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User talk:Yoshi~enwikiquote

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User talk:Rashesh

--Aphaia 15:54, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Thank you for your uploading Image:Hawking.jpg. Could you give us the licence information of your uploaded photo? In Template messages you could see what kind of licence we accept. Thank you. --Aphaia 15:57, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Rashesh, welcome back to Wikiquote. If you can't give us licence and source information on Image:Hawking.jpg, we should delete them, following our copyright policies. I hope you will give us information its photographer, licence and so on. --Aphaia 18:29, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Margaret Sanger

Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, feminist, and eugenicist who opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and established organizations that evolved into the.

Quotes

 * The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers. Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped.
 * Speech quoted in "Birth Control: What It Is, How It Works, What It Will Do." The Proceedings of the First American Birth Control Conference. Held at the Hotel Plaza, New York City, November 11-12, 1921. Published by the Birth Control Review, Gothic Press, pp. 172, 174.

 * Birth control is not contraception indiscriminately and thoughtlessly practiced. It means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks— those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.
 * "Apostle of Birth Control Sees Cause Gaining Here", The New York Times (April 8, 1923) p. XII.

 * But during all the long years this matter has been discussed, advocated, refuted, the people themselves—poor people especially—were blindly, desperately practicing family limitation, just as they are practicing it today. To them birth control does not mean what it does to us. To them it has meant the most barbaric methods. It has meant the killing of babies—infanticide,—abortions,—in one crude way or another.
 * My Fight for Birth Control, 1931, p. 133.

 * You caused this. Mother is dead from having too many children.
 * To her father at her mother's funeral.
 * Quoted in

Can you afford to have a large family? Do you want any more children? If not, why do you have them? DO NOT KILL, DO NOT TAKE LIFE, BUT PREVENT Safe, Harmless Information can be obtained of trained nurses at 46 AMBOY STREET.
 * MOTHERS!
 * Handbill advertising Sanger's first clinic, Brooklyn, New York (October 1916), reprinted in in Jill Lepore "Birthright: What's next for Planned Parenthood" The New Yorker (November 14, 2011), p. 48. (Original document)

 * The most interesting incident of my life was some years ago when I was sitting beside a dying child's bed, watching the pulse and waiting for the crisis. It was about two o'clock in the morning. I started to take the pulse of the child and as I did so, I saw two bodies of the child - one slightly above the other exactly in the same position and an exact replica - except that it was not flesh but a substance more like cob-webs the color of smoke. I stood back and beheld this extraordinary phenomena and watched the upper body move majestically away in a horizontal position across the room and through the closed steel door. The physical body remained and was still breathing. Consciousness was never regained and an hour after, the little girl ceased to breathe.
 * To Roy Jansen, June 30, 1931. "Roy Jansen (1889-1975), an editor at the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, wrote to Sanger on June 12 asking her to contribute 'some particularly intense or interesting moment in your life' for use in a series called 'Interesting Moments' that was to appear in several newspapers throughout the country."
 * The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger: Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928-1939, (2007), Esther Katz, editor, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0252031377 ISBN 9780252031373p. 99. (Interlineations within the text are rendered within up and down arrows (T I))
 * Notes at bottom of p. 99 read: "TLcy MSP, DLC (LCM 103:61). For ADf version dated June 12, 1931, see LCM 103:59. The published version was not found. 1. MS was probably referring to her daughter, Peggy Sanger, who died of pneumonia on November 6, 1915. 2. MS did not write about the two-body phenomena anywhere else, though she wrote in My Fight [for Birth Control] of Peggy's death that 'I saw the frail strength of her little body slip away' (126) ." (MS = Margaret Sanger, TLcy = Typed Letter Carbon Copy,  DLC = Library of Congress, ADf = Autograph Draft, LCM = Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

 * Peggy was sleeping. Her pulse was so soft and slow. I was unable to realize that the end was near and had my fingers on her ankle to get the pulse when before my eyes arose another Peggy horizontally sleeping [who] rose about a foot or more—fluttering and quivering a moment as if taking leave of its bondage and slowly and majestically [she] soared and floated across the bed and out through the iron closed door ... Peggy had left for the great unknown and beyond.
 * This second version of Peggy Sanger's death quoted in Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, (2012), Jean H. Baker, Hill and Wang, New York, ISBN 0809067579 ISBN 9780809067572p. 103. Baker cites "MS Recollections, 1953, MSPSCC" in her notes to pages 92-108, Chapter 5, On Trial, Note 4, p. 315. (MSPSCC=Margaret Sanger Papers Microfilm Edition: Smith College Collections). Baker notes that "Her mother spent the rest of her life searching, and often finding, this ethereal, levitating daughter in the spirit world. At the time of Peggy's death, Sanger recalled earlier dreams, now understood as predictions, though she rejected Freud's popular sexualized interpretations of unconscious states. The number six - Peggy died November 6 - figured prominently in these memories, and to discover their significance she consulted astrologists and mediums, attended séances, and educated herself on the mechanics of spiritualism." Ibid., p. 103.

 * The church has ever opposed the progress of woman on the ground that her freedom would lead to immorality. We ask the church to have more confidence in women. We ask the opponents of this movement to reverse the methods of the church, which aims to keep women moral by keeping them in fear and in ignorance, and to inculcate into them a higher and truer morality based upon knowledge. And ours is the morality of knowledge. If we cannot trust woman with the knowledge of her own body, then I claim that two thousand years of Christian teaching has proved to be a failure.
 * The Morality of Birth Control, 18 November 1921, Park Theatre, NY

 * While I personally believe in the sterilization of the feeble-minded, the insane and syphilitic, I have not been able to discover that these measures are more than superficial deterrents when applied to the constantly growing stream of the unfit. They are excellent means of meeting a certain phase of the situation, but I believe in regard to these, as in regard to other eugenic means, that they do not go to the bottom of the matter.
 * Birth Control and Racial Betterment Feb. 1919, The Birth Control Review

 * I care nothing for Free Speech in and by itself. All of us place too much value on the power of the printed word and the power of the spoken word. We read too much. We listen too much. We live too little. We act too little....I speak to you by my actions past and present. I have been gagged, I have been been suppressed, I have have been hauled off to jail. Yet every time, more people ave listened to me, more have protested, more have lifted their voices, more have been responded with courage and bravery....As a propagandist I see immense advantaged in being gagged. It silences me, but it makes millions of others talk about me, and the cause in which I live.
 * Ford Hall Forum Boston Speech, Woman Rebel, The Margaret Sanger Story, Peter Bagge.

