“Now when we talk of brotherhood of men, we stop there and feel that all other life is there for man to exploit for his own purposes. But Hinduism excludes all exploitation.”
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Source: Young India (26 December 1926); main sourced 1920s section of Gandhi's Wikiquote page.
About this quote
Most talk of brotherhood stops at the edge of our own species and treats everything else as raw material. The claim pushes that circle wider: a consistent ethic of non-harm can't stop at humans and leave animals, land, and other life as things to be used up.
When to use it
- A gardener leaves wild corners and plants for bees and birds instead of clearing every inch for tidy lawn.
- A household buys only what it will actually eat, refusing to treat food and animals as disposable supply.
- A factory cleans up its river discharge rather than treating the water downstream as a free dumping ground.