George Bernard Shaw
Irish playwright and polemicist (1856 to 1950); Nobel Prize in Literature laureate in 1925; author of Maxims for Revolutionists.
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What they believe
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Money is the most important thing in the world, standing for health, strength and honor
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness.
gutenberg.orgSaid c. 1906–1907This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 18 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
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Money is the most important thing in the world, standing for health, strength and honor
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
What the nation needs most is not better morals but simply enough money
The crying need of the nation is not for better morals, cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters and erring brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
The evil reformers should attack is poverty, not sin, drink or ignorance
And the evil to be attacked is not sin, suffering, greed, priestcraft, kingcraft, demagogy, monopoly, ignorance, drink, war, pestilence, nor any other of the scapegoats which reformers sacrifice, but simply poverty.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
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Society should give everyone enough to live well on, then see that they earn it
The sensible course would be Cobden-Sanderson's: that is, to give every man enough to live well on, so as to guarantee the community against the possibility of a case of the malignant disease of poverty, and then (necessarily) to see that he earned it.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Imprisoning someone for years is a deliberate act of cruelty
For instance, we seize a man and deliberately do him a malicious injury: say, imprison him for years. One would not suppose that it needed any exceptional clearness of wit to recognize in this an act of diabolical cruelty.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Treating some money as tainted and other money as clean is a superstition
The notion that you can earmark certain coins as tainted is an unpractical individualist superstition.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Christianity, by making submission a merit, has reached the point where shame is lost
Christianity, in making a merit of such submission, has marked only that depth in the abyss at which the very sense of shame is lost.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
The Salvation Army's growing business organization will make its enthusiasts give way to a bureaucracy
It is building up a business organization which will compel it eventually to see that its present staff of enthusiast-commanders shall be succeeded by a bureaucracy of men of business who will be no better than bishops, and perhaps a good deal more unscrupulous.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Forgiveness and atonement are figments, and punishment only pretends to cancel one crime by another
Forgiveness, absolution, atonement, are figments: punishment is only a pretence of cancelling one crime by another; and you can no more have forgiveness without vindictiveness than you can have a cure without a disease.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
What a person does, and how we judge it, depends on circumstances rather than character
What a man is depends on his character; but what he does, and what we think of what he does, depends on his circumstances.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Declaring people born free is useless if you deny they are born good
It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good. Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of itself.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Churches are tolerated only on condition that they preach submission to the capitalist state
Churches are suffered to exist only on condition that they preach submission to the State as at present capitalistically organized.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
A nobler Christianity affirms equality and forbids vengeance, including what is called punishment
But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the sacred mystery of Equality, and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance, often politely called punishment or justice.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
There is no moral difference between official and unofficial killing by a tribunal
Given a tribunal, employing a slayer who has no personal quarrel with the slain; and there is clearly no moral difference between official and unofficial killing.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Everyone becomes an anarchist about laws that go against their conscience
In short, all men are anarchists with regard to laws which are against their consciences, either in the preamble or in the penalty.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
The benefits of society depend on how complex a code people will uphold, not on freedom from one
The advantages of living in society are proportionate, not to the freedom of the individual from a code, but to the complexity and subtlety of the code he is prepared not only to accept but to uphold as a matter of such vital importance that a lawbreaker at large is hardly to be tolerated on any plea.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Real moral responsibility needs everyone to know their deeds are irrevocable
We shall never have real moral responsibility until everyone knows that his deeds are irrevocable, and that his life depends on his usefulness.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
Creeds must become intellectually honest, since no established religion is now credible
Creeds must become intellectually honest. At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.
Preface to Major Barbara: First Aid to Critics (1906) Said c. 1906–1907
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