Don’t Just Take My Word For It September 17th, 2009
Some of the best and brightest are vegetarians. Check out this A-list of famous vegetarians.
Writers, Artists, Poets, and Philosophers
Albert Einstein – “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
Leonardo daVinci- “Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
Benjamin Franklin – “My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but, with this lighter repast, I made the greater progress, for greater clearness of the head and quicker comprehension.”
“Flesh-eating is an unprovoked murder.”
The Dali Lama- “People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn’t cause suffering.”
Thomas Edison – “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.”
Abraham Lincoln – “I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
Mohandas Gandhi – “I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.”
“I do not regard flesh-food as necessary for us at any stage and under any clime in which it is possible for human beings ordinarily to live. I hold flesh-food to be unsuited to our species. We err in copying the lower animal world – if we are superior to it.”
Buddha – “To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.”
Henry David Thoreau – “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.”
Leo Tolstoy – “Flesh-eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling–killing.”
Confucius – “Anyone who has ever heard the scream of an animal being killed could never again eat its flesh.”
Pythagoras – “As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lowering 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.”
H.G. Wells, in A Modern Utopia – “In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig… I can still remember as a boy the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughterhouse.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson – “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
St. Francis of Assisi – “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.”
Vincent Van Gogh – “Since visiting the abbatoirs [slaughterhouses] of South France, I have stopped eating meat.”
Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author - After having his own health problems and then going meat free, he updated the seventh edition of his famous Baby and Child Care book to recommend avoiding meat and dairy for babies.
Athletes
Football
Fred Dryer, football defensive end
Tony Gonzalez, football tight end
Joe Namath, football quarterback – “I have been a vegetarian for a few years. Fred Dryer of the Rams has been one for ten years. It shows you don’t need meat to play football.”
Ricky Williams, football running back
Basketball
Robert Parish, basketball center
Baseball
Hank Aaron, Hall of Fame baseball player
Prince Fielder, baseball first-baseman
Tony La Russa, baseball manager and former MLB player
Pat Neshek, baseball pitcher
Hockey
Georges Laraque, hockey player
Tennis
Peter Burwash, champion tennis player – “I’m no shrinking violet. I played hockey until half my teeth were knocked down my throat. And I’m extremely competitive on a tennis court. But that experience at the slaughterhouse overwhelmed me. I knew the physiological, economic, and ecological arguments supporting vegetarianism, but it was firsthand experience of man’s cruelty to animals that laid the real groundwork for my commitment to vegetarianism.”
Billie Jean King, champion tennis player
Martina Navratilova, champion tennis player
Running, Biking, Swimming, Triathalons
Scott Jurek, ultramarathon runner – 50-100 mile run
Carl Lewis, Olympic track star
Dave Scott, record holder for most Iron Man World Championship victories ever – Iron Man= 2.4 mile swim + 112 mile bike ride + 26.2 mile marathon run. Considered one of the most strenuous physical feats in the world.
Bodybuilding
Bill Pearl, bodybuilder and four-time Mr. Universe winner
Fighting
Mac Danzig, mixed martial arts fighter
Mike Tyson, former heavyweight boxing champion, went vegan in 2010
Race Car Driving
Peter Brock, race car driver – “I desired the feeling of being healthy so that I could get the best out of my body.” “I always promote respect for all of creation.”
Leilani Munter, race car driver - “If I was just another vegetarian, tree hugging, biology graduate asking people to give up meat and stop using plastic bags, I don’t know how many people would be listening to me. But because I drive a race car, I have an ability to reach a new audience of people that most environmentalists are probably not talking to.”
Celebrities
There are so many that it’s impossible to list them all. Here are a few quotes and a list of names.
Paul McCartney – “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
John Denver – “Many things made me become a vegetarian, among them, the higher food yield as a solution to world hunger.”
James Cromwell – “If any kid ever realized what was involved in factory farming they would never touch meat again. I was so moved by the intelligence, sense of fun, and personalities of the animals I worked with on Babe that by the end of the film I was a vegetarian.”
Alec Baldwin – “Every time we sit down to eat, we make a choice: Please choose vegetarianism. Do it for animals. Do it for the environment and do it for your health.”
Richard Gere – “As custodians of the planet, it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness. People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It’s ludicrous. It’s not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.”
Bob Barker – “I became a vegetarian about 25 years ago, and I did it out of concern for animals. But I immediately began having more energy and feeling better.”
Woody Harrelson – “Yeah, milk does a body good – if you are a calf”.
Bryan Adams
Pamela Anderson
Andre 3000
Kim Basinger
Erykah Badu
The Beatles – The whole group, including: John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney, Ringo Starr & Barbara Bach, George Harrison
Orlando Bloom
Michael Bolton
Chelsea Clinton
Phil Collen & Rick Savage of Def Leppard
Ellen DeGeneres
Andy Dick
David Duchovny
Bob Dylan
Melissa Etheridge
Micheal J. Fox
Jennie Garth
Jeff Giuliano, The original Ronald McDonald
Matt Groening & Lisa Simpson
Daryl Hannah
Dustin Hoffman
Billy Idol
LaToya Jackson
Michael Jackson
Steve Jobs
Ashley Judd
Lenny Kravitz
B.B. King
Avril Lavigne
Tobey Maguire
Ziggy Marley
Steve Martin
Sarah McLachlan
Alyssa Milano
Alanis Morissette
Meatloaf – isn’t it ironic?!
Moby
Demi Moore
Mary Tyler Moore
Olivia Newton John
Joaquim Phoenix
River Phoenix
Brad Pitt
Natalie Portman
Prince
Princess Diana
The Roots- The whole group, including: Black Thought (MC), Questlove (drums), Kamal (keyboard), F Knuckles (percussion), and Captain Kirk (guitar).
Jerry Seinfeld
William Shatner
Alicia Silverstone
Russell Simmons
Christy Turlington
Shania Twain
Liv Tyler
Eddie Vedder
Keenan Ivory Wayans
Betty White & Rue McClanahan of The Golden Girls
Vanessa Williams
Reese Witherspoon
RZA, Raekwon, & Ghostface of Wu Tang Clan
Weird Al Yankovic
Barry White
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