What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humanity's highest achievements exist only as ideals on paper, not in reality.
George Bernard Shaw reflects on the notion that many of humanity's greatest ideals—glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and love—are often only realized in theory rather than in practice. This quote suggests a critique of the discrepancy between our aspirations and the current state of reality, highlighting the difficulty of fully achieving these noble ideals in everyday life.
Themes
HumanityIdealsTruthBeautyLoveKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture about the human condition and our aspirations towards greatness.
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
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
When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
Samuel JohnsonRead
When my father started talking about strip mining in the Appalachia back in the '60s, I remember a conversation I had with him where he said, you know, this is the richest state in the country if you look at the resources and the land, but the poorest people after the state of Mississippi: the 49th poorest people in the country.
Robert Kennedy, Jr.Read
We're all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I'm complicit in the things that I'm trying to oppose.
Wendell BerryRead
How can you possibly reconcile the justice of God with the idea that only through Christ can you be saved? Most of the world lives and dies and never even hears of Christ. There has to be some mechanism set up for all those who have ever lived to have an opportunity to hear of Christ.
Stephen CoveyRead
A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions....A ny religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.
Stanislaw LemRead