Awesome Vegetarian Quotes

"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..." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit.  If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car."  Harvey Diamond

"The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk." Michael Klaper

"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?" George Bernard Shaw

"A veteran USDA meat inspector from Texas describes what he has seen:  "Cattle dragged and choked... knocking 'em four, five, ten times.  Every now and then when they're stunned they come back to life, and they're up there agonizing.  They're supposed to be re-stunned but sometimes they aren't and they'll go through the skinning process alive.  I've worked in four large [slaughterhouses] and a bunch of small ones.  They're all the same.  If people were to see this, they'd probably feel really bad about it.  But in a packing house everybody gets so used to it that it doesn't mean anything."  Slaughterhouse

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

"Many things made me become a vegetarian, among them, the higher food yield as a solution to world hunger." John Denver

"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

"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

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral." Leo Tolstoy

"I will not eat anything that walks, runs, skips, hops or crawls. God knows that I've crawled on occasion, and I'm glad that no one ate me."  Alex Poulos

"Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it is to the caterpillar." Bradley Miller

Contributing Sites include: www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/quotes.html, www.quotegarden.com/vegetarianism.html, choices.cs.uiuc.edu/~f-kon/vegetarian.html, http://www.vegetarianimage.com/Quotes.htm

Thank you  all for helping spread the importance of vegetarianism and non-violence. 

Icky Article

I read an extremely disturbing article today. However, I should begin by confessing that I  subscribe to PETA on my Facebook page, and get regular updates of the goings on via their site. I know what you're probably thinking, I've heard it a thousand times: "PETA is a crock, their representatives are insane, and they use drastic measures to get their point across". While I agree that PETA is a little rash sometimes, I remain more disturbed by the needless slaughter of innocent animals. So I will keep my subscription. 

The article told a tale girl named Elizabeth Carlisle, an ex-employee of Pet Land who thought it fun to drown two bunny rabbits during her shift. She had her manager take a photo of herself grinning, holding a dripping bunny corpse near each cheek. Carlisle posted the photo on her Facebook page, explaining that she had drown the two rabbits after they had injured each other fighting. One was even missing an eye. The only good bits of news in the article were that Carlisle now faces criminal charges, and that that particular Petland location has been closed and is not due to reopen. 

While these are both positive outcomes to an extremely grotesque and disheartening situation, the fact remains that these actions are simply not enough. I have a better solution:

How about we stop breeding and selling animals like it's a sport? How about we close ALL pet stores and treat animals like living creatures, not objects to be caged and sold. Such behavour on our part is disgusting. 

Unfortunately, there is not much room for these animals if they are not living in our pet stores and zoos. So...  say we also raise awareness of the rapidly growing human population and commit to having ONE child per couple. Lets educate people about the serious danger this growth poses for ourselves, our environment, and our animal friends. While we are educating people about the impact of human population growth, how about we also throw in some statistics about the meat industry's impact on the environment. Such as these from Goveg.com:

• It takes about 300 gallons of water per day to produce food for a vegan, and more than 4,000 gallons of water per day to produce food for a meat-eater.   
• You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.
• [F]ood for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a meat-eater.

(http://www.goveg.com/worldHunger-animalAgriculture.asp)

Perhaps we could aim for a world in which animals are allowed to live in their natural habitats, untouched by humans, instead of settling for a world in which pet shop employees are no longer allowed cameras in back-rooms. 

Considering we are the self-dubbed cleverest species on the planet, we can be awfully thick. Oh well. I'm still a turtle.