All Quotes

"Shadow is not the absence of light, merely the obstruction of the luminous rays by an opaque body. Shadow is of the nature of darkness. Light is of the nature of a luminous body; one conceals and the other reveals. They are always associated and inseparable from all objects. But shadow is a more powerful agent than light, for it can impede and entirely deprive bodies of their light, while light can never entirely expel shadow from a body, that is from an opaque body."

"Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light."

"A shadow may be infinitely dark, and also of infinite degrees of absence of darkness. The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow."

"Nothing is so much to be feared as Evil Report."

"Shadow partakes of the nature of universal matter. All such matters are more powerful in their beginning and grow weaker towards the end, I say at the beginning, whatever their form or condition may be and whether visible or invisible. And it is not from small beginnings that they grow to a great size in time; as it might be a great oak which has a feeble beginning from a small acorn. Yet I may say that the oak is most powerful at its beginning, that is where it springs from the earth, which is where it is largest."

"Darkness is absence of light. Shadow is diminution of light."

"Light is the chaser away of darkness. Shade is the obstruction of light. Primary light is that which falls on objects and causes light and shade. And derived lights are those portions of a body which are illuminated by the primary light. A primary shadow is that side of a body on which the light cannot fall."

"The eye can best distinguish the forms of objects when it is placed between the shaded and the illuminated parts."

"The outlines and form of any part of a body in light and shade are indistinct in the shadows and in the high lights; but in the portions between the light and the shadows they are highly conspicuous."

"A single and distinct luminous body causes stronger relief in the object than a diffused light; as may be seen by comparing one side of a landscape illuminated by the sun, and one overshadowed by clouds, and so illuminated only by the diffused light of the atmosphere."

"The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and why? If an object placed in front of a single light is very close to it you will see that it casts a very large shadow on the opposite wall, and the farther you remove the object from the light the smaller will the image of the shadow become."

"If you transmit the rays of the sun through a hole in the shape of a star you will see a beautiful effect of perspective in the spot where the sun's rays fall."

"No small hole can so modify the convergence of rays of light as to prevent, at a long distance, the transmission of the true form of the luminous body causing them."

"I ask how far away the eye can discern a non-luminous body, as, for instance, a mountain. It will be very plainly visible if the sun is behind it; and could be seen at a greater or less distance according to the sun's place in the sky."

"When you represent in your work shadows which you can only discern with difficulty, and of which you cannot distinguish the edges so that you apprehend them confusedly, you must not make them sharp or definite lest your work should have a wooden effect."

"A shadow will appear dark in proportion to the brilliancy of the light surrounding it and conversely it will be less conspicuous where it is seen against a darker background."

"A dark object seen against a bright background will appear smaller than it is. A light object will look larger when it is seen against a background darker than itself."

"A luminous body when obscured by a dense atmosphere will appear smaller; as may be seen by the moon or sun veiled by fogs."

"Of several luminous bodies of equal size and brilliancy and at an equal distance, that will look the largest which is surrounded by the darkest background."

"The free movement of the moral impulse to establish justice for animals generally and the claim of their rights from mankind are hidden in a natural psychic sensibility in the deeper layers of the . In the ancient value system of humanity ... the moral sense had risen to a point of demanding justice for animals. ... Just as the democratic aspiration will reach outward through the general intellectual and moral perfection ... so will the hidden yearning to act justly towards animals emerge at the proper time. What prepares the ground for this state is the commandments, those intended specifically for this area of concern. There is indeed a hidden reprimand between the lines of the Torah in the sanction to eat meat."

"With the possible exception of sex, there is no more basic human activity than eating, rendering it an appropriate candidate for Jewish rituals designed to maintain our focus on Godliness. The table is seen as an altar, and the concern with extends to removing knives, instruments of war, from the table during the Birkat HaMazon (blessing after the meal). Tsaar baalei khayim, the concern for the pain of all living things and the reverence for life, is another essential aspect of kashrut. Vegetarianism is clearly the Torah's ideal; the is a vegetarian society."

"Vegetarianism is an ideal way to actualize the Torah's vision of a world in which the divine spark in all creation is respected and revered."

"People try to excuse their brutality by saying that it is the custom; but a crime does not cease to be a crime because many commit it. Karma takes no account of custom; and the karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. In India at least there can be no excuse for such customs, for the duty of harmlessness is well-known to all. The karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all. The fate of the cruel must fall also upon all who go out intentionally to kill God's creatures, and call it "sport"."

"Think of the awful slaughter produced by the superstition that animals should be sacrificed, and by the still more cruel superstition that man needs flesh for food."

