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
There is one act par excellence which profanes money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. That act is giving.
Jacques EllulRead
Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.
Blaise PascalRead
What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?
J. I. PackerRead
They say if one understands himself, he understands all people. But I say to you, when one loves people, he learns something about himself.
KhalilRead
The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.
Barry GoldwaterRead
Nymphets do not occur in polar regions.
Vladimir NabokovRead