 * I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance to be a human being, practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin — that people can — can commit.
 * The Mike Wallace Interview (ABC),
 * Posed question: "Do you believe in sin — When I say "believe" I don't mean believe in committing sin, do you believe there is such a thing as a sin

 * It seems to me from my experience where I have been in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table which means their ignorance, superstitions and doubts. They do not do this with the white people and if we can train the Negro doctor at the Clinic he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results among the colored people. His work in my opinion should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County’s white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us. The ministers work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
 * Commenting on the 'Negro Project' in a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, December 10, 1939. - Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
 * (Note: There is a different date circulated, e.g. Oct. 19, 1939; but Dec. 10 is the correct date of Mrs. Sanger's letter to Mr. Gamble.)

 * I should be the Hunger Strikee.
 * Margaret Sanger asking Ethel Bryne to agree to Sanger's historically revised biopic.

What Every Girl Should Know (1913)

 * Let us not confuse the sexual impulse with love, for it alone is not love, but merely a necessary quality for the growth of love.
 * Chapter 4, "Sexual Impulses--Part II", p. 42.

 * Society, too, condemns the natural expression of Woman's emotion, save under certain prescribed conditions. In consequence of this, women suppress their maternal desires and today direct this great force into other channels, participating in the bigger and broader movements and activities in which they are active today.
 * Chapter 4, "Sexual Impulses--Part II", p. 43.

 * It is said a fish as large as a man has a brain no larger than the kernel of an almond. In all fish and reptiles where there is no great brain development, there is also no conscious sexual control. The lower down in the scale of human development we go the less sexual control we find. It is said that the aboriginal Australian, the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development, has so little sexual control that police authority alone prevents him from obtaining sexual satisfaction on the streets. According to one writer, the rapist has just enough brain development to raise him above the animal, but like the animal, when in heat knows no law except nature which impels him to procreate whatever the result. Every normal man and Woman has the power to control and direct his sexual impulse. Men and women who have it in control and constantly use their brain cells in thinking deeply, are never sensual.
 * Chapter 4, "Sexual Impulses--Part II", p. 47.

Birth Control Review (1918-32)

 * Birth control is the first important step woman must take toward the goal of her freedom. It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * ...thousands of little children occupy sleeping quarters with parents and boarders whose every act is visible to all. Morality indeed! Society is much like the ostrich with its head in the sand. It will not look at facts and face the responsibility of its own stupidity.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * Our laws force women into celibacy on the one hand, or abortion on the other. [npg] Both conditions are declared by eminent medical authorities to be injurious to health.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * Has knowledge of birth control, so carefully guarded and so secretly practiced by the women of the wealthy class – and so tenaciously withheld from the working women – brought them misery? Rather, has it not promoted greater happiness, greater freedom, greater prosperity and more harmony among them? The women who have this knowledge are the women who have been free to develop, free to enjoy in its best sense, and free to advance the interests of the community.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * Knowledge of birth control is essentially moral. Its general, though prudent, practice must lead to a higher individuality and ultimately to a cleaner race.
 * "Morality and Birth Control" (February-March 1918), pp. 11, 14.

 * Eugenists imply or insist that a woman's first duty is to the state; we contend that her duty to herself is her first duty to the state. We maintain that a woman possessing an adequate knowledge of her reproductive functions is the best judge of the time and conditions under which her child should be brought into the world. We further maintain that it is her right, regardless of all other considerations, to determine whether she shall bear children or not, and how many children she shall bear if she chooses to become a mother.  To this end we insist that information in regard to scientific contraceptives be made open to all. We believe that if such information is placed within the reach of all, we will have made it possible to take the first, greatest step toward racial betterment....
 * "Birth Control and Racial Betterment" (February 1919).

 * It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.
 * Birth Control Review (December 1920)

 * Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
 * "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda" (October 1921), p. 5.

 * The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.
 * "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda" (October 1921), p. 5.

 * As an advocate of birth control I wish … to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.... On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.
 * "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda" (October 1921), p. 5.

 * We are convinced that racial regeneration like individual regeneration, must come "from within." That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without. In other words, every potential parent, and especially every potential mother, must be brought to an acute realization of the primary and central importance of bringing children into this world. ... Not until the parents of the world are thus given control over their reproductive faculties will it ever be possible ... to improve the quality of the generations of the future, [or] even to maintain civilization even at its present level. ... An idealistic code of sexual ethics, imposed from above, a set of rules devised by high-minded theorists who fail to take into account the living conditions and desires of the submerged masses, can never be of the slightest value in effecting any changes in the mores of the people.
 * "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda" (October 1921), p. 5

 * Just think for a moment of the meaning of the word kindergarten—a garden of children! To me, that is just what the world ought to be—a garden of children. In this matter we should not do less than follow the example of the professional gardener. Every expert gardener knows that the individual plant must be properly spaced, rooted in a rich nourishing soil, and provided with sufficient air and sunlight. He knows that no plant would have a fair chance of life if it were overcrowded or choked by weeds. To grow into maturity, to bud, to blossom, to produce beautiful sturdy flowers in its own season, each plant must have constant attention, incessant care and tender devotion. If plants, and live stock as well, require space and air, sunlight and love, children need them even more. The only real wealth of our country lies in the men and women of the next generation. A farmer would rather produce a thousand thoroughbreds than a million runts.  How are we to breed a race of human thoroughbreds unless we follow the same plan? We must make this country into a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds.  In a home where there are too many children in proportion to the living space, the air and sunlight, the children are usually overcrowded and underfed. They are a constant burden on their mother's overtaxed strength and the father's earning capacity. Such homes cannot be gardens in any sense of the word.
 * Radio WFAB Syracuse (February 29, 1924), transcription in "The Meaning of Radio Birth Control" (April 1924), p. 111

 * The main objects of the Population Congress would be a) to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of population.  b) to increase the population slowly by keeping the birth rate at its present level of fifteen  per  thousand, decreasing  the  death  rate  below  its  present  mark  of  11  per thousand.  c) to keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition   is   known   to   be detrimental   to   the   stamina   of   the   race,   such   as feebleminded,  idiots,  morons, insane,  syphilitic,  epileptic, criminal,  professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.  d) to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population   whose progeny   is   tainted, or   whose   inheritance   is   such   that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.  e)  to  insure  the  country  against  future  burdens  of  maintenance  for  numerous offspring  as  may  be  born  of feebleminded  parents,  by  pensioning  all  persons  with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.  f)  to  give  certain  dysgenic  groups  in  our  population  their  choice  of  segregation  or sterilization.
 * "A Plan for Peace" (April 1932), pp. 107-108, summarizing an address to the New History Society, New York City (January 17, 1932)

Woman and the New Race, (1922)

 * New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.

