"The notion that the colonel need be a better man than the private is as confused as the notion that the keystone need be stronger than the coping stone."
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George Bernard Shaw quotes (page 64 of 68)
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"But whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty begins, not at the age of 21 years but 21 seconds."
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"My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative revolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice."
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"A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there."
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"Morals are a luxury of the rich."
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"Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one."
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"I can't turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you."
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"While browsing in a second-hand bookshop one day, George Bernard Shaw was amused to find a copy of one of his own works which he himself had inscribed for a friend: "To ----, with esteem, George Bernard Shaw." He immediately purchased the book and returned it to the friend with a second inscription: "With renewed esteem, George Bernard Shaw."
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"General consultant to mankind."
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"A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes."
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"Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done."
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"Instead of Otello being an Italian opera written in the style of Shakespeare, Othello is a play written by Shakespeare in the style of Italian opera."
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"Give me the artist who breathes it like a native, and goes about his work in it as quietly as a common man goes about his ordinary business. Mozart did so; and that is why I like him. Even if I did not, I should pretend to; for a taste in his music is a mark of caste among musicians, and should be worn, like a tall hat, by the amateur who wishes to pass for a true Brahmin."
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"The practical question, then, is what to do with the children. Tolerate them at home we will not. Let them run loose in the streets we dare not until our streets become safe places for children, which, to our utter shame, they are not at present, though they can hardly be worse than some homes and some schools."
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"The ability to make witty observations is commonly refered to as "cynism" by people who lack it."
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"Every girl has a right to be loved."
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"Dancing is a very crude attempt to get into the rhythm of life."
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"If I bind the future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation."
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"The technical history of modern harmony is a history of growth of toleration by the human ear of chords that at first sounded discordant and senseless to the main body of contemporary professional musicians."
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"Morality consists of suspecting other people of not being legally married."
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