What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
About This Quote

"What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us!" is a quote often attributed to Shakespeare, but it's really from the play Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw. While Shaw's take on the passage was considered offensive when he wrote it, it actually expresses a common belief in early 20th-century Britain that "ape" was used as a term of endearment for African Americans. The last line of the Shaw quote is also not from Androcles, but comes directly from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

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