“La grandezza di una nazione e il suo progresso morale si possono giudicare dal modo in cui tratta gli animali.”
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Attribution note
This animal-welfare line is attributed to Gandhi everywhere but no reliable primary citation has ever been found; researchers treat it as unsourced, so it cannot be verified.
Likely origin: Italian rendering of 'The greatness of a nation... can be judged by the way its animals are treated' - widely credited to Gandhi but with no documented primary source (often called a hoax quote).
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The measure it proposes is how power behaves toward those who can't answer back. Mistreating the voiceless is easy precisely because they can't protest, so how a society handles them exposes whether its decency depends on being watched or runs all the way down.
When to use it
- A city that funds a proper animal shelter before any election makes it politically useful.
- A farm that invests in humane housing when the cheaper, cramped option would never show up on a label.
- Parents who teach a child to carry a stray cat to the vet rather than shoo it away.