A Vegetarian Conspiracy Across Time

Many of the world's greatest minds have been vegetarians!

Fresh mulberries from the author’s balcony garden

I’m not a vegetarian these days, but I did live as one for over four years and I still respect the lifestyle as healthy and even a lifesaver for many people. When I first started my meatless journey, I did a study of ethical veggie diets among wisdom traditions and some of history’s greatest minds, and was shocked to find that it included perhaps 80% of the Western world’s most renown household names. In a sense, it almost appeared to be a kind of secret brotherhood and conspiracy.

Sources and translations may vary, but follow up for yourself and judge the depth and sincerity of conviction:

"Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." - Albert Einstein

"So I am living without fats, without meat, without fish, but am feeling quite well this way. It always seems to me that man was not born to be a carnivore." - Albert Einstein

"If man wants freedom why keep birds and animals in cages? Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals?" - Socrates

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

"And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." - Genesis 1:29

"To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana." - The Buddha

"The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion." - The Buddha

"Oh, my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass. As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." - Pythagoras

"Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?... No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being." - Plutarch

"In the simpler times there was no need of so large a supernumerary force of medical men, nor of so many surgical instruments or of so many boxes of drugs. Health was simple for a simple reason. Many dishes have induced many diseases. Note how vast a quantity of lives one stomach absorbs... Insatiable, unfathomable, gluttony searches every land and every sea. Some animals it persecutes with snares and traps, with hunting nets, with hooks, sparing no sort of toil to obtain them... There is no peace allowed to any species of being... No wonder that with so discordant diet disease is ever varying... Count the cooks you will no longer wonder at the innumerable number of human maladies... If these maxims are true, the Pythagorean principles as to abstaining from flesh foster innocence; if ill-founded they at least teach us frugality, and what loss have you in losing your cruelty?" - Seneca

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." - Francis of Assisi

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats." - Isaiah 1:11

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and a little child shall lead them... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." - Isaiah 11:6-9

"One is dearest to God who has no enemies among the living beings, who is nonviolent to all creatures." - Bhagavad Gita

"A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being."

- The Prophet Muhammad

". . . slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion, which is the finest sentiment of which our human nature is capable." - Thomas Moore

"After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators." - Montaigne

"Men fed upon carnage, and drinking strong drinks, have all an empoisoned and arid blood which drives them mad in a hundred different ways." - Voltaire

"For all we know that English people are

Fed upon beef -- I won't say much of beer

Because 'tis liquor only, and being far

From this my subject, has no business here;

We know too, they are very fond of war,

A pleasure--like all pleasures rather dear;

So were the Cretans--from which I infer

That beef and battle both were owing her."

- Lord Byron

"Let the advocate of animal food force himself to a decisive experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a living lamb with his teeth and, plunging his head into its vitals, slake his thirst with the steaming blood... then, and then only, would he be consistent."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"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

"How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?" - Alexander Pope

"If [man] is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant

"Children should from the beginning be brought up in abhorrence of killing and tormenting living beings... And indeed, I think people from their cradles should be tender to all sensible creatures... All the entertainment and talk of History is of nothing but fighting and killing; and the honour and renown that is bestowed upon conquerors, who, for the most part, are but the great butchers of mankind, further mislead youth." - John Locke

"It is a cruel folly to offer up to ostentation so many lives of creatures, as to make up the state of our treats." - William Penn

"It may indeed be doubted whether butchers' meat is anywhere a necessary of life. Grain and other vegetables, with the help of milk, cheese, and butter, or oil, where butter is not to be had, afford the most plentiful, the most wholesome, the most nourishing, and the most invigorating diet. Decency nowhere requires that any man should eat butchers' meat." - Adam Smith

"When about 16 Years of Age, I happen'd to meet with a Book written by one Tryon, recommending a Vegetable Diet. I determined to go into it... 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." - Ben Franklin

"Like my friend the Doctor, I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principle diet."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas Jefferson

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." - Abraham Lincoln

"... and we have so far improved upon the custom of Adam and Eve, that we generally furnish forth our feasts with a portion of some delicate calf or lamb, whose unspotted innocence entitles them to the happiness of becoming our sustenance." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The food of the future will be fruit and grains. The time will come when meat will no longer be eaten; our natural food is that which comes out of the ground. The people will gradually develop up to the condition of this natural food." - The Bahai Writings

"If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because... its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling -- killing."

- Leo Tolstoy

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

"Plant life instead of animal food is the keystone of regeneration." - Richard Wagner

"Human dignity begins to assert itself only at a point where man is distinguishable from the beast by pity for it." - Richard Wagner

"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions." - Mark Twain

"Since visiting the abattoirs [slaughterhouses] of South France, I have stopped eating meat."

