“The destruction of animals for food, in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause every reflecting individual — not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities of our nature — to shudder.”

Source: Vegetable Diet (1838), p. 267

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William Alcott6

American physician and author 1798–1859

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“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.”

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“The sphinx atropos squeakes when hurt, nearly as loud as a mouse, which, when uttered in the most plaintive tone, naturally shocks the human heart, and makes it shudder at the thought of destroying inoffensive animals merely for the sake of curiosity. I cannot help reflecting on this tyranny, this wanton cruelty, exercised by thoughtless man, on many animals but especially in insects: 'tis certain, that every animal possessing life, has feeling; and, therefore, is as capable of suffering pain, as of enjoying pleasure; and, as Shakespeare humanely expresses “The poor beetle crushed beneath the foot, feels the pangs of death as great as when a monarch falls.””

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“The world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems to me like one mighty slaughter-house — one grand school for the suppression of every kind and tender and brotherly feeling — one grand process of education to the entire destitution of all moral principle — one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so?”

William Alcott (1798–1859) American physician and author

Source: Vegetable Diet (1838), p. 268

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“Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our intellectual capacities.”

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Context: Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress. It deepens our natural sensibilities, and strengthens by exercise our intellectual capacities. It stores up the accumulated experience of the race, connecting Past and Present into a conscious unity; and with this store it feeds successive generations, to be fed in turn by them. As its importance emerges into more general recognition, it necessarily draws after it a larger crowd of servitors, filling noble minds with a noble ambition.

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“It's no coincidence that an acute sensibility to the condition of animals comes up at the same time as industrialised food and concentration camp style farming.”

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“The destruction of animals for food, in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause every reflecting individual — not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities of our nature — to shudder.”

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William Alcott6

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