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History of Vegetarianism - George Bernard Shaw - writings and quotes on animals
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Writings and Quotes on Animals

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity. - The Devil's Disciple

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity. - The Revolutionists Handbook

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom. - Killing for Sport (Prefaces)

... Darwin popularized Evolution generally, as well as making his own special contribution to it. Now the general conception of Evolution provides the humanitarian with a scientific basis, because it establishes the fundamental equality of all living things. It makes the killing of an animal murder in exactly the same sense as the killing of a man is murder. is . . . this sense of the kinship of all forms of life is all that needed to make Evolution not only a conceivable theory, but an inspiring one. St Anthony was ripe for the Evolution theory when he preached to the fishes, and St Francis when he called the birds his little brothers. Our vanity, and our snobbish conception of Godhead as being, like earthly king- ship, a supreme class distinction instead of the rock on which Equality is built, has led us to insist on God offering us special terms by placing us apart from and above all the rest of his creatures. Evolution took that conceit out of us; and now, though we may kill a flea without the smallest remorse, we at all events know that we are killing our cousin. No doubt it shocks the flea when the creature that an almighty Celestial Flea created expressly for the food of fleas, destroys the jumping lord of creation with his sharp and enormous thumbnail; but no flea will ever be so foolish as to preach that in slaying fleas Man is applying a method of Natural Selection which will finally evolve a flea so swift that no man can catch him, and so hardy of onstitution that Insect Powder will have no more effect on him than strychnine on an elephant. - Preface to Back to Methuselah

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