George Bernard Shaw (an Irish playwright who adored animals!)
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright (who lived with his wife in Hertfordshire), who wrote over 60 plays (including Pygmalion, which later was made into the film My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn).
Known for his strong political views (he was against organised religion), he was a vegetarian passionate about animal welfare. He also was teetotal, did not smoke, nor even drink tea or coffee!
Animals are my friends. And I don’t eat my friends. George Bernard Shaw
Apparently he ate a very frugal diet for the first 42 years of life, until he married (his wife was wealthy and a good cook, and would serve him vegetarian feasts until their 80s, when she died).
She noted that despite his healthy lifestyle, he had a very sweet tooth, and would enjoy rich chocolate desserts that the vegetarian societies would not have approved of!
George was pretty eccentric! He and his wife lived in a house in Hertfordshire, and he would orient his shed, so that it would rotate to face the light through the day, so he could keep writing!
Although he was the only writer to receive both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for Literature, he credited the National Gallery of Ireland for almost all his education, not his school!
And he was so passionate about helping underprivileged people, that his dream was to create a new simpler alphabet, so it would make it easier for everyone to literate, to find jobs and income!
He did indeed create a Slavian alphabet (with more – 40 letters). But it never came to fruition, although purists still apparently use it today. We think it looks terribly complicated!
But there is no doubt that this wonderful man and writer, did all he could to make the world a better place. He died at the ripe old age of 94, not long after he fell and broke his thigh, while planting a fruit tree.
This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose, instead of a selfish little clod of grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. My life belongs to the community, I want to be thoroughly used up when I die.
Life is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment. And I want to make it burn as brightly as possible, before handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
