| | "Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal
food, or tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much because of any ill effects
which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my
imagination. The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of
experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low
and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I went far
enough to please my imagination. I believe that every man who has ever
been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best
condition has been particularly inclind to abstain from animal food,
and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact, stated by
entomologist, that some insects in their perfect state, though
furnished with organs of feeding, make no use of them; and they lay it
down as a general rule, that almost all insects in this state eat much
less than in that of larvae. The voracious caterpillar when transformed
into a butterfly and the gluttonous maggot when becoming a fly content
themselves with a drop or two of honey or some other sweet liquid. The
abdomen under the wings of the butterfly still represents the larva.
This is the tid-bit which tempts his insectivorous fate. The gross
feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that
condition, nations with out fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens
betray them."
- Henry David Thoreau (taken from Walden and the chapter on 'Higher Laws')
"If
man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness
towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in
his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment
of animals." - Immanuel Kant
"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For 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" - Pythagoras
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| | Posted 5/29/2007 7:43 PM - 7 Views - 4 eProps - 3 comments
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