To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the moral evolution of society, highlighting how actions once deemed acceptable can become abhorrent over time.
Andrew Carnegie's quote emphasizes the transformative nature of moral standards over time. He draws a parallel between the act of killing and the act of eating a human, suggesting that such reprehensible acts will eventually be viewed with equal disgust as society evolves. This serves as a commentary on changing ethical perceptions and the progress of humanity in recognizing the value of life.
In practice
In a speech addressing a human rights issue, one might remark, 'As Andrew Carnegie once said, killing a man should be as disgusting to us as eating one, prompting us to reflect on our moral values.'
Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.
Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.
Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.
He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.
When you confer a benefit on those worthy of it, you confer a favor on all.
Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.
This, then, is the truth of the discourse of universal human rights: the Wall separating those covered by the umbrella of Human Rights and those excluded from its protective cover. Any reference to universal human rights as an 'unfinished project' to be gradually extended to all people is here a vain ideological chimera - and, faced with this prospect, do we, in the West, have any right to condemn the excluded when they use any means, inclusive of terror, to fight their exclusion?
You can imagine a soul as being a detailed, elaborate pattern that exists very clearly in one brain. When a person dies, the original is no longer around. But there are other versions of it in other people's brains. It's a less detailed copy, it's coarse-grained.
Sentimentality - that's what we call the sentiment we don't share.
The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity
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