The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.
Mahaparinirvana (Buddhist)

What with our hooks, snares, nets, and dogs, we are at war with all living creatures, and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap or too common; and all this is to gratify a fantastical palate.
Seneca (c. 5 BC-AD 65)

It is incredible how much prejudice has been allowed to operate in favour of [flesh] meat, while so many facts are opposed to the pretended necessity of its use.
Philippe Hecquet (1661-1737)

Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an impoisoned and arid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways.
Voltaire (1694-1778)

Vulgar and uninformed men, when pampered with a variety of animal food, are much more choleric, fierce and cruel in their tempers than those who live chiefly on vegetables.
William Smellie (1740?-1795)

It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation, that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion; and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

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.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

He was not only, I soon discovered, a water drinker, but a strict vegetarian, to which, perhaps, he owed a great deal of the almost preternatural clearness, volubility, and sensitiveness of mind.
Charles Kingley (1819-1875)

I venture to maintain that there are multitudes to whom the necessity of discharging the duties of a butcher would be so inexpressibly painful and revolting, that if they could obtain a flesh diet on no other condition, they would relinquish it forever.
W.E.H.Lecky (1838-1903)

It is strange to hear people talk of Humanitarianism, who are members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite.
Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844-1936)

We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughter houses daily with screams of pain and fear.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

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 (1850-1894)

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

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. We err in copying the lower animal world - if we are superior to it.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

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)

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

The very people who shudder most over the cruelty of the hunter are apt to forget that slaughter, in the grimmest sense of the word, is a process they entrust daily to the butcher and that unlike the game of the forests, even the dumbest creatures in the slaughterhouse know what lies in store for them.
Lewis Mumford (1895- )

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 (1904-1991)

Apart from the value of the frugivorous diet to man himself, it also brings great benefit to our younger brothers, the sub-human creatures. When we lose our sense of pity and compassion for the creatures, we harden our hearts to them and also to our brother man.
Dr Gordon Latto (1911-1998)

"... half the world starves. What a planet. And the eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead animals into a hole in your face. Then munch, munch, munch. If there's anybody watching, they must be dying of laughter.
Iris Murdoch (1919- )

How good it is to be well-fed, healthy, and kind all at the same time.
Henry J. Heimlich (1920 - )

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.
Paul (1942- ) and Linda (1941-1998) McCartney

Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies ... that which to us is merely an evening's meal, but to them is life itself.
T.Casey Brennan (1948- )