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Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. Nor is it an attempt to isolate oneself from the ugly realities of the world, to keep oneself pure and so without responsibility for the cruelty and carnage all around. Becoming a vegetarian is a highly practical and effective step one can take toward ending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffering upon them.

— Peter Singer Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals (1975)

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More quotes by Peter Singer

If evolution is a struggle for survival, why hasn't it ruthlessly eliminated altruists, who seem to increase another's prospects of survival at the cost of their own?

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

Science does not stand still, and neither does philosophy, although the latter has a tendency to walk in circles.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

There can be no brotherhood when some nations indulge in previously unheard of luxuries, while others struggle to stave off famine.

The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981)

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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.

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Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being and spiritual integrity.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Peter Singer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.