 * Usually this desire [for family limitation] has been laid to economic pressure... It has asserted itself among the rich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent. It has been manifested in such horrors as infanticide, child abandonment and abortion.
 * Chapter 2, "Women's Struggle for Freedom"

 * It is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the horrors of abortion and infanticide.
 * Chapter 2, "Women's Struggle for Freedom"

 * Thus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance to live through the first year. Children arriving later have less and less chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live twelve months. This does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go farther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a year die before they reach the age of five.  Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members.
 * Chapter 5, "The Wickedness of Creating Large Families."

 * The basic freedom of the world is woman's freedom. A free race cannot be born of slave mothers. A woman enchained cannot choose but give a measure of that bondage to her sons and daughters. No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.
 * Chapter 8, "Birth Control; A Parents' Problem or Woman's?"

 * Woman must have her freedom; the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she shall be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers; and before it can be his, it is hers alone. She goes through the vale of death alone, each time a babe is born. As it is the right neither of man nor the state to coerce her into this ordeal, so it is her right to decide whether she will endure it. That right to decide imposes upon her the duty of clearing the way to knowledge by which she may make and carry out the decision.  Birth control is woman's problem. The quicker she accepts it as hers and hers alone, the quicker will society respect motherhood. The quicker, too, will the world be made a fit place for her children to live.
 * Chapter 8, "Birth Control; A Parents' Problem or Woman's?"

 * While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.
 * Chapter 10, "Contraceptives or Abortion?"

 * Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. So, in compliance with nature’s working plan, we must permit womanhood its full development before we can expect of it efficient motherhood. If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman.
 * Chapter 18, "The Goal"

The Pivot of Civilization, 1922

 * Those vast, complex, interrelated organizations aiming to control and to diminish the spread of misery and destitution and all the menacing evils that spring out of this sinisterly fertile soil, are the surest sign that our civilization has bred, is breeding and is perpetuating constantly increasing numbers of defectives, delinquents and dependents. My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the "failure" of philanthropy, but rather at its success.

 * These dangers inherent in the very idea of humanitarianism and altruism, dangers which have to-day produced their full harvest of human waste, of inequality and inefficiency, were fully recognized in the last century at the moment when such ideas were first put into practice.

 * There is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of private endowment, which strikes me as being more insidiously injurious than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function of maternity, and aims to supply [free of charge] medical and nursing facilities to slum mothers. Such women ... are, we are informed, to "receive adequate care during pregnancy, ... and for one month afterward." Thus are mothers and babies to be saved. "Childbearing is to be made safe." The work of the maternity centers ... is carried on among the poor and more docile sections of the city, among mothers least able, through poverty and ignorance, to afford the care and attention necessary for successful maternity. ... Such "benevolence" ... conceals a stupid cruelty, because ... it is never the intention of such philanthropy to give the poor over-burdened and often undernourished mother of the slum the opportunity to make the choice herself, to decide whether she wishes time after time to bring children into the world. It merely says 'Increase and multiply: We are prepared to help you do this.' Whereas the great majority of mothers realize the grave responsibility they face in keeping alive and rearing the children they have already brought into the world, the maternity center would teach them how to have more. The poor woman is taught how to have her seventh child, when what she wants to know is how to avoid bringing into the world her eighth.
 * Chapter 5, "The Cruelty of Charity"

 * In passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the idea of 'fit' and 'unfit.' Who is to decide this question? The grosser, the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the writings of the representative Eugenists one cannot ignore the distinct middle-class bias that prevails.
 * Chapter 8, "Dangers of Cradle Competition" (also quoted in Charles Valenza, "Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?" Family Planning Perspectives, January-February 1985, page 44.)

Proscription on Galtonian lines would tend to eliminate many of the great geniuses of the world who were not only "Bohemian," but actually and pathologically abnormal—men like Rousseau, Dostoevsky, Chopin, Poe, Schumann, Nietzsche, Comte, Guy de Maupassant,—and how many others? But such considerations should not lead us into error of concluding that such men were geniuses merely because they were pathological specimens, and that the only way to produce a genius is to breed disease and defect. It only emphasizes the dangers of external standards of "fit" and "unfit." These limitations are more strikingly shown in the types of so-called "eugenic" legislation passed or proposed by certain enthusiasts. Regulation, compulsion and prohibitions affected and enacted by political bodies are the surest methods of driving the whole problem under-ground. As Havelock Ellis has pointed out, the absurdity and even hopelessness of effecting Eugenic improvement by placing on the statute books prohibitions of legal matrimony to certain classes of people, reveal the weakness of those Eugenists who minimize or undervalue the importance of environment as a determining factor. They affirm that heredity is everything and environment nothing, yet forget that it is precisely those who are most universally subject to bad environment who procreate most copiously, most recklessly and most disastrously.
 * The trouble with any effort of trying to divide humanity into the "fit" and the "unfit," is that we do not want, as H. G. Wells recently pointed out, to breed for uniformity but for variety. "We want statesmen and poets and musicians and philosophers and strong men and delicate men and brave men. The qualities of one would be the weaknesses of the other." We want, most of all, genius.
 * Chapter 8, "Dangers of Cradle Competition"

 * Eugenics aims to arouse the enthusiasm or the interest of the people in the welfare of the world fifteen or twenty generations in the future. On its negative side it shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all—that the wealth of individuals and of states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.
 * Chapter 8, "Dangers of Cradle Competition"

