Milan Kundera
Czech novelist (who insists his work should be studied in French...)
(1929 - 2023)
"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 from view), consists of its attitude towards 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."
~ from The Unbearable Lightness of Being as quoted in Eternal Treblinka