Pythagoras, the man in the center with the book, teaching music, in The School of Athens by Raphael

"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.
Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
         ~Pythagoras, philosopher and mathematician
born between 580 and 572 BC, died between 500 and 490 BC)

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? 
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~Plutarch, Greek biographer
AD 46 - 120 AD


Statue of Leonardo da Vinci at the Uffizi, Florence
1452 – 1519

"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals
as they now look on the murder of men."
          ~Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822
was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language.  Married to feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Frankenstein.

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, Queen Mab Notes
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Leo Tolstoy, 1828-1910
Russian author of War and Peace and  other masterpieces.  1828 - 1910
  
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
~Leo Tolstoy
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George Bernard Shaw, 1856 – 1950
Irish playwright, won Nobel Prize for literature

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts,
how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
~George Bernard Shaw
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Amos Bronson Alcott, 1799 - 1888
American educator, social reformer, writer and father of novelist Louisa May Alcott. 
Friend of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

What do I have to do with butchers? Death yawns at me as I walk up and down this abode of skulls.  Murder and blood are written on its stalls.  Cruelty stares at me from the butcher's face.  I tread among carcasses.  I am in the presence of the slain.  The death-set eyes of beasts peer at me and accuse me...Quartered disemboweled creatures suspended on hooks plead with me...I am a replenisher of graveyards.  I prowl amongst other unclean spirits and voracious demons for my prey.
~Bronson Alcott, devout vegan (about shopping for meat)
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Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, 1852 - 1943
Creator (with his brother W.K.) of corn flakes to replace a breakfast of bacon and eggs.  A brilliant but reluctant surgeon,  who told people who flocked to hear him speak, that
if they would embrace a vegetarian diet they would stay well and  would not need his surgery.

A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher's stall passes as food....When we eat vegetarian foods, we needn't worry about what kind of disease our food died from; this makes a joyful meal!
~Dr.John Harvey Kellogg
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Donald Watson, 1910 - 2005
went vegetarian at age 14, was vegan for 60 of his 95 years, founded of the Vegan Society in the U.K.
and coined the word vegan in 1944.

The unquestionable cruelty associated with the production of dairy produce has made it clear that lacto-vegetarianism is but a half-way house between flesh-eating and
a truly humane, civilized diet, and we think,therefore, that during our life on earth we should try to evolve sufficiently to make the 'full journey'.
~Donald Watson
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Alice Walker, 1944
American author and feminist, won the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple

As we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat down to steaks. 
I am eating misery, I thought, as I took my first bite.  And spit it out.
~Alice Walker
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Isaac Obiora Dikeocha
former president of the Vegan Society of Ghana
I am an African and live in Africa. I know the negative effects of flesh consumption on the health of African people. The same goes with the degradation of our environment, extinction of animal species, our psychology, spirituality and major food shortages as a result of livestock farming and host of other major problems....It is my wish to use my positions and with the help and support of other vegetarian/vegans in Africa disseminate information that will let the entire Africa know about the dangers in carnivorous lifestyle and offer African people the vegetarian solution which I know will go along way in making positive impacts in the health and the environment of African people. It is my target to create a vegetarian conscious Africa by 2020. It does not mean that all Africans must be vegetarian by 2020 but majority of Africans must have been aware of the immense benefits in Vegetarian lifestyle.
Click below to read Isaac's article
Vegetarianism in Africa - article by Isaac Obiora Dikeocha
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NEWS and EVENTS - Live broadcast of a SOS Climate Change ...

 

Jul 26, 2008 ... SOS Climate Change International Conference. Take Action: Go Veg Be Green Save Our Planet - Los Angeles, USA, on Saturday, July 26, 2008, ...Supreme Master TV

A new report issued by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization confirms once again that raising livestock generates more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation sector.