Compassion for living creatures evokes in us a feeling akin to bodily pain. And, just as you can become hardened to bodily pain, you can likewise become hardened to the pain of compassion.
Compassion for all living creatures is the surest and most reliable guarantee of moral behavior. The one who is truly compassionate will certainly never insult or offend anyone, will not cause anyone harm, will not extort anyone, will forgive all, and thus all his actions will bear the mark of justice and philanthropy. If someone were to say: “This is a virtuous man, but he does not know pity,” or “This is an unjust and evil man, but he is very compassionate,” you will sense a contradiction.
— Schopenhauer
“No, mortals,” he would say, “Do not permit
pollution of your bodies with such food,
for there are grain and good fruits which bear down
the branches by their weight, and ripened grapes
upon the vines, and herbs—those sweet by nature
and those which will grow tender and mellow with
a fire, and flowing milk is not denied,
nor honey, redolent of blossoming thyme.
The lavish Earth yields rich and healthful food
affording dainties without slaughter, death,
and bloodshed. Dull beasts delight to satisfy
their hunger with torn flesh; and yet not all:
horses and sheep and cattle live on grass.
But all the savage animals—the fierce
Armenian tigers and ferocious lions,
and bears, together with the roving wolves—
delight in viands reeking with warm blood.
Oh, ponder a moment such a monstrous crime—
vitals in vitals gorged, one greedy body
fattening with plunder of another’s flesh,
a living being fed on another’s life!
In that abundance, which our Earth, the best
of mothers, will afford have you no joy,
unless your savage teeth can gnaw
the piteous flesh of some flayed animal
to reenact the Cyclopean crime?
And can you not appease the hungry void—
the perverted craving of a stomach’s greed,
unless you first destroy another life?
That age of old time which is given the name
of ‘Golden,’ was so blest in fruit of trees,
and in the good herbs which the earth produced
that it never would pollute the mouth with blood.
The birds then safely moved their wings in air,
the timid hares would wander in the fields
with no fear, and their own credulity
had not suspended fishes from the hook.
All life was safe from treacherous wiles,
fearing no injury, a peaceful world.
But why have sheep deserved sad destiny,
harmless and useful for the good of man
with nectar in full udders? Their soft wool
affords the warmest coverings for our use,
their life and not their death would help us more.
Why have the oxen of the field deserved
a sad end—innocent, without deceit,
and harmless, without guile, born to endure
hard labor? Without gratitude is he,
unworthy of the gift of harvest fields,
who, after he relieved his worker from
weight of the curving plow could butcher him,
could sever with an axe that toil worn neck,
by which so often with hard work the ground
had been turned up, so many harvests reared.
How greatly does a man disgrace himself,
how impiously does he prepare himself
for shedding human blood, who with a knife
cuts the calf’s throat and offers a deaf ear
to its death-longings! who can kill the kid
while it is sending forth heart rending cries
like those of a dear child; or who can feed
upon the bird which he has given food.
How little do such deeds as these fall short
of actual murder? Yes, where will they lead?
Let the ox plough, or let him owe his death
to weight of years; and let the sheep give us
defence against the cold of Boreas;
and let the well-fed she-goats give to man
their udders for the pressure of kind hands.
Away with cruel nets and springs and snares
and fraudulent contrivances: deceive
not birds with bird-limed twigs: do not deceive
the trusting deer with dreaded feather foils:
do not conceal barbed hooks with treacherous bait:
if any beast is harmful, take his life,
but, even so, let killing be enough.
Taste not his flesh, but look for harmless food!”
— Ovid (Brookes More translation)
The first condition for putting religion into practice is love and compassion for all living things.
— The Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king
Compassion for animals is so tightly connected to goodness of character that one can assert with confidence that whoever is cruel to animals cannot be a good person.
— Schopenhauer
Every murder is repulsive, but perhaps what is most repulsive is murder with the aim of consuming the creature that is killed. And the more time a person spends thinking about the form of the murder and the more he focuses his attention and effort on deriving the most pleasure from the consumption of the killed animal, on making the killed creature more tasty, the more repulsive is the killing.
— Goldstein
When you experience pain at the sight of another creature’s suffering, do not yield to the first animal instinct to hide the sight of suffering from yourself, to run from the suffering creature, but, on the contrary, run towards the suffering creature and look for ways to help it.
