What did Pytagoras, Einstein, Gandhi or Tolstoy have in common? Why is
vegetarianism (and animal rights) to be found as a common topic among
Ethics experts in the world's Universities? Why are more and more
people abstaining from meat-eating and why have certain societies -
like the Hindus, Buddhists or Jainists - always done? Hope this page
will help you learn what unfortunately is still quite ignored.
"One should always be wary of talking of "the last remaining form of discrimination." If we have learnt anything from the liberation movements, we should have learnt how difficult it is to be aware of latent prejudice in our attitudes to particular groups until this prejudice is forcefully pointed out."
---- continue: All Animals Are Equal by Princeton's professor of Bioethics Peter Singer
"The case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us. Only the tiniest fraction of the tens of billions of farm animals slaughtered for food each year were treated during their lives in ways that respected their interests."
---- continue: A Vegetarian Philosophy by Peter Singer
If you have never deeply read or documented yourself about either animal welfare or the relationships between man and animals, nature and economics then this is the documentary for you. Narration: Joaquin Phoenix. Official site
A Carne E Fraca (Documentary):
Spoken in Portuguese, journalists, psicologists, moral philosophers and more explain you much of the reality behind animal breeding for eating.
O Mundo Vegetariano (Documentary)
"Documentário do início da década de 80, O MUNDO VEGETARIANO é uma visão geral da história e das práticas do vegetarianismo pelo mundo. Nós vemos tanto filmagens de arquivo de vegetarianos famosos como Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw e Mahatma Ghandi, e vegetarianos contemporâneos incluindo Isaac Bashevis Singer, Frances Moore Lappé, e William Shatner, o anfitrião e narrador do filme. O documentário examina a variedade de motivos para o vegetarianismo incluindo saúde, economia, e consciência social, e mostra a diversidade dos estilos de vida vegetarianos." (official description in Portuguese).
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." -- Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets from the American Dietetic Association (ADA)
The Buddha, Indian avatar, (circa 563-483 B.C.):
"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"
Pythagoras, (569-475 B.C.):
"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Plato, Greek philosopher, (circa 428-347 B.C.):
"The Gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies; they are the trees and the plants and the seeds."
Seneca, Roman philosopher, statesman, advisor to the Emperor Nero:
"How long shall we weary heaven with petitions for superfluous luxuries, as though we had not at hand wherewithal to feed ourselves? How long shall we fill our plains with huge cities? How long shall the people slave for us unnecessarily? How long shall countless numbers of ships from every sea bring us provisions for the consumption of a single mouth? An ox is satisfied with the pasture of an acre or two; one wood suffices for several elephants. Man alone supports himself by the pillage of the whole earth and sea. What! Has Nature indeed given us so insatiable a stomach, while she has given us such insignificant bodies? No, it is not the hunger of our stomachs, but insatiable covetousness which costs so much. In the simpler times there was no need of so large a supernumerary force of medical men, nor of so many surgical instruments or of so many boxes of drugs. Health was simple for a simple reason. Many dishes have induced many diseases. Note how vast a quantity of lives one stomach absorbs ..."
Plutarch, Greek philosopher, (46-120 A.D.):
"The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain."
Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian sculptor, artist, inventor, (1425-1519):
"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."
Henry David Thoreau, American author, naturalist (1812-1862):
"Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food."
Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist & philosopher, (1829-1910):
"If a man earnestly seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food."; "As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields."
George Bernard Shaw, Anglo-Irish author and playwright, 1925 Nobel Prize Recipient, (1856-1950):
"My situation is a solemn one: life is offered to me on the condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed, not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures. It will be, without the exception of Noah's Ark, the most remarkable thing of its kind ever seen."
"The average age (longevity) of a meat-eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still at work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die, but I simply cannot do it. A single beefsteak 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."
Mahatma Gandhi, Hindu pacifist and spiritual leader, (1869-1948):
"It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet."
"I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live, I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species."
Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Alsatian philosopher and medical missionary, 1952 Nobel prize recipient, (1875-1965):
"--There slowly grew up in me an unshakable conviction that we have no right to inflict suffering and death on another living creature, unless there is some unavoidable necessity for it."
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish Laureate of literature, 1978 Nobel Prize recipient, (1904-1991):
"If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard."
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1921 Nobel Prize recipient:
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
"It is my view that a vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."
John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and The Food Revolution:
"It is increasingly obvious that environmentally sustainable solutions to world hunger can only emerge as people eat more plant foods and fewer animal products. To me it is deeply moving that the same food choices that give us the best chance to eliminate world hunger are also those that take the least toll on the environment, contribute the most to our long-term health, are the safest, and are also, far and away, the most compassionate towards our fellow creatures."
Jacques Cousteau:
"The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature...We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters...and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult."
Arnold Schwarzenegger:
"Kids nowadays...tend to go overboard on protein --- something I believe to be totally unnecsssary...I state in my formula for basic good eating: Eat about one gram of protein for every two pounds of body weight."
Alicia Silverstone:
"Nothing has changed my life more. I feel better about myself as a person, being conscious and responsible for my actions and I lost weight and my skin cleared up and I got bright eyes and I just became stronger and healthier and happier. Cannot think of anything better in the world to be but be vegan."
Charles Darwin:
"The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile."
Dr. Neal D. Barnard:
"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of "real food for real people" you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."
Dr. Neal D. Barnard:
"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of "real food for real people" you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."
Scott Adams, creator of the cartoon Dilbert:
"You're thinking I'm one of those wise-ass California vegetarians who is going to tell you that eating a few strips of bacon is bad for your health. I'm not. I say its a free country and you should be able to kill yourself at any rate you choose, as long as your cold dead body is not blocking my driveway."
Moby:
"If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this --the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible in the extreme.I call upon you to be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated. If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not."
Percy Shelley, poet
Mark Twain, wrote Tom Saywer & Huckleberry Finn (1835-1910):
"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions."
Franz Kafka, writer:
"Now I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore." (Kafka admiring a fish)