What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a paradoxical feeling of happiness that is accompanied by dread and decay.
In this quote, George Bernard Shaw reflects on a complex and unsettling form of happiness that he has experienced throughout his life. It speaks to the idea that true happiness may be linked to acceptance and passivity, rather than active pursuit, and it also carries a sense of bittersweetness, as this happiness is intertwined with the awareness of life's ephemeral and decaying nature.
Themes
HappinessLifeAcceptanceBittersweetDreaming
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a discussion on the nature of happiness in a philosophy class.
More from George Bernard Shaw
All quotes →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
Never retire! Do what you do and keep doing it. But don't do it on Friday. Take Friday off. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, go fishing...Then Monday to Thursday, do what you've been doing all your life. My point is: Live full and don't retreat.
Mel BrooksRead
If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
LaoziRead
The unseen presence keeps saying to us, _x000D_ ‘You are Joy!’
RumiRead
Mankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery.
EuripidesRead
When you are not happy with your life, always think that someone is happy simply because you exist
Friedrich SchillerRead
I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David ThoreauRead