“It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet.” (Gandhi)
When it comes to the world’s greatest inventors and scholars, we think of figures such as Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Pythagoras, and Einstein. When we picture the world’s most influential artists and writers, Leonardo da Vinci and Plutarch may come to mind. There was no shortage of intelligence and class when it came to these men, and others, who changed the world and the way we think. One thing they had in common, even though they graced different time periods and led very different lives, is that they strayed from consuming meat and held strong beliefs about vegetarianism. Here are 10 quotes from some of the most important people in history about the ethical treatment of animals and the value of following a vegetarian diet. Maybe the world still has much to learn from history’s most brilliant minds.
“I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and 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.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” – Thomas Edison
“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 man kind.” – Einstein
“I do not regard flesh food as necessary to us. I hold flesh food to be unsuited for our species.” – Gandhi
“While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any idea conditions on this Earth?” – George Bernard Shaw
“I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in it’s gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as savage tribes left off eating others when coming into contact with the more civilized.” – Henry David Thoreau
“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of the proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.” – Plutarch
“The Earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods and offers you banquets that offer no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh.” – Pythagoras
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated…I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from cruelty of man.” – Gandhi
“My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension. Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.” – Benjamin Franklin
Skyler Breanne 