What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.
Interpretation
A true understanding of art often requires more than a single experience.
George Bernard Shaw suggests that to grasp the full impact of a play, even if it is poorly received, one must witness it on more than one occasion. This underscores the idea that initial reactions can be misleading and that deeper insights often emerge through repeated exposure, reflecting the complexity of artistic appreciation.
In practice
Introducing this quote when discussing the merits of controversial theater at a film festival.
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.
If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.
I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around.
I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
But maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental language in the most extravagant sense.
The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it… If you’re convinced that cooking is drudgery, you’re never going to be good at it, and you might as well warm up something frozen.
I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language.
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