“Oh, come! That boot is on the other leg. Why…

“Oh, come! That boot is on the other leg. Why should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that.” - George Bernard Shaw, (The Vegetarian, 15 January 1898)

Ethical

Other Vegetarianism Quotes

“Yes, I am a vegetarian. I find the thought of stuffing fragments of corpses down my throat quite repulsive, and I am amazed that so many people do it every day. ” - J. M. Coetzee - View Quote Details on “Yes, I am a vegetarian. I find the thought of…
“How many times, for instance, have we not heard people speak with all the assurance of conviction about canine teeth and “simple stomach” of man as certain evidence of his natural adaptation for a flesh diet! At least we have demonstrated one fact – that if such arguments are valid, they apply with even greater force to the anthropoid apes, whose “canine teeth” are much longer and more powerful then those of man. [...] and yet, with the solitary exception of man, there is not one of these last that does not, in a natural condition, absolutely refuse to feed on flesh! M. pouchet observes that all the details of the digestive apparatus in man, as well as his dentition, constitute so many proofs of his frugivorous origin; an opinion shared by Owen, who remarks that the anthropoids and all quadrumana drive all their alimentation from fruits, grains, and other succulent and nutritive vegetable substances; and that the strict analogy which exists between the structure of the animals and that of man clearly demonstrates his frugivorous nature. This is, also, the view taken by Gassendi, Cuvier, Linné, Professor Lawrence, Charles Bell, Flourens, and a great number of other eminent writers.” – Anna Kingsford, M.D., The Perfect way of Diet - View Quote Details on “How many times, for instance, have we not heard people…
“Would the delicate ladies who devour sanguinary beef-steaks like to see their sons working as slaughtermen? If not, then they have no right to put this task upon some other woman’s son. – C.W. Leadbeater, Vegetarianism and Occultism, 1913, p. 28 - View Quote Details on “Would the delicate ladies who devour sanguinary beef-steaks like to…
“I don’t understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it’s medically conservative to cut people open or put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.” – Dean Ornish, MD, head of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute in California - View Quote Details on “I don’t understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced…
” The same amount of land used to graze and feed cattle could feed ten people, if however we cultivated it with lentils, kidney beans or peas it could feed a hundred people….The Orinoco basin can produce sufficient bananas to feed the whole of mankind comfortably. ” – Alexander von Humbold - View Quote Details on ” The same amount of land used to graze and…
” Grant animals a ray of reason, imagine what a frightful nightmare the world is to them: a dream of cold-blooded men, blind and deaf, cutting their throats, slitting them open, gutting them, cutting them into pieces, cooking them alive, sometimes laughing at them and their contortions as they writhe in agony. Is there anything more atrocious among the cannibals of Africa? To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of men. 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, On Jean-Christophe - View Quote Details on ” Grant animals a ray of reason, imagine what a…
“The Tiger, the Lion, in short, all flesh-eating animals seized their prey, running, swimming, or flying, and tore it in pieces with their teeth or talons, devouring it there and then upon the spot. Man cannot catch other animals this way, or tear them in pieces, and devour them as they are… Besides he has higher and not merely animal impulses.” - Gustav von Struve, Mandaras’ Wanderungen - View Quote Details on “The Tiger, the Lion, in short, all flesh-eating animals seized…
“This species of food [fruits and farinacea] is that which is most suited to man…” – Carl Linnaeus, Amaenitates academica, x., 8 - View Quote Details on “This species of food [fruits and farinacea] is that which…
“There is not a single argument nor a single fact that can be offered in favour of flesh eating that cannot be offered, with equal strength, in favour of cannibalism.” - Herbert Shelton, Superior Nutrition - View Quote Details on “There is not a single argument nor a single fact…
“When John Coltrane came to me, he looked different from his contemporaries: so clean, well-mannered and humble. About six months earlier he had apparently given up drugs and drink, become a vegetarian and taken to reading Ramakrishna’s book’s.” - Ravi Shankar, Raga Mala - View Quote Details on “When John Coltrane came to me, he looked different from…