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Quotes from Maxims for Revolutionists — George Bernard Shaw

1856–1950 Ireland

← All quotes by George Bernard Shaw

40 quotes

Obedience simulates subordination as fear of the police simulates honesty.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

When a heretic wishes to avoid martyrdom he speaks of "Orthodoxy, True and False" and demonstrates that the True is his heresy.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

It is not necessary to replace a guillotined criminal: it is necessary to replace a guillotined social system.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

No elaboration of physical or moral accomplishment can atone for the sin of parasitism.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Riches and Art are spurious receipts for the production of Happiness and Beauty.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

The roulette table pays nobody except him that keeps it. Nevertheless a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for keeping roulette tables is unknown.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

He who desires a lifetime of happiness with a beautiful woman desires to enjoy the taste of wine by keeping his mouth always full of it.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Happiness and Beauty are by-products.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Do not do unto others as you would expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent's first duty.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

The duke inquires contemptuously whether his gamekeeper is the equal of the Astronomer Royal; but he insists that they shall both be hanged equally if they murder him.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Decency is Indecency's Conspiracy of Silence.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Those who understand evil pardon it.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

No age or condition is without its heroes. The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon, the least confused thinker its Socrates, the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

The man who has graduated from the flogging block at Eton to the bench from which he sentences the garrotter to be flogged is the same social product as the garrotter who has been kicked by his father and cuffed by his mother until he has grown strong enough to throttle and rob the rich citizen whose money he desires.

Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: George Bernard Shaw (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.