The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), as quoted in Milan Kundera (2003) by Harold Bloom, [//books.google.it/books?id=SXDojRJFMPIC&pg=PA91 p. 91]
Context: True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
“Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.”
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Milan Kundera 198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023Related quotes
“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”
Variant: The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
“The test of the moral quality of a civilization is its treatment of the weak and powerless.”
United States ex rel. Caminito v. Murphy, 222 F.2d 698, 706 (1955).
p. 25 http://books.google.com/books?id=Td-qAAAAIAAJ&q=%22In+a+democracy+dissent+is+an+act+of+faith+Like+medicine+the+test+of+its+value+is+not+its+taste+but+its+effect%22&pg=PA25#v=onepage
The Arrogance of Power (1966)
“So-called alternative medicine either hasn’t been tested or it has failed its tests.”
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)
Context: If any remedy is tested under controlled scientific conditions and proved to be effective, it will cease to be alternative and will simply become medicine. So-called alternative medicine either hasn’t been tested or it has failed its tests.
Illustrated Weekly of India, 22/12/1990. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1991). Ayodhya and after: Issues before Hindu society.
“The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members”
“One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.”
Diary (30 October 1892)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)