What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that some secrets are so obvious that they become common knowledge, yet they remain unacknowledged.
George Bernard Shaw's quote speaks to the irony of certain secrets that, despite being widely speculated upon, are not openly discussed. This phenomenon highlights the complexities of human behavior and social dynamics, where people may choose to ignore or refrain from addressing what is already known or suspected, thereby keeping the 'secret' intact. It suggests a sense of collective understanding that exists outside of verbal acknowledgment, reflecting deeper truths about perception and communication in society.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about trust in relationships, this quote can illustrate how some unspoken truths linger beneath the surface.
More from George Bernard Shaw
All quotes βMarriage 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.
Similar quotes
More and more of us feel like emergency-room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the clutter on our desk.
If we generally like the way things are now, we must also ask whether our current situation is really so different from the open ages of radio, film, or the telephone. Might it not also have seemed in those times that the orgy of limitless entrepreneurism would never end? The point is that we are near the high end of a pendulum arc that, so far, has aways begun to swing in the opposite direction -toward greater integration and centralization- with a force that can seem inexorable.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?
The history of empires is the record of human misery; the history of the sciences is that of the greatness and happiness of mankind.
In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream- Lingering in the golden gleam- Life, what is it but a dream?