“I cannot also help feeling that vaccination is a violation of the dictates of religion and morality. The drinking of the blood of even dead animals is looked upon with horror even by habitual meat-eaters. Yet, what is vaccination but the taking in of the poisoned blood of an innocent living animal? Better far were it for God-fearing men that they should a thousand times become the victims of small-pox and even die a terrible death than that they should be guilty of such an act of sacrilege.”
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About this quote
Written genuinely by Gandhi, this objection to vaccination reflects early-20th-century natural-health belief, not modern medicine, which has shown vaccines to be safe and life-saving. The impulse underneath is reverence for life — a reluctance to harm animals or take their matter into the body.
When to use it
- Someone switches to cruelty-free cosmetics after learning how the alternatives are tested on animals.
- A shopper reads sourcing labels to avoid products that rely on harming animals.
- A family weighs the ethics of an ingredient, not just its price, before bringing it home.