QuoteProject
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
George Bernard Shaw
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote warns against those whose beliefs are disconnected from reality and grounded in dogma.

George Bernard Shaw's quote serves as a caution against individuals who hold their beliefs in a way that detaches them from the tangible, earthly experiences and realities of life. When one's God is 'in the skies', it suggests a focus on the abstract and the celestial, which may lead to irrationality and fanaticism. This perspective can result in a disconnection from personal responsibility and ethical considerations that impact the real world.

Themes

BeliefReligionPhilosophyRealityCaution

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of extreme religious beliefs on society.

More from George Bernard Shaw

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
George Bernard ShawRead
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
George Bernard ShawRead
Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?
George Bernard ShawRead
Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
George Bernard ShawRead
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
George Bernard ShawRead

Similar quotes

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.
Edmund WallerRead
The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.
Bertrand RussellRead
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe.
Eckhart TolleRead
I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's good fun.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.
Peter S. BeagleRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by George Bernard Shaw | QuoteProject