“Whatever my own practice may be, 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, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.”

Source: Walden (1854)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual imp…" by Henry David Thoreau?
Henry David Thoreau photo
Henry David Thoreau 385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862

Related quotes

Henry David Thoreau photo
Phil Collen photo
Rose Scott photo

“We will one day think it as horrible to eat animals as we now think it horrible to eat each other.”

Rose Scott (1847–1925) Australian suffragist

Miscellaneous Notes, Scott Papers; as quoted in A New Australia: Citizenship, Radicalism and the First Republic by Bruce Scates (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 247 https://books.google.it/books?id=zkgeEmlRjEgC&pg=PA247.

Rick Riordan photo
Mayim Bialik photo
Elizabeth David photo
Aldous Huxley photo
Mark Rowlands photo

“Even if vegetarian dishes are less palatable than meat-based dishes, and it is not clear that they are, we have to weigh up humans' loss of certain pleasures of the palate against what the animals we eat have to give up because of our predilection for meat. Most obviously, of course, they have to give up their lives, and all the opportunities for the pursuing of interests and satisfaction of preferences that go with this. For most of the animals we eat, in fact, death may not be the greatest of evils. They are forced to live their short lives in appalling and barbaric conditions, and undergo atrocious treatment. Death for many of these animals is a welcome release. When you compare what human beings would have to 'suffer' should vegetarianism become a widespread practice with what the animals we eat have to suffer given that it is not, then if one were to make a rational and self-interested choice in the original position, it is clear what this choice would be. If one did not know whether one was going to be a human or an animal preyed on by humans, the rational choice would surely be to opt for a world where vegetarianism was a widespread human practice and where, therefore, there was no animal husbandry industry. What one stands to lose as a human is surely inconsequential compared to what one stands to lose as a cow, or pig, or lamb.”

Mark Rowlands (1962) British philosopher

Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice https://books.google.it/books?id=bFYYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA0 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd ed. 2009), pp. 164-165.

“Every field in Ireland is nearly unplayable. They’re calling off race meetings but hurling matches? Play away. You have humans calling off animals but humans are saying to humans, play away! You wouldn't put a horse out in it!”

Lar Corbett (1981) Irish sportsman

On the conditions faced by hurlers. The Journal http://thescore.thejournal.ie/lar-corbett-the-conditions-were-being-asked-to-play-in-arent-fit-for-a-horse-786654-Feb2013/

Related topics