"The better sort here pretend to the utmost compassion for animals of every kind. To hear them speak, a stranger would be apt to imagine they could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them: they seem so tender and so full of pity, that one would take them for the harmless friends of the whole creation; the protectors of the meanest insect or reptile that was privileged with existence. And yet, would you believe it? I have seen the very men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at the same time devouring the flesh of six different animals toasted up in a fricassee. Strange contrariety of conduct! they pity and they eat the objects of their compassion."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
The Citizen of the World (1760–1761), Letter XV.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Goldsmith
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Oliver Goldsmith
1728 – 1774
irischer Dichter
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