What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that one can speak without truly communicating or engaging in meaningful dialogue.
George Bernard Shaw emphasizes the distinction between mere speech and the art of conversation. While a person may possess the ability to speak, they might struggle with connecting or engaging others on a deeper level, leading to a lack of genuine interaction despite their vocal abilities. This points to the importance of communication skills in fostering meaningful relationships and understanding.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about effective communication skills, one might say, 'As George Bernard Shaw pointed out, the trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.'
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
The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.
Enlarge my life with multitude of days, In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy.
No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.
Another school declares that all time has already transpired and that our life is only the crepuscular and no doubt falsified and mutilated memory or reflection of an irrecoverable process.
You say to me 'Show me your God.' I answer you, 'Everything you see in your heart that might sadden God, remove.'
Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.