- B -

Baker, Stephen - Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives.

Ball, Matt - To paraphrase Camus: "Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which there is suffering. But we can lessen the number of those suffering. And if you do not help us do this, who will?" I believe that we must continue to do what we can to make a better world, to alleviate the suffering, to lessen the violence, to counter the hatred, to expand the circle, to bend the arc. I believe that this is our ethical duty, our human duty. Not just so violence doesn't triumph. Not just because it is the most purposeful thing we can do with our lives. Not even just for those who are suffering. We must continue, if only to honor those who have worked so hard and sacrificed so much for us.

Vegetarianism is not a fad. It is a great and essential part of the religion of humanity. It is a step into a highter, because a less selfish, plane of life. It makes progress possible, and both indiviudal and social development is at present seriously blocked by the meat habit and all that it implies and involves.

Basinger, Kim - If you could see or feel the suffering you wouldn't think twice. Give back life. Don't eat meat.

Beecher, Henry Ward (abolitionist) - For fidelity, devotion, love, many a two-legged animal (man) is below the dog and the horse. Happy would it be for thousands of people if they could stand at last before the Judgment Seat and say I have loved as truly and I have lived as decently as my dog. And yet we call them only animals!

Bell, Ernest (1851-1933) - As long as we treat other living, sensitive creatures with like feelings as ours only as carcasses for the market and meat to be consumed, we must shut our eyes to the real kinship of all living things, and thus lose an essential factor in learning to understand, even in some degree, this mysterious world in which we find ourselves. Social progress is blocked no less than individual development. In a dozen ways this barbarous habit, inherited from savage ancestors, stands in the way of practical reforms which are much needed.

Bentham, Philosopher Jeremy - The question is not can animals speak but can they suffer.

Best, Dr. Steven
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 think we are made in the image of God and that God made everything for us.
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 nonhuman life forms in sustaining ecosystems.
We fail to realize that what we do to the animals we do to ourselves.
I believe that animal liberation is the next great liberation movement on this planet, and that by promoting respect for nonhuman animals, we are advancing human moral evolution." [Link]

Bhagavad Gita - One is dearest to God who has no enemies among the living beings, who is nonviolent to all creatures. (Sanskrit word ahimsa means nonharm to all life).

Boyd, Billy Ray (For the 'Vegetarian in You') - "You and I want to love and be loved; we really don't want to hurt, or violate, or kill. We used to believe that we had to do that to live; we were trained to accept violence as normal. Now we know there are alternatives. Now we can leave behind our inherited patterns of brutality and domination, creating together a better world for all beings."

Brinkman, Syndee - I went snorkeling and noticed how gently the fish welcomed us into their world.. as compared to the violence with which we welcomed them into ours. I became a vegetarian.

Buddha (563-483 BC) - "The eating of meat extinguishes the great seed of compassion"

Buddha - When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.

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

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

Buddha - 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?

Byrne, Robert - To err is human, to purr is feline.