QuoteProject
We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?
Jonathan Safran Foer
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes our responsibility to act upon knowledge rather than remain indifferent.

Jonathan Safran Foer's quote challenges us to confront our awareness of ethical issues related to factory farming and animal consumption. It asserts that with greater knowledge comes the responsibility to act, urging individuals to reflect on their choices and the impact those choices have on the world, particularly regarding the treatment of animals. Foer posits that ignorance is no longer an acceptable excuse; instead, we must grapple with our indifference to these issues and decide how we will respond to the truth of our actions.

Themes

ResponsibilityKnowledgeIndifferenceFactory FarmingAnimal RightsEthics

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in a speech about animal rights to encourage activism.

More from Jonathan Safran Foer

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
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

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.
BuddhaRead
Causal analysis provides absolutely no value judgment, and a value judgment is absolutely not a causal explanation.
Max WeberRead
There's an ancient tension between wanting to savor the world as it is and wanting to improve on the world as given.
Leon KassRead
Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.
Swami VivekanandaRead
If biologists so often forget the most universal of all biologic principles [variation], it is not surprising that men and women in general expect their fellows to think and behave according to the pattern that may fit the law-maker, or the imaginary ideals for which the legislation was fashioned, but which are ill-shaped for all real individuals who try to live under them.
Alfred KinseyRead
Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.
Tove JanssonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.