neither poems nor prose just a length of rope just the wet earth -- that's the way home. neither vodka nor bread just bursts of rage just more new graves -- that's youth and that's love. neither sleep nor waking neither joy nor laughter just tears in the night -- so the rope, paper, knife.
Real hunger is when one man regards another man as something to eat.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates the extreme degradation of humanity in dire circumstances, where one person sees another merely as a source of sustenance.
This quote by Tadeusz Borowski reflects the harrowing experience of dehumanization that can occur during extreme situations such as famine or societal collapse. It suggests that in the face of real hunger, the moral and ethical boundaries can shift dramatically, leading individuals to see others not as fellow humans but as objects of survival, highlighting the dark aspects of human nature and survival instincts.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on human rights, this quote can be used to illustrate the consequences of starvation and loss of dignity.
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Even when nothing happens, everything seems too much for me. What can be said, then, in the presence of an event, any event?
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
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How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?
I only have 'yes' men around me. Who needs 'no' men?
God's blessings are dispensed according to the riches of his grace, not according to the depth of our faith.