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J. M. Coetzee

J. M. Coetzee Quotes

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Famous J. M. Coetzee Quotes

“Anyone who says that life matters less to an animal than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve. When you say that the fight lacks a dimension of intellectual or imaginative horror, I agree. It is not the mode of being animals to have an intellectual horror: their whole being is in the living flesh...I urge you to walk, flank to flank, beside the beast that is prodded down the chute to his executioner.”

DoeMatterWholeHandsFightingWalksAnimalHorrorIntellectualEthicsAgreeFleshBeastDimensionsThrownUrgesReservesImaginativeExecutionersAnimal Ethics
Book:The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]
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“To me, a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether you have a white or a black skin, and a philosopher who says that the distinction between human and nonhuman depends on whether or not you know the difference between a subject and a predicate, are more alike than they are unlike.”

KnowsHumansBlackDifferencesWhiteAnimalSubjectsDependsEthicsSkinsPhilosopherDistinctionPetAnimal EthicsBlack Skin
Book:Elizabeth Costello
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“...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted.”

IfsWayHumansFactsWould BeAbleValuesHuman BeingsAnimalWeekIndustryStandardsProgramExperimentsJungleStarvationBeing MeResearchersExperimentationInsultedMazesImbecilesBorneo
Book:Elizabeth Costello
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“All over the world, as governments retreat from their traditional duty to foster the common good and reconceive of themselves as mere managers of national economies, universities have been coming under pressure to turn themselves into training schools equipping young people with the skills required by a modern economy.”

PeopleWorldHas BeensGovernmentSchoolYoungTurnsCommonEconomyModernDutySkillsTrainingPressureMereUniversityTraditionalManagersRetreatCommon GoodUnder PressureNational Economy
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“It seemed to me that all things were possible on the island, all tyrannies and cruelties, though in small; and if, in despite of what was possible, we lived at peace with another, surely this was proof that certain laws unknown to us held sway, or else that we had been following the promptings of our hearts all this time, and our hearts had not betrayed us.”

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Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a gush of warm water... All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil.”

HeartMadeEarthFeltWaterMy OwnTaughtEatingGardenFlowRemainsWarmSoilLabourYieldGardeningThankfulnessEating FoodAll That Remains
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.”

MenChildrenIdeasWarHardReasonEnoughEarthGrowsForgetBehindsGoneAliveBrokenGardenReason WhyGardeningBe A ManCords
Book:Life & Times of Michael K.: A Novel
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“Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything the Third Reich was capable of, indeed dwarfs it, in that ours is an enterprise without end, self-regenerating, bringing rabbits, rats, poultry, livestock ceaselessly into the world for the purpose of killing them.”

WorldEndsSelfPurposeCapableThirdsLet MeKillingCrueltyEnterpriseHolocaustRatsRivalsRabbitsDegradationDwarfsLivestockPoultry
Book:The Lives of Animals: The Lives of Animals [Princeton Classics]
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