QuoteProject
When commenting on the turmoil and disorder of the world, If the other planets are inhabited, they must be using this earth as their insane asylum.
George Bernard Shaw
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Shaw humorously suggests that Earth is so chaotic that it could be seen as a place for the mentally ill if other planets exist.

This quote by George Bernard Shaw reflects a critical view of humanity and the chaotic state of the world. It uses humor and irony to question the sanity of life on Earth, proposing that if extraterrestrial beings exist, they might perceive Earth as a form of asylum for those deemed insane due to the turmoil and disorder that characterize human society. By invoking the idea of other inhabited planets, Shaw invites readers to consider the absurdity of human existence in contrast to the vast universe.

Themes

ChaosHumanityInsanityWorldIrony

In practice

Example use cases

During a debate on climate change, one might use this quote to illustrate the absurdity of human negligence.

More from George Bernard Shaw

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
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

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
Napoleon BonaparteRead
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
Pope FrancisRead
Suffering does not befall him who is without attachment to names and forms.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Any man's life, told truly, is a novel.
Ernest HemingwayRead
I wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking and thinking, and always sick thoughts, and my head aches - what is the use of praying? - it's only a sin! It is strange, too, that I am not sleepy: in great, too great sorrow, after the first outbursts one is always sleepy. Men condemned to death, they say, sleep very soundly on the last night. And so it must be, it si the law of nature, otherwise their strength would not hold out... I lay down on the sofa but I did not sleep...
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death
Pedro Calderon De La BarcaRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by George Bernard Shaw | QuoteProject