What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that humanity often fails to learn from past mistakes, repeating them throughout history.
George Bernard Shaw's quote reflects on the cyclical nature of history and human behavior. It implies that, despite the lessons that history presents, individuals and societies frequently ignore these teachings, leading to the repetition of the same errors. Shaw echoes Hegel's sentiment to highlight a fundamental flaw in human understanding—our propensity to overlook historical lessons and thus fail to evolve or improve based on past experiences.
In practice
In a speech about improving policy, this quote could highlight the need for awareness of past failures.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
Marriage 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.
The weather is entrancing, but in my heart there is no sun.
I don't like the word 'autobiography.' I rather like the term 'autofiction.' The second you make a script out of the story of your life, it becomes fictional. Of course, the truth is never far. But the story is created out of it.
I wasn't just the madwoman in the attic--I was the attic itself. The past was all over me, all under me, all inside me.
Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
I didn't know what to say. I felt like crying, Goddammit everybody in the world wants an explanation for your acts and for your very being.
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