George Bernard Shaw was a pacifist and he hated violence. He thought war was barbaric and unnecessary and that conflicts should be resolved with discussion and compromise. He was passionate about the rights of the lower classes and did much work to try and improve their opportunities and quality of life. Here is a selection of some of Shaw’s quotes on inhumanity:
Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.
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She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
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Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
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A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
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The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.
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I say, if you hate cruelty, remember that nothing is so cruel in its consequences as the toleration of heresy!
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
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When the horrors of anarchy force us to set up laws that forbid us to fight and torture one another for sport, we still snatch at every excuse for declaring individuals outside the protection of law and torturing them to our hearts content.
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A solider always assumes that he is going to shoot, not to be shot.
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You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.
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If you want soldiers you must have children. You can’t buy ’em in boxes, like toy soldiers.
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Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.
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The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.
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When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
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No, really: I can’t fight, I never could. I can’t bring myself to dislike anyone enough.
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Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore, they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they don’t need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give.
Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.
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Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.
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Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
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Read about George Bernard Shaw’s life and career
george-bernard-shaw.html
quotes.html
