Quotes About Consciousness

What we forget about animals we begin to forget about ourselves.

Killing an animals oneself is more often then not a way to forget the problem while pretending to remember. This is perhaps more harmful than ignorance. It is always possible to wake someone from sleep, but there is no amount of noise that will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.

Every time you make a decision about food, Paul pleaded, quoting Berry, "you are farming by proxy.

A simple trick from the backyard astronomer: if you are having trouble seeing something, look slightly away from it. The most light-sensitive parts of our eyes (those we need to see dim objects) are on the edges of the region we normally use for focusing. Eating animals has an invisible quality. Thinking about dogs, and their relationship to the animals we eat, is one way of looking askance and making something invisible visible.

It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.

Het keuze-geobsedeerde Westen geeft de mens die anders wil eten meer ruimte dan elke andere cultuur ooit heeft gedaan, maar de ironie wil dat de volstrekt niet kieskeurige omnivoor - 'ik vind alles best, ik eet alles' - maatschappelijk bewuster kan lijken dan de mens die op een manier probeert te eten die goed is voor de samenleving. De keuze voor een bepaald soort voedsel wordt door allerlei factoren bepaald, maar de rede (en zelfs het bewustzijn) staat doorgaans niet hoog op die lijst.

Whether we're talking about fish species, pigs, or some other eaten animal, is such suffering the most important thing in the world? Obviously not. But that's not the question. Is it more important than sushi, bacon, or chicken nuggets? That's the question.

il te faut seulement comprendre que te retrouver à la case départ n'est pas une régression. Te retrouver quelque part, c'est une déjà une bonne chose en soi - cela veut dire que tu as conscience de ce que tu fais.

Let's say what we mean: animals are bled, skinned, and dismembered while conscious. It happens all the time, and the industry and the government know it.

Comer animales, como el aborto, es uno de esos temas en los que es imposible saber de manera definitiva algunos de los detalles mas importantes. (¿Cuándo es un feto una persona real y no potencial? ¿Cómo es en verdad la experiencia animal?), lo cual remueve las desazones más profundas de uno y a menudo provoca actitudes defensivas o agresivas.

aber wenn wir uns die Mühe machen und uns umsehen, können wir nicht leugnen, dass wir mit unseren täglichen Entscheidungen die Welt gestalten.

Let's describe the reality: that piece of meat came from an animal who, at best—and it's precious few who get away with only this—was burned, mutilated, and killed for the sake of a few minutes of human pleasure. Does the pleasure justify the means?

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

As told by Kafka's close friend Max Brod: Suddenly he began to speak to the fish in their illuminated tanks. 'Now at least I can look at you in peace, I don't eat you anymore.' It was the time he turned strictly vegetarian.

The choice-obsessed modern West is probably more accommodating to individuals who choose to eat differently than any other culture has ever been, but ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore - "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" - can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.

E allora quanta sofferenza è accettabile? È questa la base di tutto, ed è questo che ognuno di noi deve chiedersi. Quanta sofferenza sei disposto a tollerare per il tuo cibo?

One of the greatest opportunities to live our values —or betray them —lies in the food we put on our plates.

That's what's at the bottom of all of this, and what each person has to ask himself. How much suffering will you tolerate for your food?

No podemos alegar ignorancia, solo indiferencia. Los que vivimos hoy sabemos más. Tenemos la oportunidad y la responsabilidad que nos da vivir en un momento en que la crítica hacia las granjas industriales ha llegado a la conciencia pública. Somos aquellos a quienes se nos preguntará, con toda la justicia del mundo: ¿Qué hiciste cuando te enteraste de lo que implica comer animales?

Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- I'm easy; I'll eat anything -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.

Food matters and animals matter and eating animals matters even more. The question of eating animals is ultimately driven by our intuitions about what it means to reach an ideal we have named, perhaps incorrectly, "being human.

The animal looks at us, and we are naked before it. Silently the animal catches our glance. The animal looks at us, and whether we look away (from the animal, our plate, our concern, ourselves) or not, we are exposed. Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.