Quotes

Those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from the slaughterhouse or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy. If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?

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

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it is to the caterpillar

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

Such a situation, is dreadful. Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures - and by violating his own feelings, becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life. But by the assertion that God ordained the slaughter of animals, and above all as a result of habit, people entirely lose their natural feeling.

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

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn

The gods created certain kinds of beings to replenish our bodies..they are the trees, the plants and the seeds

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practise. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest times

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated

Vegetarianism serves as the criterion by which we know that the pursuit of moral perfection on the part of humanity is genuine and sincere

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace