Pythagoras — "Abstain from animals."
Abstain from animals.
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More from Pythagoras
"Do not put your hand to anything without thinking."
"Don't try to cover your mistakes with false words. Rather, correct your mistakes with examination."
"All is number."
"Turn sharp blades away from you."
"Every man has been made by God in order to acquire knowledge and contemplate."
About Pythagoras (c. 570-495 BCE)
Greek philosopher and mathematician whose school in Croton combined geometry (the Pythagorean theorem), number-mysticism, and a religious-vegetarian way of life. Closely associated with Thales of Miletus (earlier pre-Socratic and the first philosopher). For an intellectual contrast, see Heraclitus, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of flux — Heraclitus called Pythagoras 'the chief of swindlers' — among the founding insults of the philosophical-rivalry tradition. Their 'all is flux' vs 'all is number' poles still organize the philosophy of mathematics today (Platonist vs anti-realist).
Details
A core tenet of Pythagoreanism, linked to the belief in metempsychosis (transmigration of souls).
Date: c. 570-495 BCE
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Don't eat or harm animals. Live without killing or consuming them. The directive treats animals as beings with moral standing, not resources. It calls for deliberate restraint in diet and lifestyle, arguing that a principled life requires drawing a firm line against taking animal life for food, sacrifice, or convenience. Simple, absolute, and demanding in its scope.
Relevance to Pythagoras
Pythagoras founded a religious brotherhood at Croton that practiced strict vegetarianism rooted in his belief in metempsychosis — the transmigration of souls between humans and animals. Eating meat could mean consuming a reincarnated human soul. His community followed rigid dietary codes; this wasn't casual preference but doctrine. His mathematics and his ethics were unified: both sought underlying order and purity beneath surface appearances.
The era
In 6th-century BCE Greece, animal sacrifice was the backbone of civic and religious life. Killing animals at temple altars was how citizens honored gods, sealed political events, and shared communal meals. Pythagoras's prohibition was radical defiance of this norm — rejecting the sacrificial economy entirely. It aligned him with Eastern influences, possibly Orphic or Indian traditions, distinguishing his sect sharply from mainstream Greek religion and politics.
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