What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
People must not be forced to adopt me as their favourite author, even for their own good.
Interpretation
Everyone should have the freedom to choose their own preferences and favorites without coercion.
This quote by George Bernard Shaw highlights the importance of individual choice and personal preference in matters of art and literature. It emphasizes that even if someone believes that adopting a certain author or perspective is beneficial, it should not be enforced upon others, as genuine appreciation cannot be mandated.
In practice
In a book club discussion about personal preferences in literature.
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.
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
People consider the harms they inflict to be justified and forgettable, and the harms they suffer to be unprovoked and grievous.
I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion.
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change. Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.
I have no religion,β says Borneau, βbut I respect the religion of others. Religion is sacred.β Why this privilege, this immunity?... A believer creates God in his own image; if he is ugly, his God will be morally ugly. Why should moral ugliness be respectable?
Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans - I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment.
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