.” Mark Twain, in an 1899 letter to W. D. Howells
About Vivisection
“Those who won’t hesitate to vivisect, won’t hesitate to lie about it as well.” George Bernard Shaw
“I would not want to promote research on animals. Fortunately
The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn’t work. It has no scientific value. One cannot extrapolate the results of animal research to human beings, and every good scientist knows that.” Robert Mendelsohn, MD, late Professor of Pediatrics, U. of Illinois College of Medicine
“The cruel experimenter cannot be allowed to have it both ways. He cannot, in the same breath, defend the scientific validity of vivisection on the grounds of the physical similarities between man and the other animals, and then defend the morality of vivisection on the grounds that men and animals are physically different. The only logical alternatives for him are to admit he is either pre-Darwinian or immoral.” Richard Ryder, former vivisectionist
“It is difficult to entertain a warm feeling for a ‘medical man’ who straps dogs to a table, cuts their vocal cords, and spends an interesting day or week slowly vivisecting or dismembering them.” Clare Booth Luce, author, publisher, former Ambassador to Italy (1902-1987)
“My own conviction is that the study of human physiology by way of experiments on animals is the most grotesque and fantastic error ever committed in the whole range of human intellectual activity.” Dr. G. F. Walker, Medical World, Dec. 8, 1933
“Atrocities are no less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called ‘medical research’.” George Bernard Shaw
“The question was, can we give up animal experiments without halting medical progress? My answer is not only can one [give up vivisection] but that one must give up animal experiments not to halt medical progress. Today’s rebellion against vivisection is no longer based on animal welfare. We have to speak of a scientific rebellion out of consideration for human beings.” Pietro Croce, MD, College of American Pathologists
“There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of Science, as they do now to burning people at the stake in the name of religion.” Henry J. Bigelow, MD
“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race. The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.” Mark Twain (1835-1910)
“What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit for their cruelty.” Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
“I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. The whole thing is evil.” Charles Mayo, MD, founder of Mayo Clinic (1865-1939)
“It seems to me of great importance to teach children respect for life. Towards this end, experiments on living animals in classrooms should be stopped. To encourage cruelty in the name of science can only destroy the finer emotions of affection and sympathy, and breed an unfeeling callousness in the young towards suffering in all living creatures.” Eleanor Roosevelt, writer, diplomat, former First Lady (1884-1962)
“I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.”
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)
What does Republican Matthew Scully, the former senior speechwriter for George W. Bush, have in common with Ohio’s ultra Democrat and former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich? The same thing Russell Simmons, Erykah Badu and Joaquin Phoenix have in common with Cesar Chavez, Pythagoras and Leonardo da Vinci. Besides capturing the hearts and minds of generations, all are vegan. By not wearing fur, leather, wool, silk and down, nor consuming milk, cheese, eggs, honey and the meat of any land or marine animal, they made a compassionate decision to directly save the lives of thousands of animals.
If every meat-eater logically and compassionately re-evaluated their beliefs, they would understand why veganism is the only ethical and acceptable way to live on this planet.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, the compassionate Jewish humanitarian who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland, once condemned every meat-eater by stating, “What do they know – all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
Singer’s indictment is probably the most damning statement ever about humankind. It establishes the fact that violence is violence and murder is murder even if the victims have beaks, horns, gills, feathers or fur.
The global atrocity of eating animals kills more innocent beings in one year than all human atrocities over the past 5,000 years combined! This makes veganism the most important aspect of animal rights because almost every animal who is abused and killed on this planet is abused and killed by the meat, dairy and egg industries, despite the fact that no one in this day and age needs meat, cheese, milk and eggs to survive. The only exception would be people residing in icy environments or desert settings. But eating animals for pure survival is rare with only around 1 percent of the earth’s population being able to use this excuse. Keep in mind, this is just a valid excuse and NOT a justification. I understand why they do it. I wouldn’t do it under any circumstances, but I understand their motives. Everyone else on this planet eats animals and the things that come out of animals for four reasons: Habit, convenience, taste and tradition. With the addition of the profit motive, those are invalid, unnecessary and barbaric reasons to intentionally harm animals.
Meat-eating societies are also the main cause of world hunger. In America, we continually feed around 70 percent of our corn, wheat, oats and soy to billions of farmed animals instead of starving people! Every two seconds, someone on this planet dies from malnutrition while pigs and cows get fat. Consequently, meat-eaters are anti-human because feeding billions of animals instead of millions of hungry children is an indirect form of genocide.
Worldwide, around 60 billion land animals [10 billion in the USA] and 90 billion marine animals [18 billion in the USA] are killed and eaten every year in a monumental Holocaust borne of ignorance, arrogance and racism. The human race v. animal race brand of racism permits humans to enslave and kill any other species with impunity. Singer calls speciesism the “purest form of racism” because it kills more innocent beings that any form of human-to-human racism.
This is why vegans are the utmost humanitarians. We indiscriminately seek justice for all by doing unto others as we would have done unto ourselves [THE GOLDEN RULE].
As an ethical vegan, it’s logical for me to proclaim that the only nice slaughterhouse is an empty slaughterhouse. This statement, however, is often challenged by uninformed, egocentric individuals who believe mercy and kindness are exclusive to humans. But to deny every animal’s inherent right to fly, swim and run freely is cruel and dishonest. If given an option, no animal would choose pain or death.
