Vegetarians in History
If you were to list every famous vegetarian, you would fill a large city's phone book. Here are a few particularly notable ones.
Pythagoras
580 – 500 BC
Greek mathematician and philosopher
Plato
428 – 347 BC
Greek philosopher
Plutarch
46 – 120 BC
Greek philosopher and biographer
St. Frances of Assisi
1182 – 1226
Italian founder of Franciscan order of friars
Leonardo da Vinci
1452 – 1519
Italian painter, architect and engineer
"One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings."
Martin Luther
1483 – 1546
German church reformer; founder of Protestantism
Sir Isaac Newton
1642 – 1727
English physicist and mathematician
Voltaire
1694 – 1778
French writer
John Wesley
1703 – 1791
English founder of Methodism
Benjamin Franklin
1706 – 1790
US scientist and diplomat; inventor of the lightning conductor
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 – 1882
US philosopher, essayist and poet
Hans Christian Andersen
1805 – 1875
Danish writer of fairy tales
Charlotte Bronte
1816 – 1855
English writer; author of Jane Eyre
Henry David Thoreau
1817 – 1862
US writer; back-to-nature exponent
Susan B. Anthony
1820 – 1906
US feminist and anti-slavery campaigner
Leo Tolstoy
1828 – 1910
Russian novelist; author of War and Peace
"A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite."
Vincent Van Gogh
1853 – 1890
Dutch Post-Impressionist painter
George Bernard Shaw
1856 - 1950
Irish dramatist, novelist and socialist
"It is nearly fifty years since I was assured by a conclave of doctors that if I did not eat meat I should die of starvation." (He lived a healthy life and died aged 94.)
Henry Ford
1863 – 1847
US car manufacturer
Mahatma Gandhi
1869 – 1948
Indian nationalist leader and advocate of non-violence
Albert Schweitzer
1875 – 1965
French theologian, missionary and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Albert Einstein
1879 – 1955
Swiss-German scientist; author of the theories of relativity
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
H.G. Wells
1886 – 1946
English science fiction writer
Tony Benn
1925 -
British socialist politician