 * While it is necessary to point out the importance of "heredity" as a determining factor in human life, it is fatal to elevate it to the position of an absolute. As with environment, the concept of heredity derives its value and its meaning only in so far as it is embodied and made concrete in generations of living organisms. Environment and heredity are not antagonistic. Our problem is not that of "Nature vs. Nurture," but rather of Nature x Nurture, of heredity multiplied by environment, if we may express it thus. The Eugenist who overlooks the importance of environment as a determining factor in human life, is as short-sighted as the Socialist who neglects the biological nature of man. We cannot disentangle these two forces, except in theory. To the child in the womb, said Samuel Butler, the mother is "environment." She is, of course, likewise "heredity." The age-old discussion of "Nature vs. Nurture" has been threshed out time after time, usually fruitlessly, because of a failure to recognize the indivisibility of these biological factors. The opposition or antagonism between them is an artificial and academic one, having no basis in the living organism.
 * Chapter 8, "Dangers of Cradle Competition"

 * Our 'overhead' expense in segregating the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying … demonstrate our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. No industrial corporation could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. Yet hardheaded 'captains of industry,' financiers who pride themselves upon their cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and vicious at worst. In our dealings with such elements there is a bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy elements of the community.
 * Chapter 12, "Woman and the Future"

Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography (1938)

 * Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing. [...] Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand. In the end, through simple illustrations I believed I had accomplished my purpose. A dozen invitations to speak to similar groups were proffered. The conversation went on and on, and when we were finally through it was too late to return to New York.
 * Chapter 29, "While the Doctors Consult", p. 366.

 * ...we explained simply what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way — no matter how early it was performed it was taking a life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way — it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.

 * Eugenics, which had started long before my time, had once been defined as including free love and prevention of conception... Recently it had cropped up again in the form of selective breeding.
 * Chapter 30, "Now Is the Time for Converse", p. 374.

 * I accepted one branch of this philosophy, but eugenics without birth control seemed to me a house built upon sands. It could not stand against the furious winds of economic pressure which had buffeted into partial or total helplessness a tremendous proportion of the human race. The eugenists wanted to shift the birth control emphasis from less children for the poor to more children for the rich. We went back of that and sought first to stop the multiplication of the unfit. This appeared the most important and greatest step towards race betterment.
 * Chapter 30, "Now Is the Time for Converse", pp. 374-375.

The Chicago Defender Interview with Earl Conrad (1945)

 * Discrimination is a world-wide thing. It has to be opposed everywhere. That is why I feel the Negro’s plight here is linked with that of the oppressed around the globe.

 * When we first started out an anti-Negro white man offered me $10,000 if I started [setting up birth-control clinics] in Harlem first. His idea was simply to cut down the number of Negroes. ‘Spread it [birth control] as far as you can among them,’ he said. That is, of course, not our idea. I turned him down. But that is an example of how vicious some people can be about this thing.

"Love or Babies: Must Negro Mothers Choose?" Negro Digest, (1946)

 * Negro Digest August 1946, pp. 3-8

 * We may never achieve the goal of having every pregnancy end with the birth of a healthy, normal child, but certainly a vast majority of the 17,000 stillbirths which occur to Negro mothers each year could be prevented if every baby were planned. Mothers in poor physical condition, mothers who are suffering from chronic diseases, who are sustaining themselves on inadequate diets or performing work out of all proportion to their strength, should have the means to avoid childbearing until their own physical situation can be improved. It is wicked that such women should be expected to bear a baby every year or to deny the love of their husbands. The fact that such pregnancies so frequently end in miscarriage or still-birth makes this burden as pointless as it is cruel.

 * The Negro race has reached a place in its history when every possible effort should be made to have every Negro child count as a valuable contribution to the future of America. Negro parents, like all parents, must create the next generation from strength, not from weakness; from health, not from despair.

One Minute News (1947), interview with British Pathé's John Parsons
Dorchester Hotel, London. Mrs Margaret Slee, President of America's Planned Parenthood Federation is interviewed by Pathe's John Parsons. Sanger married her second husband and 3-In-One Oil magnate James Noah H. Slee (1861-1943) in 1922.

 * British Pathé: Mrs. Margaret (Sanger) Slee, President of America’s Planned Parenthood Federation, maintains that European Women should stop having babies for the next ten years:

 * John Parsons: Don’t you think such a theory, such a radical theory, is anti-social?

 * Margaret Sanger: On the contrary, it seems to me that it is more practical and Humane.

 * John Parsons: What about the women who want babies now and in 10 years won’t be able to have babies? Rather impractical don’t you think?

 * Margaret Sanger: Oh, John you do ask hard questions. I should think, that instead of being impractical, it is really very practical and intelligent and humane.

 * John Parsons: But Mrs. Slee in this country having babies is the only thing left which is both unrationed and untaxed, do you think we really ought to stop?

 * Margaret Sanger: Well I suppose a subject like that is really so personal that it is entirely up to the parents to decide, but from my view, I believe there should be no more babies in starving countries for the next ten years.
 * Video:
 * Ban on Babies is All Wet, Cry Angry Britons, Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1947, p. 9.
 * 'Granny Sanger' Drops a Bomb - A Ten Year Moratorium on Births, Margaret Sanger Papers, Newsletter #65 (Fall 2013)

Misattributed

 * More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue in birth control.
 * Editors of American Medicine in a review of Sanger's article "Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?" published in Birth Control Review, May 1919

 * The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.
 * W.E.B. DuBois, Birth Control Review, June 1932. Quoted by Sanger in her proposal for the "Negro Project."

 * Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need … We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock.
 * Misquoting Ernst Rudin, "Eugenic Sterilization: An Urgent Need", Birth Control Review, April 1933.
 * Actual quote by Rudin: "Not only is it our task to prevent the multiplication of bad stocks, it is also to preserve the well-endowed stocks and to increase the birth-rate of the sound average population."

 * The marriage-bed is the most degenerating influence of the social order.
 * Alice Groff, "The Marriage Bed", The Woman Rebel, V.I No. 5, p. 39 (edited by Margaret Sanger)

 * We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
 * Misquoted by Diane S. Dew (2001)
 * Omits words from a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble Sanger proposing the "Negro Project", where Sanger wrote: "And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members. "
 * The quote was similarly misused in "Women, Race, & Class" (12 February 1983) by Angela Davis, where it is implied that that Sanger was organizing an extermination campaign and the minister would be the main propaganda milling machine.