To understand the compassionate movement of animal rights, empathy must be used to examine the issue from the animals’ point of view. This isn’t a radical concept either. Abolitionists looked at slavery through the eyes of subjugated blacks, just as the Allied Forces looked at Nazism through the eyes of Jews and other non-Aryans whom Hitler labeled unworthy and expendable. Empathy allows people to understand the injustice without over-analyzing the issue, especially when those in power deem the victims unworthy and expendable, something Hitler, slave-owners and meat-eaters have all done to their respective victims.
In his book Dominion, Matthew Scully explains that people have to choose between being radically kind or radically cruel. This illuminates the hypocrisy of the meat-eating animal welfare movement which seeks to regulate the enslavement and killing of billions of animals via “humane slaughter” laws. By definition alone, slaughter is radically cruel and can never be humane. If cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys go into slaughterhouses alive and come out chopped up into hundreds of pieces, how could anyone claim that animals aren’t being mistreated, abused, tortured, terrorized and savagely murdered in these places? How in the world could SLAUGHTERING BILLIONS of INNOCENTS be done with love, humanity and concern? Furthermore, killing animals via some asinine “humane slaughter” law doesn’t exonerate killers from the killing anyway. There is no such thing as humane slaughter like there is no such thing as human rape, humane slavery or humane child molestation. Buying meat, milk or eggs from non-organic, organic, small family or free-range farms doesn’t exonerate the consumer from complicity either. From the animal’s point of view, the killers and the consumers are the same.
Fortunately, de-programming the perfunctory ways of meat-eaters is possible. Reduction and abolition are the only options to end this massacre. Welfare regulations are a stamp of approval to let the carnage continue unabated because compassionate ways of enslaving and killing billions of animals do not exist.
In America, each meat-eater is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 land animals and thousands of other marine animals throughout their lifetime. Meat-eating, however, is not an instinctive behavior. It is learned tradition.
Since veganism is for anybody who wants to be kind to animals, good to the environment and healthy, millions of Christian, Mormons, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun and anti-gun people live a vegan lifestyle. Millions of Democrats, Independents and Republicans are vegan as well. Tales of tree-hugging liberals being the only supporters of veganism couldn’t be further from the truth. Scully’s Dominion is a right-wing, faith-based, Christian conservative view supporting veganism because ethnicity, religious affiliation or political party have no bearing on eating a veggie burger tonight instead of a hamburger.
of meat-eaters similar question
The global atrocity of eating anfeeding billions of animals instead of millions of hungry children is an indirect form of genocide.
Worldwide, around 60 billion land animals [10 billion in the USA] and 90 billion marine a
To understand the compassionate movement of animal rights, empathy must be used to examine the issue from the animals’ point of view. This isn’t a radical concept either. Abolitionists looked at slavery through the eyes of subjugated blacks, just as the Allied Forces looked at Nazism through the eyes of Jews and other non-Aryans whom Hitler labeled unworthy and expendable. Empathy allows people to understand the injustice without over-analyzing the issue, especially when those in power deem the victims unwor INNOCENTS be done with love, humanity and concern? Furthermore, killing animals via some asinine “humane slaughter” law doesn’t exonerate killers from the killing anyway. There is no such thing as humane slaughter like there is no such thing as human rape, humane slavery or humane child molestation. Buying meat, milk or eggs from non-organic, organic, small family or free-range farms doesn’t exonerate the consumer from complicity either. From the animal’s point of view, the killers and the consumers are the same. And, if for some reason, my aforesaid words aren’t proof enough of the abuse, torture and terrorism claims that I have levied against the meat, egg and dairy industries, maybe the billions of dead, dismembered animal bodies could count as proof. Maybe McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Taco Bell, KFC, Denny’s, Outback and Longhorn steakhouses, Rose Acre Farms (eggs), Smithfield, ConAgra, Perdue and Tyson could be proof, too. Maybe EVERY piece of footage EVER gleaned from the meat, dairy and egg industries is proof as it SHOWS animals being enslaved, abused and killed, most of the time enduring fully conscious dismemberment.
Reduction and abolition are the only options to end this massacre. Welfare regulations are a stamp of approval to let the carnage continue unabated because compassionate ways of enslaving and killing billions of animals do not exist.
The 1966 Animal Welfare Act. It states, “The term animal EXCLUDES … birds, rats, mice, horses … and other farm animals such as … but not limited to … livestock and poultry … and anything used or intended to be used as food or fiber [clothing].” It also states, “The term exhibitor EXCLUDES … retail pet stores … organizations sponsoring state and country [county] fairs, livestock shows, rodeos, purebred dog and cat shows and any fair or exhibition intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences.”
In America, each meat-eater is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 land animals and thousands of other marine animals throughout their lifetime. Meat-eating, however, is not an instinctive behavior. It is learned tradition. Scientific claims of the human body being omnivorous or carnivorous are erroneous and illogical. If someone placed a two-year old child in a crib with a bunny rabbit and an apple, the child would play with the rabbit and eat the apple, an unambiguously herbivorous reaction. People become inured to the taste of blood, flesh, veins, muscles, tendons, cow secretions [milk], hen periods [eggs] and bee vomit [honey], as I will discuss in the “Humans Are Herbivores” section.
Since veganism is for anybody who wants to be kind to animals, good to the environment and healthy, millions of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, black, white, Asian, Latino, Native, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gun and anti-gun people live a vegan lifestyle. Millions of Democrats, Independents and Republicans are vegan as well. Tales of tree-hugging liberals being the only supporters of veganism couldn’t be further from the truth. Scully’s Dominion is a right-wing, faith-based, Christian conservative view supporting veganism because ethnicity, religious affiliation or political party have no bearing on eating a veggie burger tonight instead of a hamburger.