"The cow doesn't grow fast enough for man / So through his greed he makes a faster plan / He has drugs to make the cow grow quicker / Through the stress the cow gets sicker / Twenty-one different drugs are pumped / Into the cow in one big lump / So just before it dies, it cries / In the slaughterhouse full of germs and flies / Off with the head, they pack it, drain it, and cart it / And there it is, in your local supermarket / Red and bloody, a corpse, neatly packed / And you wonder about heart attacks?"

"Perhaps a man hitched to the cart of a Martian or roasted on the spit by inhabitants of the Milky Way will recall the veal cutlet he used to slice on his dinner plate and apologize (belatedly) to the cow."

"We might all be freed from it very soon if men and women would only think; for the average man is not after all a brute, but means to be kind if he only knew how. He does not think; he goes on from day to day, and does not realise that he is taking part all the time in an awful crime... every one who is partaking of this abomination is helping to make this appalling thing a possibility, and undoubtedly shares the responsibility for it."

"The knowledge of past times and of the places on the earth is both an ornament and nutriment to the human mind."

"The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp in Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months ... “You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior … I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings … I am not preaching … I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible, internally and externally, for his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience … I have not the intention to point out with my finger … I think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience … That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns: You shall love each other.”"

"My staff does a great job of alerting people that I don't eat meat, but if they've forgotten or the people seating me have forgotten, I just put the meat aside, cover it with salad, and pretend that I have really enjoyed my main course."

"My mother was convinced, and on this head I have retained her firm belief, that to kill animals for the purpose of feeding on their flesh is one of the most deplorable and shameful infirmities of the human state; that it is one of those curses cast upon man either by his fall, or by the obduracy of his own perversity. She believed, and I am of the same belief, that these habits of hard-heartedness towards the gentlest animals, our companions, our auxiliaries, our brethren in toil and even in affection here below; that these immolations, these sanguinary appetites, this sight of palpitating flesh, are calculated to brutalize the instincts of the heart and make them ferocious. She believed, and I am of the same belief, that this nurture, which is seemingly much more succulent and much more energetic, contains in itself active causes of irritation and putridity, which sour the blood and shorten the days of mankind. In support of these ideas of abstinence, she quoted the innumerable gentle and pious tribes of India who deny themselves all that has had life; and the strong and healthy races of the shepherds and even of the laboring classes of our fields."

"My mother took me to town with her, and made me pass, as if by accident, through the yard of a slaughter-house. I saw some men, their arms naked and besmeared with blood, knocking a bull in the head; others cutting the throats of calves and sheep, and separating their still heaving limbs. Streams of smoking gore ran along the pavement. An intense feeling of pity, mingled with horror, seized upon me. I asked to be led away quickly. The thought of these scenes, the necessary preliminaries of one of those dishes of meat which I had so often seen on the table, made me take a disgust to animal food and inspired me with a horror for butchers."

"Until the age of twelve, then, I only lived on bread, milk-food, vegetables, and fruit. My health was not less robust on this account, nor my growth less rapid, and it was to this diet, perhaps, that I was indebted for that purity of feature, that exquisite sensibility of feeling, and that serene gentleness of humor and character which I had preserved up to that period."

"We all love animals, but why do we call some ‘pets’ and others ‘dinner’? If you knew how meat was made, you'd probably lose your lunch. I know. I'm from cattle country. That's why I became a vegetarian."

"Yet many Americans who have reluctantly given up their gas-guzzling cars would never think of questioning the resource costs of their grain-fed-meat diet. So let me try to give you some sense of the enormity of the resources flowing into livestock production in the United States. The consequences of a grain-fed-meat diet may be as severe as those of a nation of Cadillac drivers."

"We got hooked on grain-fed meat just as we got hooked on gas-guzzling automobiles. Big cars “made sense” only when oil was cheap; grain-fed meat “makes sense” only because the true costs of producing it are not counted."

"If we harden our hearts to the suffering of the creatures, we must by an immutable law harden our hearts to our brother and sister, and this can never lead to ideal conditions. The adoption of this vegetarian way of life, if the food is balanced, will lead to a new, better, higher, and more noble rhythm of living."

"Physiologists have usually represented that our species holds a middle rank, in the masticatory and digestive apparatus, between the flesh-eating and the herbivorous animals;—a statement which seems rather to have been deduced from what we have learned by experience on this subject, than to result fairly from an actual comparison of man and animals. ... The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of the carnivorous animals, except that their enamel is confined to the external surface. He possesses, indeed, teeth called canine, but they do not exceed the level of the others, and are obviously unsuited to the purposes which the corresponding teeth execute in carnivorous animals. ... Thus we find that, whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the immediate instruments of digestion, the human structure closely resembles that of the simiæ; all of which, in their natural state, are completely herbivorous."

"Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal amount of dead flesh. This will sound a surprising and incredible statement to many people, because they have been brought up to believe that thev cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh, and this delusion is so widely spread that it is very difficult to awaken the average man from it. It must be clearly understood that this is not a question of habit, or of sentiment, or of prejudice; it is simply a question of plain fact, and as to the facts there is not and there never has been the slightest question. There are four elements necessary in food, all of them essential to the repair and the upbuilding of the body..."

"Let us at least make the experiment; let us free ourselves from complicity in these awful crimes, let us set ourselves to try, each in our own small circle, to bring nearer that bright time of peace and love which is the dream and the earnest desire of every true-hearted and thinking man."

"The use of flesh foods, by the excitation that it exercises on the nervous system, prepares the way for habits of intemperance in everything; and the more flesh is consumed, the more serious is the danger of confirmed alcoholism...The lower part of man’s nature is undoubtedly intensified by the habit of feeding upon corpses. Even after eating a full meal of such horrible material, a man still feels unsatisfied, for he is still conscious of a vague, uncomfortable sense of want, and consequently he suffers greatly from nervous strain. This craving is the hunger of the bodily tissues, which cannot be renewed by the poor stuff offered to them as food. To satisfy this vague craving, or rather to appease these restless nerves so that it will no longer be felt, recourse is often had to stimulants. Sometimes alcoholic beverages are taken; sometimes an attempt is made to allay these feelings with black coffee, and at other times strong tobacco is used in the endeavor to soothe the irritated, exhausted nerves. Here we have the beginning of intemperance, for in the majority of cases intemperance began in the attempt to allay with alcoholic stimulants the vague, uncomfortable sense of want which follows the eating of impoverished food—food that does not feed. There is no doubt that drunkenness, and all the poverty, wretchedness, disease and crime associated with it, may frequently be traced to errors of feeding."

"I’m… I’m a vegetarian."

"A day will come when the idea that for the sake of food the people of the past raised and massacred living beings and with complete equanimity displayed their flesh in bits and pieces in shop windows, will no doubt inspire the same revulsion that the cannibalistic meals of the Americans, Oceanians, or Africans inspired in the travelers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."

"This species of food [fruits and farinacea] is that which is most suited to man, as is proved by the series of quadrupeds, analogy, wild men, apes, the structure of the mouth, of the stomach, and of the hands."

"I compared meat to tobacco as a killer, but to be fair, in one way alone tobacco outshines meat as an evil: it is physically addictive. As we all know, tobacco companies have a history of trying to target their ads to teenagers in the frequently fulfilled hope that these young people will be in their thrall for the rest of their lives. Meat, by contrast, is in no way physically addictive. Eating it is merely a habit, one that people are socially conditioned to believe is normal, even healthy. Whether you choose to phase meat out of your diet slowly, over time, or to stop on a dime and become a vegetarian overnight, you won't suffer any real symptoms of “withdrawal.” But you probably will feel more energy, and enjoy a longer and healthier life."

"Vegetarians and vegans are not morally superior to everyone else. We're simply healthier, and a hell of a lot better for the environment around us. Of course, just because we're not morally superior doesn't mean we're not on the side of the angels. I believe we are. After all, we're practitioners of a diet that's better for people, better for animals, and better for the environment."

"One of the objections frequently brought against vegetarianism is that it is a beautiful theory, but one the working of which is impracticable, since it is supposed that a man cannot live without devouring dead flesh. That objection is irrational, and is founded upon ignorance or perversion of facts."

"We Want the Best. I take it that in food, as well as in everything else, we all of us want the best that is within our means. We should like to bring our lives, and therefore our daily food as a not unimportant part of our lives, into harmony with our aspirations, into harmony with the highest that we know."

"The destruction of life is always a crime. There may be certain cases in which it is the lesser of two evils; but here it is needless and without a shadow of justification, for it happens only because of the selfish unscrupulous greed of those who coin money out of the agonies of the animal kingdom in order to pander to the perverted tastes of those who are sufficiently depraved to desire such loathsome aliment. Remember that it is not only those who do the obscene work, but those who by feeding upon this dead flesh encourage them and make their crime remunerative, who are guilty... of this awful thing."

"Beyond all question the future is with the vegetarian. It seems certain that in the future — and I hope it may be in the near future — we shall be looking back upon this time with disgust and with horror. In spite of all its wonderful discoveries, in spite of its marvellous machinery, in spite of the enormous fortunes that have been made in it, I am certain that our descendants will look back upon this age as one of only partial civilisation, and in fact but little removed from savagery."