 * (We) are seeking to assist the white race toward the elimination of the unfit (blacks).
 * Falsely attributed to "Birth Control and Racial Betterment", Birth Control Review, February 1919, by Steve Deace, "Planned Parenthood: The next relic from our racist past that must be purged", Midwest Conservative (The Washington Times),
 * Actual quote: "Like the advocates of Birth Control, the eugenicists, for instance, are seeking to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit."

 * Throughout the 200+ pages of this book Sanger called for the elimination of "human weeds," for the cessation of charity, for the segregation of "morons, misfits, and maladjusted," and for the sterilization of "genetically inferior races."
 * "Who Was Margaret Sanger?", brochure published by the, regarding The Pivot of Civilization.
 * None of those quoted phrases actually appear in the book.

 * Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated.
 * Unknown source, attributed by Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN) and by Roger L. Roberson, Jr, The Bible & the Black Man: Breaking the Chains of Prejudice (2007), p. 18.
 * Seems to take "human weeds" from "a garden of children instead of a disorderly back lot overrun with human weeds" or from "the gradual suppression, elimination and eventual extirpation of defective stocks– those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization" and "exterminated" from "we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea" (see above).

 * Blacks, soldiers, and Jews are a menace to the race.
 * Unknown source. Often falsely cited as Birth Control Review, April 1933, as in William D. Gairdner, The War Against the Family (1992), p. 464. No letters or articles by Sanger appear in that issue.
 * John George, in American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others (1992), p. 415, describes this quote as "evidently concocted in the late 1980s".

 * Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than Capitalism.
 * Unknown source, often attributed to The Woman Rebel.

Quotes about Sanger

 * I admire Margaret Sanger enormously. Her courage, her tenacity, her vision... I am really in awe of her. And there are a lot of lessons we that can learn from her life and the cause she launched and fought for and sacrificed so greatly.
 * Hillary Clinton, at the 2009 Planned Parenthood Honors Gala (YouTube video), quoted in "Watch Hillary Praise Planned Parenthood’s Eugenicist Founder Margaret Sanger" by Sean Davis, The Federalist (14 July 2015).

 * While I would never argue that birth control or abortion rights constitute genocide, I have to take into consideration how sterilization has been imposed on poor people, especially people of color, and that someone like Margaret Sanger argued [birth control] was a privilege of affluent women but a duty for poorer women.
 * 2014 interview in Conversations with Angela Davis Edited by Sharon Lynette Jones (2021)

 * Whether other feminists would agree with me that the economic is the fundamental aspect of feminism, I don't know. But on this we are surely agreed, that Birth Control is an elementary essential in all aspects of feminism. Whether we are the special followers of Alice Paul, or Ruth Law, or Ellen Key, or Olive Schreiner, we must all be followers of Margaret Sanger. Feminists are not nuns. That should be established.
 * 1918 article in Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution

 * My great-grandmother Leah organized immigrant women in sweatshops and worked with Margaret Sanger distributing birth control information in the tenements, and the support of Sanger and many otherwise progressive people for eugenics contributed to the Nazi ideology that exterminated Leah's village in Ukraine.
 * Aurora Levins Morales Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals (2019 edition)
 * Other evidences of changes in women’s status were more immediately apparent. The legendary ‘‘flapper’’ made her debut in the postwar decade, signaling with studied theatrical flourishes a new ethos of feminine freedom and sexual parity. The Nineteenth Amendment, enacted just in time for the 1920 presidential election, gave women at least formal political equality. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed by Alice Paul of the National Women’s Party in 1923, sought to guarantee full social and economic participation to women. An organized movement for the promotion of birth control, founded by Margaret Sanger in 1921 as the American Birth Control League, heralded a growing feminine focus on reproductive control and erotic liberation. Countless women, especially if they were urban, white, and affluent, now used the new technologies of spermicidal jelly and the Mensinga-type diaphragm, both first manufactured in quantity in the United States in the 1920s, to limit the size of their families. This development worried the authors of Recent Social Trends, who feared that the old-stock, white, urban middle class would be demographically swamped by the proliferation of the rural and immigrant poor, as well as blacks.
 * David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945 (1999), ISBN 0-19-503834-7, p. 28

 * There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.
 * Martin Luther King, Jr., "Family Planning — A Special and Urgent Concern" (May 1966)

 * No, she worked as a nurse and she lived with Robert Allen Parker who wrote Margaret's books: he ghost wrote all her books.
 * Oliver Richard Bryne, when asked, "After the first clinic was closed did she [Ethel Bryne] work with the movement at all after that?", OBR Van Voris interview.

 * The first great birth-control crusader, Margaret Sanger, remarks that of the hundreds of women who wrote to her pleading for contraceptive information in the early part of the twentieth century, all spoke of wanting the health and strength to be better mothers to the children they already had; or of wanting to be physically affectionate to their husbands without dread of conceiving. None was refusing motherhood altogether, or asking for an easy life. These women-mostly poor, many still in their teens, all with several children-simply felt they could no longer do "right" by their families, whom they expected to go on serving and rearing. Yet there always has been, and there remains, intense fear of the suggestion that women shall have the final say as to how our bodies are to be used. It is as if the suffering of the mother, the primary identification of woman as the mother-were so necessary to the emotional grounding of human society that the mitigation, or removal, of that suffering, that identification, must be fought at every level, including the level of refusing to question it at all.
 * Adrienne Rich, “Anger and Tenderness”

 * Like many other working-class Jewish women, Ruth R. learned from reading Sanger's birth-control pamphlet, What Every Woman Should Know, in Yiddish. Margaret Sanger, Ruth asserted, was the real pioneer. "It was the universal case that every woman suffered," she recalled.
 * Sydney Weinberg, The World of Our Mothers: The Lives of Jewish Immigrant Women (1988)

title: Margaret Sanger


text:
Talk:George Bernard Shaw

Shaw? "We have established what you are, Madam"
"We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price." This seems to be the punchline of that joke:

A: Would you sleep with me for 1,000,000$?

B: ...YES!

A: How about 1$?

B: What do you think what a person I am?

I have seen that story attributed to Churchill (most often), Twain and Bertrand Russell. (oct.28, 2004)

 * Also W. C. Fields and others... I believe that a variant of this might actually occur in My Fair Lady (adapted from Shaw's Pygmalion) but I am not certain. I will have to check. ~ Kalki 20:23, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * There is an excellent analysis of this quote over at the Quote Investigator, which shows that it is highly unlikely that the quote originated with Shaw (or any other of the famous people it has been attributed to). -- Llarq (talk) 22:57, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I added it to the misattributed section of the page. --Spannerjam (talk) 15:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Source of "If you have an apple and I have an apple..."

