Some noteworthy quotations on Vegetarianism, continued:
Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw
Visit the meatrix….http://www.peta.org/feat/meatrix/
“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
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
Paul McCartney
Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw
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
One farmer says to me, “You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with”. And so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.
Henry David Thoreau
“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)
“The reason for practicing dhyana and seeking to attain samadhi is to escape from the suffering of life, but in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can so control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorred, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world’s life…
After my paranirvana in the last kalpa different ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment…How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings?”
Lord Buddha (Surangama 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
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
Samuel Butler, Note-Books, 1912
“It is said about Lord Buddha sadaya-hrdaya darsita-pasu-ghatam. He saw the whole human race going to hell by this animal killing. So he appeared to teach ahimsa, nonviolence, being compassionate on the animals and human beings. In the Christian religion also, it is clearly stated, ‘Thou shall not kill’. So everywhere animal killing is restricted. In no religion the unnecessary killing of animals is allowed. But nobody is caring. The killing process is increasing, and so are the reactions. Every ten years you will find a war. These are the reactions.”
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
“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?”