We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered- our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
However much we obfuscate or ignore it, we know that the factory farm is inhumane in the deepest sense of the word. And we know that there is something that matters in a deep way about the lives we create for the living beings most within our power. Our response to the factory farm is ultimately a test of how we respond to the powerless, to the most distant, to the voiceless--it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the moral responsibility we have towards animals on factory farms and highlights our ethical choices in the face of their suffering.
Jonathan Safran Foer's quote reflects on the moral implications of factory farming, noting that regardless of the attempts to obscure its inhumanity, we are aware of the suffering it causes. The quote urges us to consider our ethical responsibility towards animals and to examine our actions in relation to those who are powerless and voiceless, challenging us to act out of compassion rather than obligation.
Themes
Factory FarmingHumane TreatmentResponsibilityCompassionPowerless
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on animal rights, one could quote this to emphasize the need for ethical treatment.
More from Jonathan Safran Foer
All quotes →Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
She was not crying Which surprised me very much But I understand now That she had found places For her melancholy That were behind more masks Than only her eyes
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What do babies dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
What is being awake if not interpreting our dreams, or dreaming if not interpreting our wake?
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
Similar quotes
Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they’ve done or failed to do. Access to privilege doesn’t determine one’s outcomes, but it is definitely an asset that makes it more likely that whatever talent, ability, and aspirations a person with privilege has will result in something positive for them.
Peggy McintoshRead
You´re not perceiving what's out there. You're perceiving whatever your brain tells you.
David EaglemanRead
Some say the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul-making.
John KeatsRead
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelRead
As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
Baron De MontesquieuRead
They who prematurely put themselves forward to root out whatever is displeasing to them overthrow the judgment of God and rashly intrude upon the office of angels.
John CalvinRead