 * "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas."

Has anyone had any success in tracking down more detail on this "attributed" quote? It is frequently used by the open source movement, with slight variations - I'm trying to find an authoritive source for the quote, and more idea of the context in which it was said or written. --Catscratch 02:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Searching Google Books, the first occurrence of this I found was in 1952 (two years after Shaw's death) on page 46 of the March 1952 issue of the Phi Kappa Phi Journal. Unlike later occurrences, this appears to be part of a larger essay. Unfortunately Google Books does not display enough of the work to show who wrote it! Here's a link to the Google Books page:. Frappyjohn 09:29, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's the quote (to the extent that Google books lets me see it: "If I have an apple and you have an apple and we excnage apples -- then you have an apple and I have an apple. But if I have the idea that the apple is red and you have the idea that the apple is small and we exchange ... " [ideas -- then we each have both ideas and know that it is a small red apple (?)] Frappyjohn 20:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

If you are tricky enough, you can read the next few lines of that book in Google Books. Here is the full quote: "If I have an idea and give the idea away it is not gone, but I still have it! This experience does not conform to the arithmetic of things. Let us examine this experience from the point of view of exchange. If I have an apple and you have an apple and we exchange apples -- then you have an apple and I have an apple. But if I have the idea that the apple is red and you have the idea that the apple is small and we exchange ideas, then you have two ideas and I have two ideas. It is quite obvious, therefore, that the laws governing thoughts or ideas are different from the laws governing things. If I have an idea and give it away, I still have it to give again, and if I give the idea away again and again, I still have the idea left." --Nicolas T., 19 May 2011

Here is a more complete tracking of this quote that seems to conclude that the quote in question SHOUDN'T BE ATTACHED to George Bernard Shaw: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/13/swap-ideas/ -- Antonello Lobianco, 15 June 2013

Accuracy of "Two tragedies in life"
Belongs in Man and Superman? Quote also needs checking: "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other to get it."

as opposed to the article's "...lose you heart's desire. the other is to gain it."

slight difference in meaning..."lose" would infer that at one point you had acquired it...i don't think this is the sentiment he is trying to portray? FK

The "two tragedies" quote is definitely sourced to Oscar Wilde, Act III of Lady Windermere's Fan. Dumby. I congratulate you, my dear fellow. In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst; the last is a real tragedy!

A possible quotation: Speaking English in three languages
I found this sentence in a Hungarian source (my own translation into English):
 * G.B. Shaw once said that he spoke “English” in three different languages: he uses one for writing his plays, he uses the other when arranging official functions of life, and he uses the third with his intimate friends; these three languages are quite dissimilar to each other.

Could you possibly help me find the original English quotation by Shaw himself? Adam78 14:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Genuine Islam quote
The below quote was deleted from the page by User:-ramz-, saying "According to a number of pro-islam sites this quotation is allegedly from "The Genuine Islam", however there seems to be no such work, only two quotes from it circulating on these sites."
 * I have always held the religion of Muhammed in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.

I would like to know how this user knows that this work does not exist. I have seen the quote cited as being from Genuine Islam, Vol. I, No. 8 (1936). If this work does not exist, I can understand removing it, but if it does, the quote should be reinstated. ~ UDScott 17:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

User:-anonymous-There is such a work and it I have seen it on a site: http://prophetofislam.com/what_do_others_say.php

 * I believe the above quote is akin to "religious spam". The linked site does not contain information (author, publishers address, ISBN etc.) The work not only needs to exist but needs to provide authoritative reference for the date and context of Shaw's words.
 * Some further information on the quotes, paraphrasing, and possible fabrications cited to Shaw were addressed in the further commentary in the following 2 sub-sections. ~ Kalki 18:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Some further information on the quotes, paraphrasing, and possible fabrications cited to Shaw were addressed in the further commentary in the following 2 sub-sections. ~ Kalki 18:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

 In keeping with similar sections on other pages, where there are disputes as to citations, I just created a "Disputed" section for these quotations and moved them from the "Unsourced" section:

 * If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam.

 * I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion for from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.

Shaw did not shrink from controversy on religious matters, and it is conceivable he made such statements, but they do seem a bit extreme even for him, and uncharacteristic in endorsing any one particular tradition. One of them could allude to Shaw's character Hotchkiss in Getting Married (1908) stating: "I believe the whole British Empire will adopt a reformed Mohammedanism before the end of the century. The character of Mahomet is congenial to me. I admire him, and share his views of life to a considerable extent." but the same character goes on to say "Religion is a great force — the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows dont understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you cant see the quintessential equality of all the religions."

It should be noted that neither Shaw or his character is making a claim of the absolute equality of all religions, but is stating that there are fundamental and important positive and negative motivational forces at work in all of them, which seems to reflect the general attitude he held most of his life, after his earlier period of adamant atheism. ~ Agnostic Gnostic 09:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

User:-anonymous- Well I also know that he met with an Islamic scholar named Alim Siddiqui (not to be confused with Kalim), I will try to locate more data...

User:-anonymous- Found something, http://www.almazhar.com/bio_aala_hazrat.php and http://www.alahazratnetwork.org/english/Neglected_Genious.pdf (A friend has portion of the dialogue in a book, will try to retrieve it)

 * The Genuine Islam is not in the Library of Congress catalogue, which covers most literature published in English (and much in other languages, too). Neither can I find it in the National Library of Singapore catalogue, although it was allegedly published in Singapore.

 * If the publication does indeed exist, it should be possible to verify it in the catalogue of some established public library. Until that, we have to assume that the quote is not genuine. --Jonund 19:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

User:-anonymous- The quote is of dubious origin -- see http://idlethink.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/being-an-unforgivably-protracted-debunking-of-george-bernard-shaws-views-of-islam/

Let's settle the matter once and for all. The quote is genuine and there is no dispute about its citation either - it is also completely accurate. As for verifying the publication in the catalogue of some established library: it can be found in the New York Public Library (Stephen A. Schwarzman Bldg - General Research: Room 315).

