“Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart”
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington.
Who was Marguerite Gardiner?
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, was an Irish novelist, journalist, and literary hostess. She became acquainted with Lord Byron in Genoa and wrote a book about him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Gardiner,_Countess_of_Blessington
“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.”
Thomas A. Edison
Who was Thomas A. Edison?
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America’s greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison
“We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life’s highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his death in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christianbeliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
Read More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family’s long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor.
Read More:
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html
“By Ethical Conduct toward all creatures, we enter into a spiritual relationship with the universe.W
Albert Schweitzer
Who was Albert Schweither?
Albert Schweitzer OM was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view.
Read More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
Also information concerning Albert Schweitzer’s contribution to the cause of animal rights:
Animal Rights: A History Albert Schweither
Albert Schweitzer, born 1875 in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine in the German Empire, is perhaps mostly remembered for his work in Africa as a missionary. He was however also a theologian, organist, philosopher, and physician. He also set in motion important ideas concerning our ethical treatment of animals, and was an important protagonist in the evolution of our concept of animal rights. He struggled with the paradoxes of the relationship between man and animal as no other philosopher had ever done before. His philosophy has altered attitudes, led to the passage of laws and helped the cause of animal rights in the latter part of the twentieth century.
http://think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal_Rights_Albert_Schweitzer.htm
“What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit for their cruelty.”
Leo Tolstoy
Who was Leo Tolstoy?
Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy also spelled Tolstoi, Russian in full Lev Nikolayevich, Graf (count) Tolstoy, (born August 28 [September 9, New Style], 1828, Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province, Russian Empire—died November 7 [November 20], 1910, Astapovo, Ryazan province), Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists.
Read More:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Tolstoy
Tolstoy was an advocate for animals and a vegetarian
Animal Rights: A History, Leo Tolstoy
“Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, 1828 – 1910 is best known as one of Russia’s greatest novelists, the most well known of his novels are War and peace and Anna Karenina. He was also a contemporary of Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky another advocate of vegetarianism and animal rights.
Tolstoy was however more than a writer he was a moral philosopher, a humanitarian, and a mystic. After his conversion to vegetarianism he lived upon simple food such as bread, fruits vegetables and porridge.”
“Tolstoy was an ethical vegetarian and an advocate of the humane treatment of animals. In 1885 along with two of his daughters Tolstoy became a vegetarian. His reasons for doing so are expressed in The First Step, which Tolstoy wrote as a preface for the 1892 Russian Edition of The Ethics of Diet written by Howard Williams. According to this influential preface, important in it’s own right, from which you will find selections below, Tolstoy’s principal reason for becoming vegetarian was his conviction that eating flesh is “simply immoral as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling -killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the desire for tasty food”. Tolstoy thought that all men were brothers and therefore a natural bond existed between them. He believed that bond was love and that this bond should extend to all living creatures.
Read more, includes for quotations:
http://think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal%20Rights%20A%20History%20Leo%20Tolstoy.htm
“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
“There are two days in the year when we can not do anything,Yesterday and tomorrow”
Mahatma Gandhi
Who was Mahatma Gandhi?
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India’s independence from British Rule, and in turn inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
“Be yourself; everyone else is taken”
Oscar Wilde
Who was Oscar Wilde?
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, the early 1890s saw him become one of the most popular playwrights in London.
Read More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde
“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity”
George Bernard Shaw
Who was George Bernard Shaw?
George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond.
Read More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw
George Bernard Shaws influence on animal rights – includes a selection of quotations and other writings that reflect Shaw’s stance on various aspects of animal rights and vegetarianism.
“Shaw was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1925, and an Oscar in 1938 for his work on the film Pygmalion an adaption of his play of the same name, he was the only person to be awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature and an Oscar.
Also of great concern to Bernard Shaw was the plight of animals; he was strict vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist and opponent of cruel sports. Shaw became a vegetarian in 1881 and remained so for sixty-six years until his death in 1950. He was acquainted with Henry Salt.”
Read more:
http://think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal_Rights_A_History_Gearge_Bernard-Shaw.htm
“Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers”
Peter Singer
Who is Peter Singer?
Peter Albert David Singer AC is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer
Peter Singers Website:
https://petersinger.info/
The Picture Quotes Blog 