#beings

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. ↗

— Desmond Tutu

#against #apartheid #beings #children #classification

I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they're thinking and who they are and who's hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what's the story, really? ↗

— Alice Walker

#anything #behind #beings #creatures #did

As human beings, of course, we're all compromised and complex and contradictory and if a screenplay can express those contradictions within a character and if there's room for me to express them, that's a part I'd love to play, so much more than a character who is heroic and one-dimensional. ↗

— Hugo Weaving

#character #complex #compromised #contradictions #contradictory

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. ↗

— Elie Wiesel

#come #despair #given #hope #human

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings. ↗

— Oliver Herford

#beings #cat #dogs #hates #human

Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others. ↗

— Elizabeth Janeway

#beings #demands #efforts #existence #fragmented

The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#beings #errors #fanaticism #human #human beings

The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#beings #between #common #each #exists

To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons. ↗

— Ma Jian

#basic #become #beings #expression #freedom

I have argued that this sort of thinking is problematic in at least two regards: First, the notion that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continued existence—that they do not have an interest in their lives—involves relying on a speciesist concept of what sort of self-awareness matters morally. I have argued that every sentient being necessarily has an interest in continued existence—every sentient being values her or his life—and that to say that only those animals (human animals) who have a particular sort of self-awareness have an interest in not being treated as commodities begs the fundamental moral question. Even if, as some maintain, nonhuman animals live in an “eternal present”—and I think that is empirically not the case at the very least for most of the nonhumans we routinely exploit who do have memories of the past and a sense of the future—they have, in each moment, an interest in continuing to exist. To say that this does not count morally is simply speciesist. Second, even if animals do not have an interest in continuing to live and only have interests in not suffering, the notion that, as a practical matter, we will ever be able to accord those interests the morally required weight is simply fantasy. The notion that we property owners are ever going to accord any sort of significant weight to the interests of property in not suffering is simply unrealistic. Is it possible in theory? Yes. Is it possible as a matter of practicality in the real world. Absolutely not. Welfarists often talk about treating “farmed animals” in the way that we treat dogs and cats whom we love and regard as members of our family. Does anyone really think that is practically possible? The fact that we would not think of eating our dogs and cats is some indication that it is not. Animal Rights, Animal Welfare, and the Slavery Analogy | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach http://bit.ly/w90xjg ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#continued-life #humans #interest #living #non-humans