Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks:
they're only animals.
Theodor Adorno, philosopher and sociologist
As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish,
he always had the same thought: in their behaviour towards creatures,
all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with another
species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories,
the principal that might is right... for the animals, life is always
Treblinka.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978 (from Enemies: A Love Story).
True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the
fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test,
its fundamental test (which lies deeply from view), consists of its
attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect
mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental
that all others stem from it.
Milan Kundera, author
In all the round world there is no meat. There used to be. But now we
cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses.
H.G. Wells, author (from Utopia).
To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable
in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. 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, author, Nobel Prize 1915.
If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings
who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to
be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that
you assume over other animals?
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel Prize 1925.
What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is
not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?
Jeremy Bentham, philosopher.
In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings
see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize
blindly and without a thought.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978.
Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for
life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize 1921.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Jefferson, third US President.
You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is
concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist.
I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect... always when
I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.
Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden.
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can
we expect any ideal conditions on this earth? Atrocities are not less
atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel Prize 1925.
I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that
are profitable to the human race or doesn't... The pain which it inflicts
upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it
is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.
Mark Twain, author.
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, inventor.
The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
Artur Schopenhauer, philosopher.
And as the butcher takes away the calf
And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,
Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,
Even so remorseless have they borne him hence;
And as the dam runs lowing up and down,
Looking the way her harmless young one went,
And can do nought but wail her darling's loss.
William Shakespeare, playwright (from Twelfth Night).
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