 * I have now added what seems to be 2 of the most thoroughly researched and accurate versions of quotes from this interview onto the sourced section along with one other on Shaw's views on religion:

 * The apparent multiplicity of Gods is bewildering at the first glance; but you presently discover that they are all the same one God in different aspects and functions and even sexes. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible Gods… Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the profoundest Methodist and the crudest idolater are equally at home in it. Islam is very different, being ferociously intolerant. What I may call Manifold Monotheism becomes in the minds of very simple folk an absurdly polytheistic idolatry, just as European peasants not only worship Saints and the Virgin as Gods, but will fight fanatically for their faith in the ugly little black doll who is the Virgin of their own Church against the black doll of the next village. When the Arabs had run this sort of idolatry to such extremes ... they did this without black dolls and worshipped any stone that looked funny, Mahomet rose up at the risk of his life and insulted the stones shockingly, declaring that there is only one God, Allah, the glorious, the great… And there was to be no nonsense about toleration. You accepted Allah or you had your throat cut by someone who did accept him, and who went to Paradise for having sent you to Hell. Mahomet was a great Protestant religious force, like George Fox or Wesley…. There is actually a great Hindu sect, the Jains, with Temples of amazing magnificence, which abolish God, not on materialist atheist considerations, but as unspeakable and unknowable, transcending all human comprehension.
 * Letter to the Reverend Ensor Walters (1933), as quoted in Bernard Shaw : Collected Letters, 1926-1950 (1988) by Dan H. Laurence, p. 305

 * I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capability to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. The world must doubtless attach high value to the predictions of great men like me. I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today. The medieval ecclesiastics, either through ignorance or bigotry, painted Muhammadanism in the darkest colours. They were in fact trained both to hate the man Muhammad and his religion. To them Muhammad was Anti-Christ. I have studied him — the wonderful man, and in my opinion far from being an Anti-Christ he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much-needed peace and happiness. But to proceed, it was in the 19th century that honest thinkers like Carlyle, Goethe and Gibbon perceived intrinsic worth in the religion of Muhammad, and thus there was some change for the better in the European attitude towards Islam. But the Europe of the present century is far advanced. It is beginning to be enamoured of the creed of Muhammad.
 * Interview, (April 1935), as quoted in The Genuine Islam, Vol. 1 (January 1936), and "Being an Unforgivably Protracted Debunking of George Bernard Shaw’s Views of Islam" (3 December 2008) by Rachel Loew; Loew states that there are many paraphrased and abbreviated versions of this statement online, and that it does not actually appear in the body of the interview itself, but only in a separate quote box.

 * I hold the Prophet of Arabia in great esteem and I can quite understand that it would have been impossible to restrain and wean that illiterate and perverse race, sunk in the miasma of utter moral depravity, from committing the most heinous of crimes, and imbue its people with enthusiasm to strive after righteousness and assimilate high morals and virtues, without projecting such a terrible and intensely awe inspiring spectacle of Hell and an equally captivating and enticing image of a land flowing with milk and honey to represent Heaven before their vision.
 * Interview, (17 April 1935) in The Genuine Islam, Vol. 1 (1936), as quoted at "A Shavian and a Theologian"

These are presented chronologically and though they contain factual errors (characterizing Jains as a simply following a sect of Hinduism), they are probably accurate portrayals of the general tenor of this thoughts on religions at the times quoted. ~ Kalki 02:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * All encyclopaediae and scholarly sources of his time held the same opinion about Jainism and Sikhism; so spare Bernard Shaw's intellect your judgement.--174.2.8.221 08:44, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I certainly have no harsh disposition to the genius of Shaw for making a few incidental errors, as MOST people often do, and the most wise regularly forgive, but I have no intention of sparing the presumptuous from some declarations of my honest assessments and opinions, based on accurate quotations, even if some of the more asinine persist with ever greater force and vigor found in packs of like minded intellectual light-weights to seek to mandate agreements with their own shallow views and suppress those of others, or mock them with rather asinine and irrelevant comments on what some encyclopedias of the time would incorrectly have stated, as well as Shaw, AS IF my remarks were meant to insult him. I rarely make the error of even attempting to make "absolutist" judgments" of ANYONE or anything as if my intellect were capable of properly doing such, despite the common tendency of people with far lesser intellectual integrity to often do that — I often make honest observations in gentle ways with the properly gentle and harsh ways towards those I consider improperly harsh to those who disagree with them or improperly gentle towards those who do. I was just briefly stopping in here, as the levels of fascist presumptions evidently at work here have grown far too distasteful for me to regularly wish to attempt to stomach, when I saw this remark and felt impelled to make an appropriate response. ~ ♞☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:12, 1 August 2012 (UTC) + tweaks, and a major revision, after reviewing the whole section and realizing my initial remarks were probably somewhat misdirected. I stuck around a bit more to work on the internet, because I was reading news articles, but reviewing this recent exchange I realize I might have misinterpreted the comments of the anon IP insulting my observations and have now amended my comments to be a more accurate rebuttal to some remarks. ~ ♞☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 13:45, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Semi protected
This page has been semi-protected for a month, after repeated deletion of the above quotes and their replacement with declarations of their falsehood, and some entirely false attributions and assertions. I have restored a portion of the above comments which had been deleted, and extended the citations about them, with another early source that is only fragmentally accessible online, adding:
 * A portion of the statement also appears quoted in The Islamic Review, Vol. 24 (1936) edited by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, p. 263

I had considered moving these two quotes to the disputed section, but have thus far refrained from that, because the versions quoted above do seem to be within the range of plausibility, while many variants on the internet derived from them are plainly divergent from these in ways that are not. ~ Kalki 12:48, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

 * The book "The Genuine Islam" does not exist except in Islam apologetic websites. There is no such book to be found in any library anywhere in the world. It seems highly unlikely an atheist like him would ever endorse Islam.

 * I have restored these quotes into the disputed section, as there is limited sourcing available, which can be further traced and potentially confirmed, refuted or further evidenced or repudiated. ~ ♞☤☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 04:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The correct reference is: George Bernard Shaw, 'A Shavian Meets a Theologian' Interview by M A A Siddiqui in 'Genuine Islam', Organ of the Al-Malaya Missionary Society Vol 1, No 1, January, 1936 B Lib catalogue.

