essayists-from-the-united-kingdom

"The sentiment that spares the sheep and the deer will not sacrifice men."

"The emancipation of woman should be accompanied by hostility towards deeds of violence, and by the spread of the instinct of pity and mercy. Let women discountenance every act of cruelty under whatever disguise, or upon whatever pretence, and it will become impossible, or at all events much rarer than now."

"Through her behind the scenes work and steady influence Alice Drakoules was seen as a 'spiritual mother' of the humanitarian movement"

"If, instead of being fed upon flesh food, a savage dog is given bread and vegetables, in a short space of time he becomes a changed being, gentle and docile."

"There are in London at this time thirty Vegetarian Restaurants, all doing a very good business; this will give you an idea of the hold which food reform already has in our country."

"Vegetable substances contain all the elements necessary for the nourishment of man, and for the production of force and caloric."

"The immense work which is executed by oxen, horses, mules, elephants, and camels, is convincing proof of the strength-giving properties of vegetable food."

"If we judge from the construction of the human body, the natural food of man is not flesh-meat, but fruits, roots, cereals, and vegetables; that, in a word, man is not carnivorous, but frugivorous."

"Picturing to yourselves all that is meant by the slaughter-house… I ask you if it is possible to reconcile the idea of it… with the idea of progress, of refinement, and of gentleness (or humanity)? In my opinion they are irreconcileable."

"Man at present has no just claim to regard himself as the worthy Head of the animal world."

"Strange as it is, in this age of so-called humanity and enlightenment, that society, when brought face to face with the grave accusation of indifference to life, to the terrible wrongs inflicted on the harmless non-human races, is yet content to go on as before; it does not trouble itself in the slightest degree to stop the barbarisms and frightful sufferings inflicted upon what it is pleased to term 'the brutes' and 'the beasts;' it does not concern itself to enquire into the unquestionable atrocities practised in the rearing, transport and slaughter of the countless thousands of harmless victims who are daily sacrificed for the pleasures of the palate."

"Man by nature is not a carnivorous but a frugivorous animal, and … a diet composed of fruits, pulses, grains and nuts contains all that is necessary for the maintenance of Force and Caloric."

"Only the worshippers of the old world creed based on the maxim that 'might is right' could attempt to justify their position."

"As is the language, so is the idea."

"The passion for 'sport,' the killing and wounding industries, is no other than a relic of the past struggle for existence, destined to be regarded with horror under higher and happier civilization."

"The savage is not a sportsman, hunting is his business, not his amusement; his excuse is, that he acts from necessity."

"They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, ‘because she pretty like pretty self’ Christophine said. (first lines)"

"I thought if I told no one it might not be true."

"I woke the next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing."

"So it was all over, the advance and retreat, the doubts and hesitations. Everything finished, for better or for worse. (first lines)"

"I sit at my window and the words fly past me like birds — with God's help I catch some."

"She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it."

"It was a beautiful place - wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I'd find myself thinking, 'What I see is nothing - I want what it hides - that is not nothing'."

"Lies are never forgotten, they go on and they grow."

""...Money have pretty face for everybody, but for that man money pretty like pretty self, he can't see nothing else."

"'Quite like old times,' the room says. 'Yes? No?' There are two beds, a big one for madame and a smaller one on the opposite side for monsieur. The wash-basin is shut off by a curtain. It is a large room, the smell of cheap hotels faint, almost imperceptible. The street outside is narrow, cobble-stoned, going sharply uphill and ending in flight of steps. What they call an impasse. I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life."

"I...think about being hungry, being cold, being hurt, being ridiculed, as if it were in another life than this. This damned room - it's saturated with the past. . . .It's all the rooms I've ever slept in, all the streets I've ever walked in. Now the whole thing moves in an ordered, undulating procession past my eyes. Rooms, streets, streets, rooms. . . ."

"It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat, cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. (first lines of Part One)"

"I don't know how people live when they know exactly what's going to happen to them each day. (Part One, 7th section)"

"...There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world. (Part One, 9th section)"

"It's funny when you feel as if you don't want anything more in your life except to sleep, or else to lie without moving. That's when you can hear time sliding past you, like water running. (Part two, 1st section)"

"She seemed to be contemplating a future at once monotonous and insecure with an indifference which was after all a sort of hard-won courage. (chapter 3)"

"It was the darkness that got you. It was heavy darkness, greasy and compelling. It made walls round you, and shut you in so that you felt like you could not breathe. (chapter 3)"

""It's so easy to make a person who hasn't got anything seem wrong." (chapter 4)"

"She said 'darling' with her lips, but her heart was dead. (chapter 5)"

"When you were nineteen, and it was the first time you had been let down, you did not make scenes. You felt as if your back was broken, as if you would never move again. But you did not make a scene. That started later on, when the same thing had happened five or six times over, and you were supposed to be getting used to it. (chapter 6)"

"The last time you were happy about nothing; the first time you were afraid about nothing. Which came first? (chapter 12)"

"When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul. (chapter 12)"

"'They touch life with gloves on. They're pretending about something all the time. Pretending quite nice and decent things, of course. But still...' 'Everybody pretends,' Marya was thinking..."

"She spent the foggy day in endless, aimless walking, for it seemed to her that if she moved quickly enough she would escape the fear that hunted her. It was a vague and shadowy fear of something cruel and stupid that had caught her and would never let her go. She had always known that it was there - hidden under the more of less pleasant surface of things. Always. Ever since she was a child. You could argue about hunger or cold or loneliness, but with that fear you couldn't argue. It went too deep. You were too mysteriously sure of its terror. You could only walk very fast and try to leave it behind you."

"no good ever comes from being too polite. (p40)"

"They sat at a corner table in the little restaurant, eating with gusto and noise after the manner of simple-hearted people who like their neighbours to see and know their pleasures. (beginning of "Trio")"

"One of those cold, heavy days in spring - a hard sky with a glare behind the cloud, all the new green of the trees hanging still and sullen. (beginning of "The Grey Day")"

"Funny how it's slipped away, Vienna. Nothing left but a few snapshots. (beginning of "Vienne")"

"the search for illusion a craving, almost a vice, the stolen waters and the bread eaten in secret of [her] life. ("Illusion")"

"It was obvious that this was not an Anglo-Saxon: he was too gay, too dirty, too unreserved and in his little eyes was such a mellow comprehension of all the sins and the delights of life. He was drinking rapidly one glass of beer after another, smoking a long, curved pipe, and beaming contentedly on the world. The woman with him wore a black coat and skirt; she had her back to us. I said: 'Who's the happy man in the corner? I've never seen him before.'"

"One shuts one's eyes and sees it written: red letters on a black ground: Le Saut dans l'Inconnu. . . . Le Saut... Stupidly I think: But why in French? Of course it must be a phrase I have read somewhere. Idiotic. I screw up my eyes wildly to get rid of it: next moment it is back again. Red letters on a black ground. One lies staring at the exact shape of the S."

"I wonder too if I am terribly excited about something that has been done ages ago (1964)"

"Very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really. They get more this or more that and of course look a bit different. But inside they are the same. (1955)"

"I don't believe in the individual Writer so much as in Writing. It uses you and throws you away when you are not useful any longer. But it does not do this until you are useless and quite useless too. Meanwhile there is nothing to do but plod along line by line. (1953)"