“Can one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of meat, an ‘it,’ without degenerating into cruelty towards that creature?”

— Karen Davis (activist)

Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry, Summertown, TN: Book Publishing Company, 1996, p. 50.

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Karen Davis (activist) 1

American activist 1944

John Todd Ferrier (1855–1943) Christian vegetarian

The Inner Meaning of the Food Reform Movement (1934), p. 10; as quoted in The Vegetarian Movement in England, 1847– 1981 by Julia Twigg (University of London, 1981), ch. 7 http://www.ivu.org/history/thesis/cross.html.

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

George Bernard Shaw The Devil's Disciple

The Devil's Disciple, Act II (1901)
1900s

“What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were without mercy.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)
Context: What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were without mercy. I remember little or nothing of these lectures. I cannot have understood a great deal. But I seem to have retained certain descriptions, in spite of myself. They gave me courses on love, on intelligence, most precious, most precious. They also taught me to count, and even to reason. Some of this rubbish has come in handy on occasions, I don’t deny it, on occasions which would never have arisen if they had left me in peace. I use it still, to scratch my arse with.

“I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: "Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

“Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”

James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine

Oceana, or, England and Her Colonies (1886) [C. Scribner's Sons, 1972, 396 pages], p. 67
Context: Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.