Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done. George Bernard Shaw More Quotes by George Bernard Shaw More Quotes From George Bernard Shaw It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true. George Bernard Shaw learninglatinchildren Syllables govern the world. George Bernard Shaw syllablesworld War can so easily be gilt with romance and heroism and solemn national duty and patriotism and the like by persons whose superficial literary and oratorical talent covers an abyss of Godforsaken folly. George Bernard Shaw heroismromancewar I would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot. George Bernard Shaw snapshotspaintingphotography To a mathematician the eleventh means only a single unit: to the bushman who cannot count further than his ten fingers it is an incalculable myriad. George Bernard Shaw bushmensciencemean Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. George Bernard Shaw adorenicegoes-on Somemenare bornkings; and someare bornstatesmen. The two are seldom the same. George Bernard Shaw two You can feel nothing but a torment, and believe nothing but a lie. You will not raise your head to look at all the miracles of life that surround you; but you will run ten miles to see a fight or a death. George Bernard Shaw runningbelievelying We all have--to put it as nicely as I can--our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terriblepower that sometimes destroys us; but they don't talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before--truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore. George Bernard Shaw earthquakeswarsex It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. George Bernard Shaw heartachebroken-heartheartbreak A modern gentleman [rich person] is necessarily the enemy of his country. Even in war he does not fight to defend it, but to prevent his power of preying on it from passing to a foreigner. George Bernard Shaw fightingwarcountry We should find ourselves committed to killing a great many people whom we now leave living, and to leave living a great many people whom we at present kill. We should have to get rid of all ideas about capital punishment. George Bernard Shaw eugenicspunishmentideas The notion that persons should be safe from extermination as long as they do not commit willful murder, or levy war against the Crown, or kidnap, or throw vitriol, is not only to limit social responsibility unnecessarily, and to privilege the large range of intolerable misconduct that lies outside them, but to divert attention from the essential justification for extermination, which is always incorrigible social incompatibility and nothing else. George Bernard Shaw responsibilitywarlying Very nice sort of place, Oxford, I should think, for people that like that sort of place. They teach you to be a gentleman there. In the polytechnic they teach you to be an engineer or such like. See? George Bernard Shaw niceteachingscience The British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding. George Bernard Shaw meritstupidityfunny Give women the vote, and in five years there will be a crushing tax on bachelors. George Bernard Shaw crushhumorfunny Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on. George Bernard Shaw revolutiongoes-onfeet No age or condition is without its heroes . The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon , the least confused thinker its Socrates , the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare . George Bernard Shaw confusedheroage There have been summits of civilization at which heretics like Socrates , who was killed because he was wiser than his neighbors, have not been tortured, but ordered to kill themselves in the most painless manner known to their judges. But from that summit there was a speedy relapse into our present savagery. George Bernard Shaw neighborjudgingcivilization If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a foot-rule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved. George Bernard Shaw politicalpyramidsfeet
