What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
The confusing of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.
Interpretation
Marriage is often wrongly linked to moral standards, harming human conscience.
George Bernard Shaw suggests that the conflation of marriage with moral judgment has severely compromised the ethical understanding of humanity. He argues that this misunderstanding leads to a myriad of moral dilemmas, distancing people from genuine conscience and ethical behavior.
In practice
In a discussion on the ethics of relationships, this quote can highlight misconceptions around marriage and morality.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
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?
Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life.
When somebody takes a child from their native culture, that is in itself an act of aggression.
I assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.
We must be our own before we can be another's.
Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
People with clenched fists can not shake hands.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.