Quotes about Vegetarianism and Animal Rights

Today I’m going to pass the soapbox to notable vegetarians, and offer you some great quotes regarding vegetarianism.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

Albert Einstein

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.

Gandhi

Fur used to turn heads, now it turns stomachs.

Rue McClanahan

People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous. It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.

Richard Gere

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

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food."

the Bible
(A great list of Bible quotes can be found here)

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.

St. Francis of Assisi

How can you say you're trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?

Oprah Winfrey

A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

George Bernard Shaw

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.

Leonardo da Vinci

The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.

Albert Schweitzer