Saturday, October 01, 2011

The Wisdom of the Great - George Bernard Shaw

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


A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.


A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.


She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech. 


Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
 
Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.


Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. 


Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.


Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else. 


Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.


A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.


I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist.


I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.
 
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.


It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.


All great truths begin as blasphemies.


Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. 


If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.


The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
  
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.


The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. 


We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.


An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.


Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
 
If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.


When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
 
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.


I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.


He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.


He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.


I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence. 


No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.


Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.


Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.


The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.


There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.


Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.


Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!


 

1 comment:

Owen Gray said...

I'm taking the trouble, Mound, to send the link to this post to our second son, who recently wrote his Master's thesis on Shaw's The Devil's Disciple.

No one ever said it better.