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Vegetarianism Quotes of Spiritual Teachers

“I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat” – Dalai Lama
This is the quintessence of wisdom: not to injure any living being. – Mahavira
“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.” – Pythagorus
“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
“Food affects the mind. For the practice of any kind of yoga, vegetarianism is absolutely necessary since it makes the mind more sattvic [pure and harmonious]” – Ramana Maharshi
“If a man can control his body and mind and thereby refrains from eating animal flesh and wearing animal products, I say he will really be liberated.” – The Buddha, Surangama Sutra
“Every individual who eats flesh food, whether an animal is killed expressely for him or not, is supporting the trade of slaughtering and contributing to the violent deaths of harmless animals.” – Roshi Philip Kapleau
“Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.” – The First Mindfulness Training, Thich Nhat Hanh
“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.”- Pythagorus
“Our food is not just food: it is you. What you eat, you become. If you eat something which is fundamentally based on murder, on violence, you cannot rise above the law of necessity. You will remain more or less an animal. The human is born when you start moving above the animals, when you start doing something to yourself which no animal can do. Vegetarianism is a conscious effort, a deliberate effort, to get out of the heaviness that keeps you tethered to the earth so that you can fly — so that the flight from the alone to the alone becomes possible. The lighter the food, the deeper goes the meditation” – Osho
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 (1688-1744)
Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with the cries of expiring victims or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there. - Alexander Pope
Thousands-millions and billions-of animals are killed for food. That is very sad. We human beings can live without meat, especially in our modern world. We have a great variety of vegetables and other supplementary foods, so we have the capacity and the responsibility to save billions of lives. I have seen many individuals and groups promoting animal rights and following a vegetarian diet. This is excellent. - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Life remains immoral or only falsely moral, if there is cruelty and killing for the satisfaction of our daily needs." - Swami Avyaktananda
Human beings are meant to eat vegetarian food. The tiger does not come to eat your fruits. His prescribed food is animal flesh. But man’s food is vegetables, fruits, grains, and milk products. So how can you say that animal killing is not a sin?" – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity." - Father Thomas Berry