- Vincent Van Gogh

"The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile." - Charles Darwin

"Even in the worm that crawls in the Earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God." - Charles Darwin

"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace." - Albert Schweitzer

"A man is truly ethical when he obeys the compulsion to help all life he is able to assist and shrinks from injuring anything that lives." - Albert Schweitzer

"We need a boundless ethics which will include animals also." - Albert Schweitzer

"At the moment our human world is based on the suffering and destruction of millions of non-humans. To perceive this and to do something to change it in personal and public ways is to undergo a change of perception akin to a religious conversion. Nothing can ever be seen in quite the same way again because once you have admitted the terror and pain of other species you will, unless you resist conversion, be always aware of the endless permutations of suffering that support our society." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants" - Mohandas Gandhi

"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

"We manage to swallow flesh only because we do not think of the cruel and sinful thing that we do. Cruelty... is a fundamental sin, and admits of no arguments or nice distinctions. If only we do not allow our heart to grow callous, it protests against cruelty, is always clearly heard; and yet we go on perpetrating cruelties easily, merrily, all of us --in fact, anyone who does not join in is dubbed a crank." - Rabindranath Tagore

"I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill." - Thomas Edison

"I am vegetarian and I don't drink in order to make better use of my brain." - Thomas Edison

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease." - Thomas Edison

"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

"On general principles the raising of cattle as a means of providing food is objectionable. It is certainly preferable to raise vegetables, and I think, therefore, that vegetarianism is a commendable departure from the established barbarian habit. That we can subsist on plant food and perform our work even to advantage is not a theory but a well-demonstrated fact. Many races living almost exclusively on vegetables are of superior physique and strength. There is no doubt that some plant food, such as oatmeal, is more economical than meat, and superior to it in regard to both mechanical and mental performance. Such food, moreover, taxes our digestive organs decidedly less, and in making us more contented and sociable, produces an amount of good difficult to estimate. In view of these facts every effort should be made to stop the wanton, cruel slaughter of animals, which must be destructive to our morals." - Nikola Tesla

"People ask me how I look so young, I tell them I look my age. It is other people who look older, what do expect from people who eat corpses?" - George Bernard Shaw

"The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism."

- George Bernard Shaw

"We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?" - George Bernard Shaw

“Is that really a very great problem, whether we should have an egg or not? Perhaps most of you are concerned with non-killing. That is really the crux of the matter, is it not? Perhaps most of you eat meat or fish. You avoid killing by going to a butcher, or you put the blame on the killer, the butcher - that is only dodging the problem. If you like to eat eggs, you may get infertile eggs to avoid killing. But this is a very superficial question - the problem is much deeper. You don’t want to kill animals for your stomach, but you do not mind supporting governments that are organized to kill.” - Krishnamurti

“Meditation means attention, care. That’s part of it, care for my children, for my neighbour, for my country, for the earth, for the earth, for the trees, for the animals. Don’t kill animals. You follow? Don’t kill them to eat. It’s so unnecessary. It’s part of the tradition which says, you must eat meat. Therefore, sir, all this comes to a sense of deep, inward seriousness, and that seriousness itself brings about attention, caring and responsibility and all that we have discussed.” - Krishnamurti

“All my life I have never touched meat or fish, I have never tasted it, have never smoked or drunk; it does not appeal, there is no meaning to it. Will that make you also a vegetarian? (Laughter). It won’t! You know, heroes, examples, are the worst things you can have. Find out why you eat meat, why you indulge in smoking and drinking, why you cannot lead a simple life—which does not mean one suit of clothes, or one meal a day, but a quality of mind that is simple, without all the distortions of pleasures and desires, ambitions and motives, so that you can look directly and perceive the beauty of the world.” - Krishnamurti

"We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs with our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore."

- Franz Kafka, looking into a fishbowl

"You can't eat your friends and have them too." - Franz Kafka

"Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind." - Henry David Thoreau

"Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way--as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn--and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. What my own practice may be, 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, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized." - Henry David Thoreau

"The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger after sweet and gentle creatures who harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service."

- John Jacques Rousseau

"[My vegetarianism] doesn't exclude animal products, for example, milk, but only animal products that become available only at the death (execution of the animal)." - John Nash

"Every act of irreverence for life, every act which neglects life, which is indifferent to and wastes life, is a step towards the love of death. This choice man must make at every minute. Never were the consequences of the wrong choice as total and as irreversible as they are today. Never was the warning of the Bible so urgent: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)"

- Erich Fromm

"To be a vegetarian is to disagree--to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars--we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one." - Isaac Bashevis Singer

"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

"They stink, they ruin communities, they poison the air and they hurt family farms... (Many) government policies are encouraging factory farms, which are a huge mistake."

- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on factory farming

"I admit to having worn suede and leather pants myself for a while, but you just never feel clean, and it's degenerate, anyway, to wear animal skins." - Andy Warhol

''We now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet. Children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products. As for dairy foods, I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of 2 years. Other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have.'' - Dr. Benjamin Spock, M.D.

"I know, in my soul, that to eat a creature who is raised to be eaten, and who never has a chance to be a real being, is unhealthy. It's like... you're just eating misery. You're eating a bitter life." - Alice Walker

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than blacks were made for white or women made for men." - Alice Walker

"Thousands of people who say they love' animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs."

- Jane Goodall

"My wife actually got worried about my drinking so much regular milk, you know, so she got me into rice milk and now soy milk, which I greatly enjoy. A soy mocha's a fine thing."

- Willie Nelson

"If a lobster didn't look like a sci-fi monster, people would be less able to drop him alive into boiling water."

- George Carlin