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The Roots of Heaven

Book by Romain Gary · 4 quotes · Human Nature, Humanity, Animal Rights

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The Roots of Heaven Quotes

“The obstinacy of those people is funny. That someone may simply be fed up with them and their ways and may want to look for another company, that just cannot enter their heads. They can’t believe it. There must be a trick behind it, a dishonest trick, something crooked, something political, something they can understand. They’re so used to sniffing at their own behinds that when someone wants to get a breath of fresh air, to turn at last to something different, and more important, and threatened, something that's got to be saved at all costs, it's quite beyond them.”

Human NatureSincerityWestern CivilizationWestern CultureCallousnessBelief In Humanity
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“What happens is that people don’t know, and so they can’t help me,’ he was saying calmly. ‘But when they open their morning newspapers and see that thirty thousand elephants are being killed every year to make paper knives and billiard balls, and that there’s a man who's doing his damnedest to stop this mass murder, they’ll raise hell. When they hear that out of a hundred baby elephants captured for the zoos eighty die in the first days, you’ll see what public opinion will say. There's such a thing as popular feeling, you know. That’s the kind of thing that makes a government fall, I tell you. All that’s needed is for the people to know.’ ’It was intolerable. I listened gaping, absolutely struck dumb. The man had faith in us, totally and unshakably, and that was something, a faith in us that looked as strong, as natural, as irrational as the elements, as the sea or the wind — something, by God, that looked in the end like the force of truth itself. I had to make an effort to defend myself — not to succumb to that amazing naivete. He really believed that people still had the generosity, the heart, in the ugly times we live in, to worry not only about themselves, but about elephants as well. It was enough to make you weep. I stood there in silence, staring at him — admiring him, I should say — with that gloomy, obstinate expression of his, and that damned briefcase. Ridiculous, if you like, yet also disarming, because I felt he was completely convinced by all the beautiful things man has sung about himself in his moments of inspiration. And with it all, a pigheaded obstinacy — the revolting thoroughness of a schoolmaster who’s got it into his head that he’ll make humanity do its homework and would not hesitate to punish it if it misbehaved. You can see from what I say that he was a highly contagious man.”

Inspirational AttitudeFaith In HumanityNaiveteBelief In HumanityGenerosity Of HeartKindheartedness
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“But, my dear child,' I stammered, I don’t see how the desire to preserve the African fauna . . She broke in on me: ‘Oh, to hell with the African fauna! Can’t you see what the real question is? The question is simply whether you have confidence in yourselves, in your good sense, in your reason, in your ability to prevail, yes, to prevail. Out there in the bush is a man who believes in you, a man who believes you’re capable of kindness, of generosity, of ... of a ... of a great love, in which there’d be room even for herds of elephants, and . . . and even for the most wretched dog alive!”

KindnessBelief In HumanityGenerosity Of HeartLove For Every Living SpeciesLove For EveryoneBelieve In People
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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