George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works,a Critical Biography (authorized)

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Stewart & Kidd, 1911 - Literary Criticism - 528 pages
 

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Page 323 - I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not, — The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?
Page 462 - This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
Page 37 - The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
Page 259 - where two or three are gathered together." The apostolic succession from Eschylus to myself is as serious and as continuously inspired as that younger institution, the apostolic succession of the Christian Church.
Page 353 - ... a sentimental story of a saint, has cathedrals built for him out of the pennies of the poor. He cant be intelligently political: he dreams of what the Shan Van Vocht said in ninety-eight. If you want to interest him in Ireland youve got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen ni Hoolihan and pretend she's a little old woman.
Page 486 - I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle
Page 358 - Undershaft, the hero of Major Barbara, is simply a man who, having grasped the fact that poverty is a crime, knows that when society offered him the alternative of poverty or a lucrative trade in death and destruction, it offered him, not a choice between opulent villainy and humble virtue, but between energetic enterprise and cowardly infamy.
Page 359 - The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues beside it: all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the Very souls of all who come within sight, sound, or smell of it.
Page 181 - Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign ; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land...
Page 359 - But there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill-fed, ill-clothed people. They poison us morally and physically : they kill the happiness of society ; they force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into their abyss. Only fools fear crime : we all fear poverty.

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