Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Peter Heath, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Part II, pp. 212-213.
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The more we devote ourselves to observing animals and their behaviour, the more we love them, on seeing how gready they care for their young; in such a context, we cannot even contemplate cruelty to a wolf. Leibnitz put the grub he had been observing back on the tree with its leaf, lest he should be guilty of doing any harm to it. It upsets a man to destroy such a creature for no reason, and this tenderness is subsequendy transferred to man.
— Immanuel Kant on Animals
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The more we devote ourselves to observing animals and their behaviour, the more we love them, on seeing how gready they care for their young; in such a context, we cannot even contemplate cruelty to a wolf. Leibnitz put the grub he had been observing back on the tree with its leaf, lest he should be guilty of doing any harm to it. It upsets a man to destroy such a creature for no reason, and this tenderness is subsequendy transferred to man." in the context of "Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. Peter Heath, Cambridge University Press, 1997, Part II, pp. 212-213." to mean that wisdom is timeless.
Source: Wikiquote: "Animals" (Quotes: Organized alphabetically by author.)
The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
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