George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

Younger scientists are extremely sensitive to the moral implications of all they do.

Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.

At the end of the day, if there are truly ethical considerations, those have to override scientific considerations.

Science is not inherently good.

I have always felt that, aside from research that violates universal human mores, when it comes to technological applications, that which can be done will be done.

You ask about my opinion on vivisection. I quite agree that it is justifiable for real investigations on physiology; but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny.

I have no disagreement with the aims of anti-vivisectionists.

An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.

Actually, that issue of 'Don't be evil' is probably the number one reason we throw out ideas.

I really do think of it in moral terms. I think that we can't kid ourselves that the storytelling impulse is innocent and does nothing but bring good to the world.

If we we were to intentionally set out to cause the extinction of a species, we should think about that. I would want there to be some consideration and reflection of a social consensus before we take that step.

Scientific men are under definite obligation to experiment upon animals so far as that is the alternative to random and possibly harmful experimentation upon human beings, and so far as such experimentation is a means of saving human life and of increasing human vigor and efficiency.

How we take care of our animals is a very good indicator of how we are doing as a society. It is symbolic of how, as human beings, we go about treating each other.

Do you trust in your fellow citizens, in a sense that whatever they will have in additional tools they will use in balance more to the good or more to the bad? If you think they will use it more to the bad, you shouldn't do science, you know.

The recklessness with which we sacrifice our sense of decency to maximize profit in the factory farming process sets a pattern for cruelty to our own kind.

I strongly oppose cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.

It [abortion] is a crime, an absolute evil.

Of all the black crimes that humanity is committing against the great Creation, vivisection is the blackest.

That's the thing about a folk tale: It is always addressing incredibly key issues about how you should live and what the right thing to do is, which is really what I'm the most interested in - like the questions that religion takes on. And I think that, for those of us that aren't religious, we need, or I need, art that stimulates the same kind of thinking about what it is to be a mensch, or a good man, things like that.

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so prodigiously surpasses man in friendship, and nail him down to a table, and dissect him alive to show you the mezaraic veins... Answer me, Machinist, has Nature really arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering?

Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it.