Monday, July 16, 2007

Fame, Smarts and Hmmmm's

Okay, so sometimes you gotta take a break from the seriousness and the brain food and look at the lighter side of things. So. . .here's a huge list of famous veg*ns! They forgot a few, including Anne Hathaway and Leonardo DiCaprio, but it still is a huge list. I was especially surprised to find that Ozzy Osbourne is a vegetarian, considering I once heard he bit, I believe, a bat's head off on stage once. Maybe it was fake? Anyway, the list:

Famous Veggies A-Z

Not surprisingly, some historical brainiacs are included, such as Einstein. Why is this not a surprise? Check this out:

Children with high IQs are more likely to be vegetarians when they grow up, according to recent research.

A British study of more them 8,000 men and women aged 30 whose IQs had been measured when they were 10, showed that the higher the IQ, the greater the odds of being a vegetarian.

"People who are more intelligent as children, who will obviously keep that intelligence when they are 30, were more likely to say they are vegetarians at that age than those that were less intelligent," said Dr Catherine Gale, an epidemiologist at the University of Southampton in England.

She added the findings were consistent with other studies showing people who are more intelligent tend to eat a healthier diet and exercise more.

"There is quite a lot of evidence linking vegetarianism to a lower risk of heart disease. People who are vegetarians tend to have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels and they do have a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease," Gale added.

For each 15-point rise in IQ scores in the study, the likelihood of being a vegetarian rose by 38 percent. Even after adjusting to factors such as social class and education, the link was still consistent.

And now for some quotes:

"Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth." -Preface from Old MacDonald's Factory Farm, by C. David Coates


"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." -Albert Einstein


"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." -Mahtma Gandhi


"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 Edison


"May all that have life be delivered from suffering." -Buddha


"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." -Leonardo Da Vinci


"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feather so badly that, beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the devil in human form." -William Ralph Inge


"I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leve off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes left off eating others when they came into contact with the more civilized." -Henry David Thoreau


"Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." -Thomas Jefferson


"I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of the whole human being." -Abraham Lincoln


"People ask me how I look so young, I tell them I look my age. It is other people who look older, what do you expect from people who eat corpses?" -George Bernard Shaw


"The human species is driving itself full speed into an evolutionary dead-end. We are destroying the planet and everything we do kills animals. We have lost our moral compass. We think in terms of profit and power rather than ethics and compassion. We no longer have any reverence for life or any sense of connection with the natural world. We see ourselves as conquerors of nature rather than citizens of a vast biocommunity. We are technologically sophisticated and morally retarded. We have no conception of the importance of non-human life forms in sustaining ecosystems. We fail to realise that what we do to animals, we do to ourselves. And all the while, we live in a fantasy land of entertainment and distractions whereby we focus more on the sex lives and surgical makeovers of movie stars than the greatest challenge our species has ever faced. I believe that animal liberation is the next great liberation movement on this planet, and that by promoting respect for non-human animals, we are advancing human moral evolution." -Steve Best


"'Thou shalt not kill,' for life is given to all by God, and that which God has given, let not man take away. For-I tell you truly, from one Mother proceeds all that lives upon the earth. Therefore, he who kills, kills his brother. And from him will the Earthly Mother turn away, and will pluck from him her quickening breasts. And he will be shunned by her angels, and Satan will have his dwelling in his body. And the flesh of slain beasts in his body will become his own tomb. For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills himself, and whoso eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats of the body of death. For in his blood every drop of their blood turns to poison; in his breath their breath to stink; in his flesh their flesh to boils; in his bones their bones to chalk; in his bowels their bowels to decay; in his eyes their eyes to scales; in his ears their ears to waxy issue. And their death will become his death." -Jesus


"To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to the protection by man from the cruelty of man." -Mahatma Gandhi


"For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." -Pythagoras


-"People think of animals as if they were vegetable, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move to a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering." -Dalai Lama


"Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another! In the midst of such wealth as earth, the best mothers, provides, nothing forsooth you but to behave like the Cyclopes, inflicting sorry wounds with cruel teeth! You cannot appease the hungry cravings of your wicked, gluttonous stomachs except by destroying some other life. . ." -Pythagoras


"Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals." -Theodor Adorno


"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?" -George Bernard Shaw


"Of all the creatures ever made, he (man) is the most detestable. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain." -Mark Twain


"To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to Nirvana." -Buddha


"Man cannot pretend to be higher in ethics, spirituality, advancement, or civilization than other creatures, and at the same time live by lower standards than the vulture or hyena." -Jay Dinshah, founder American Vegan Society


"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is - whether its victim is human or animal - we cannot expect things to be much better in this world... We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity." -Rachel Carson


-"To shut your mind, heart, imagination to the sufferings of others is to begin slowly but inexorably to die. It is to cease by inches from being human, to become in the end capable of nothing, generous or unselfish - or sometimes capable of anything, however terrible." -John Austin Baker, Bishop of Salisbury


"If an animal does something we call it instinct; if we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence." -Will Cuppy


"In their capacity to feel pain and fear, a pig is a dog is a bear is a boy." -Philip Wollen


"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy." -Plutarch


"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of "real food for real people," you'd better live real close to a real good hospital." -Dr. Neal Barnard


"All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals." -Peter Singer


"Kill not, neither eat the flesh of your innocent prey, lest you become the slaves of Satan. For that is the path of sufferings, and it leads unto death. But do the will of God, that his angels may serve you on the way of life. Obey, therefore, the words of God: 'Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is breath of life, I give every green herb for meat." -Jesus


"Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, something you give away." -Robert Fulghum


"The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man." -Charles Darwin


"As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindess, love and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness." -Richard Gere


"The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different." -Hippocrates


"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?" -Buddha






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