Seven Peace Pilgrim Quotes on Being a Vegetarian

This post is about Peace Pilgrim’s thoughts on being a vegetarian.

Peace Pilgrim was a remarkable woman who walked across America many times spreading a message of peace, beginning during the Korean War in 1953 and ending with her death in 1981. She vowed to keep walking until there was peace in the world, and she walked more than 25,000 miles before she stopped counting.

After her death, Peace Pilgrim’s friends compiled her writings and interviews into a book called Peace Pilgrim – Her Life and Work in Her Own Words. My copy of the book contains hundreds of underlined inspirational quotes, so I decided to pull some of them and curate them into lists that relate to our every day lives. I’ve also included page numbers, so if you obtain your own copy, you can find the quotes easily.

This post contains seven quotes that relate to Peace Pilgrim’s thoughts on being a vegetarian. Although she still ate milk and egg products, if she knew how those industries hurt animals, she might have been vegan. Here’s what Peace shared about her decision to be a vegetarian.

1. I have not eaten flesh for many years, not meat or fish or fowl. I have learned since that it is bad for your health, but at that time I just extended my love to include not only all my fellow human beings but also my fellow creatures, and so I stopped hurting them and I stopped eating them (14).
2. Then I learned from a college professor, who wrote a book on the subject, that it takes many times the land to raise the creatures we eat as it would to raise fruits or vegetables or grains. Since I want the maximum number of God’s children to be fed, that also would make me a vegetarian (14).
3. I think most pacifists—in fact, most human beings—would not eat flesh if they had to kill the creatures themselves (113).
4. I have extended my pacifism to include non-harming of creatures as well as non-harming of human beings (113).
5. I do not believe it is right for me to ask someone else to do my ‘dirty work’ for me. I would not kill a creature and I would not ask someone else to kill it for me, so I will not eat the flesh of the creature (146).
6. Now I eat mostly fruits, nuts, vegetables, whole grains (preferably organically grown) and perhaps a bit of milk and cheese. This is what I live on and walk on (13).
7. As to my vegetarianism, I do the best I can. I have never refrained from doing something I believed was right because I could not do it perfectly (146).

For myself, I was grateful to Peace Pilgrim’s ability to put into words the feelings I’ve had about eating animals since I was a child. It makes the choice very simple and I was then able to put the matter into my own words:

Humans don’t need meat or dairy to survive and thrive. The only motivation to eat those substances would be for pleasure. Therefore, the animal loses its life for human pleasure. Not exactly an equitable arrangement. Add in the fact that meat and dairy contribute to a plethora of human diseases, and it’s a no brainer. We have to eat something, though, and vegetables, fruits, legumes, and grains actually nourish our bodies. So, faced with the choice of animals or plants, I’d rather eat the latter.

Peace Pilgrim’s friends believed that to charge money for a book would be at odds with her core values and decided to offer it for free. They receive enough money in donations to publish and fulfill every request. You can order copies and other materials for free directly from Friends of Peace Pilgrim.

More Peace Pilgrim Posts and Quotations by Subject

Seven Things to Know About Peace Pilgrim