"When I was a small child and adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always beamed and said, ‘A vegetarian’. And thats exactly what I became. Despite growing up with parents who lived on meals of meat and two veg, eating animals never made sense to me. ... I grew up surrounded by dogs and cats and couldnt understand why we protected these animals, played with them, encouraged them to sleep in our beds, and called them ‘pets’ while labelling other equally interesting, cuddly, and sentient animals ‘dinner’."
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat. It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. A person who practices vegetarianism is known as a vegetarian.
"I saw that he [Pythagoras] approached the altars in purity, and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse ... I also saw that his philosophical system was in other respects oracular and true."
Vegetarianism"We must change our diet. The planet can’t support billions of meat-eaters."
Vegetarianism"One who eats meat kills the seed of great compassion."
Vegetarianism"Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity."
Vegetarianism"I rode across the country on a motorcycle in 1975. I remember it was the worst time of year and bloody cold. When I was going through Texas, I went through the feedlots, which I had never seen before. It was a very sobering sight—heartbreaking and awful. Its a corporate system completely out of touch with what is sustainable, what is humane, what is compassionate. At the time, I didnt even know what a vegetarian was. I just thought, "I cant eat [animals] anymore."
Vegetarianism"I am experiencing an unprecedented surge of health and my energy has soared."
Vegetarianism"The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe."
Romain Rolland"The decades-long draconian approach of the international community to preventing drug dependence is now widely recognised to have been a human disaster, both in the failure to tackle the primary issue and for the additional human suffering caused, including the patients in moderate to severe pain who have been prevented from accessing essential medicines. We need politicians and policymakers to be courageous enough to admit that past policies were misguided, and to rebalance their priorities and approaches in ways that will reduce human suffering."
"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge mens search To vaster issues."
"There is no question that religions have historically played the role of making people contented with their lot. ...such a doctrine would be very appealing to the ruling classes of a society. ...Many societies, for this reason alone, encourage the contentment with your lot that the religious premise of heaven affords."
"Value of a man depends upon his courage; his veracity depends upon his self-respect and his chastity depends upon his sense of honor."
"What counts most is holding on. The growth of a train of thought is not a direct forward flow. There is a succession of spurts separated by intervals of stagnation, frustration, and discouragement. If you hold on, there is bound to come a certain clarification. The unessential components drop off and a coherent, lucid whole begins to take shape."