What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Value your relationships as they can change over time. Treat people with respect, regardless of their current status in your life.
This quote by George Bernard Shaw emphasizes the fluidity of human relationships and the importance of treating others with dignity and respect. It suggests that friends and enemies are not fixed categories; circumstances can change, and someone you consider an enemy today might become a friend in the future, and vice versa. This perspective encourages us to approach our interactions with kindness and an open mind.
Themes
FriendshipEnemyRelationshipsRespectHuman Interaction
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about teamwork, one might say, 'As George Bernard Shaw said, treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; this reminds us to value our colleagues and nurture good relationships at work.'
More from George Bernard Shaw
All quotes →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
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
George Bernard ShawRead
I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.
George Bernard ShawRead
Similar quotes
I think of some of my friends who have passed to the spirit world but are who here with me when I go to events and when I walk in my own community. My sisters, Ingred, my sister Marsha, and my sister Nielock. All cofounders of the Indigenous Women's Network with me. All long time women activists in the native community.
Winona LadukeRead
How unspeakably the lengthening of memories in common endears our old friends!
George EliotRead
Where are you heading, if you’ve got the choice?” James lifted an invisible sword. “‘Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!’ Like my dad.” Snape made a small, disparaging noise. James turned on him. “Got a problem with that?” “No,” said Snape, though his slight sneer said otherwise. “If you’d rather be brawny than brainy —” “Where’re you hoping to go, seeing as you’re neither?” interjected Sirius.
J. K. RowlingRead
One doesn't know, till one is a bit at odds with the world, how much one's friends who believe in one rather generously, mean to one.
D. H. LawrenceRead
To embrace the whole world in friendship is wisdom. This wisdom is not changeable like the flowers that bloom and fade.
ThiruvalluvarRead
It's such a happiness when good people get together.
Jane AustenRead