What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights how deeply people can be influenced by their cultural beliefs, often confusing them with universal truths.
George Bernard Shaw's quote reflects the tendency of individuals to interpret the world through the lens of their own cultural customs. It suggests that people can become so entrenched in their beliefs that they mistake their cultural practices as inherent laws, leading to misunderstandings and a lack of empathy for differing perspectives. This serves as a reminder of the importance of recognizing and respecting the diversity of beliefs and customs that exist across various cultures.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about cultural differences, this quote illustrates the need for understanding others' viewpoints.
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.
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.
I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.
Similar quotes
Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.' - Frankenstein
Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time.
Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.
'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it.
Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.
All things began in Order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again, according to the Ordainer of Order, and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven.