“It is plain that the present system of intensive farming cannot be defended. … Let us then be vegetarians, at least. For those who have recognized flesh-eating for what it is, the merest addiction, and one, as Shelley saw, to ‘kindle all putrid humours in (our) frame’ … for such moralists the step is easy. It is not necessary, rather it is incompetent, to kill and torture animals to eat.”

“The meat industry doesn’t want you to think about all the animals they are torturing and killing. And they definitely don’t want you to think about all the diseases related to eating meat. Their only concern is making a profit. A long time ago I made a decision to quit eating meat and dairy products. Animals are not ours to torture and dominate. If I was to eat factory farm meat or dairy products I would be taking part in the torturing and killing of animals. There’s just no way! Animals are my friends, so why would I want to hurt them?”

“Man can live without animal flesh; consequently the eating of this flesh is purely to gratify an appetite — and a perverted appetite at that. No normal appetite could possibly crave flesh of any kind. So that there is no possible excuse for the killing and eating of animals, than this — except, of course, ignorance. After all, that is the greatest factor! It is against this taking of life unnecessarily that the vegetarian protests…”

“I was of a generation that didn't even realize that a vegetarian diet was healthy, but I wasn't going to have animals killed for me to eat. … I had little idea what vegetarians ate, but when my first husband was killed, I thought, "Well, I always felt that I didn't want to eat animals, and now I'm definitely not going to."”

“Were one to stop and think of what meat is, and what it was, it is doubtful if one could eat it. It is merely dead and decaying flesh — flesh from the body of an animal. … Only by the fact that they are covered up, and their true nature concealed by cooking, and basting, and pickling, and peppering and salting can we eat them at all. If we were natural carnivorous animals, we should delight in bloodshed and gore of all kind! … We should eat our flesh warm and quivering — just as it comes from the cow!”

“I watched a TV documentary about how animals are farmed, killed and prepared for us to eat. I saw all those cows and pigs and realised I couldn’t be a part of it any more. It was horrible. I did some research to make sure I could still obtain enough protein to fight and, once satisfied that I could, I stopped [eating animal products]. I’ll never go back.”

“If modern civilization man had to kill the animals he eats, the number of vegetarians would rise astronomically.”

“Every individual who eats flesh food, whether an animal is killed expressly for him or not, is supporting the trade of slaughtering and contributing to the violent deaths of harmless animals.”

“Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?”

“[One thing] underpins, makes consistent, and gives meaning to all our other activities on behalf of animals. This one thing is that we take responsibility for our own lives, and make them as free of cruelty as we can. The first step is that we cease to eat animals. Many people who are opposed to cruelty to animals draw the line at becoming a vegetarian. It was of such people that Oliver Goldsmith, the eighteenth-century humanitarian essayist, wrote: "They pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion."”