“I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capability to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. The world must doubtless attach high value to the predictions of great men like me. I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of to-morrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of to-day. The medieval ecclesiastics, either through ignorance or bigotry, painted Muhammadanism in the darkest colours. They were in fact trained both to hate the man Muhammad and his religion. To them Muhammad was Anti-Christ. I have studied him — the wonderful man, and in my opinion far from being an Anti-Christ he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much-needed peace and happiness. But to proceed, it was in the 19th century that honest thinkers like Carlyle, Goethe and Gibbon perceived intrinsic worth in the religion of Muhammad, and thus there was some change for the better in the European attitude towards Islam. But the Europe of the present century is far advanced. It is beginning to be enamoured of the creed of Muhammad.”

He also continued in the same interview to say that: “I also very much admire the forcible and striking diction of the Quoran. What elegant grace and beauty characterises that passage which depicts the dreadful scene of the doomsday field, …” His interviewer confirmed that Shaw had previously expressed the sentiment that: “The future religion of the educated cultured, and enlightened people will be Islam” and continued, “I would like to speak to you about the profound philosophy and psychological truths that the Quoran expounds, so that a gifted and erudite savant of your parts and genius, perfectly familiar with the tastes and mental tendencies of the civilised world can present them to it in an effective and desirable manner.”

Please note that this item exists in the British Library Humanities 1 Reading Room. I have held it in my hand. Jaffer Clarke

Somebody would trust the Cambridge Library ?! https://books.google.sn/books?id=aLm_R5yjcMMC&lpg=PA291&hl=fr&pg=PA291&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false --41.82.119.240 09:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

german wikiquote
I look for the original text of a quote that is attributed to G.B. Shaw in German wikiquote

my translation would be:

It is much darker when a star sets/collapses than it would be, if it never shone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.149.232.198 (talk • contribs) 11:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Given Shaw's predilection for spelling words as they sound, regardless of what anybody else thought, would it not be useful to note more accurately (upon the written page, overleaf) which editions which quotes come from: Either American or English. In most of these quotations, one has no clear idea whether Shaw is speaking English or American, to say nothing of his atrocious spelling.

How to split the pages to avoid warning
Due to a lot of contribution this pages shows a warning (more than 32 kB may have trouble for some browsers). In Firefox, it does not display below "Maxim of Revolucionist". Should we split it in Sourced and Unsourced? - User:Caracho 2008-05-25 16:00 UTC
 * I moved some of the quotes (from Man and Superman) to their own page, so this should lighten the load. I also think there was a bad ref link in there that was causing the page to not fully display in Firefox. Things should be better now. ~ UDScott 16:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

References problem
Seems like the one reference in this article doesnt exist. All the way it's referred to an unexisting reference :) --EivindJ 13:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed the offending ref links. ~ UDScott 14:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Fixed (I hope so) the references. Reboot81 15:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Unreasonable man
The "All progress depends on the unreasonable man" quote is present as a caption to one of the pictures, but is not present in the actual text of the page itself. Where did Bernard Shaw say it? shreevatsa 01:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's from the "Maxims for Revolutionists" section of Man and Superman, which has its own separate page. - InvisibleSun 01:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! shreevatsa 13:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Reasonable Man
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

This quote is included in the article as a caption to a picture but there's no source given. I've seen it quoted elsewhere and attributed to Shaw. Does anyone know what it's from?--Beetfarm Louie 22:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The answer is in the post directly above this one. - InvisibleSun 23:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced

 * America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between
 * Also attributed to Oscar Wilde and Georges Clemenceau. Earliest citation to Clemenceau by Hans Bendix, "Merry Christmas, America!" The Saturday Review of Literature, 1945-12-01, p. 9. Mentioned in Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography (1943):
 * A witty Frenchman has said of us: “The United States of America is the only nation to plunge from barbarism to degeneracy with no culture in between.

 * Animals are my friends ... and I don't eat my friends.

 * Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist invents the parachute.

 * To correct anyone's pronunciation is to imply that he is not quite a gentleman.

 * Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
 * Attributed, 10,000 Jokes, Toasts & Stories (1939) by Lewis & Faye Copeland

 * [Dancing is] a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
 * Attributed, New Statesman (23 March 1962)

 * Democracy is a system ensuring that the people are governed no better than they deserve.

 * If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.

 * 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 can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

 * I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it.

 * I often quote myself. I find it adds spice to the conversation.

See discussion above.
 * If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, we both still only have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, we each now have two ideas.

 * In my view, Anglo-Irish history is for Englishman to remember, for Irishman to forget.

 * What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

 * Islam is the best religion, with the worst followers.

 * Medieval ecclesiastics, either through ignorance of bigotry, painted Mohammadanism in the darkest colors. They were in fact; trained to hate both the man Muhammad and his to them was anti-Christ.
 * A collection of writings of some of the Eminent Scholars' p.77, by the Working Muslim Mission, 1993 edition.

 * Europe is beginning to be enamored of the creed of Muhammad. In the next century I may go still further in recognizing the utility of that creed in solving its problems, and it is in this sense that you must understand my prediction.
 * A collection of writings of some of the Eminent Scholars' p.77, by the Working Muslim Mission, 1993 edition.

 * Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself.

 * Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

 * The average age (life expectancy) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and I am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beefsteak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.

 * The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creator's hand.

 * The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

 * The main difference between the opposition of Islam to Hinduism and the opposition between Protestant and Catholic is that the Catholic persecutes as fiercely as the Protestant when he has the power; but Hinduism cannot persecute, because all the Gods - and what goes deeper, the no Gods - are to be found in its Temples.

 * The material of a dramatist is always some conflict of human feeling with circumstances.

 * The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.

 * The ordinary Britisher imagines that God is an Englishman

 * War does not decide who is right but who is left.
 * A variant of this, "War does not determine who is right—only who is left," is more often attributed to Bertrand Russell. ~ Ningauble 12:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

 * We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price.

 * Shaw: Am reserving two seats for my show. Come bring a friend - if you have one. Winston Churchill: Impossible to be present for the first one. Will attend the second — if there is one.

 * Lack of money is the root of all evil.
 * Also attributed to Mark Twain in More Maxims of Mark (1927), edited by Merle Johnson.

 * The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.

He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches
According to various other sources (mostly web-based), this aphorism appears in "Maxims for revolutionaries" (1903) which is in "man and superman". I'm puzzled why this very popular quote is not included here, but is listed in Man and Superman. Jfdwolff 11:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

"Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life."
I can't find a source for this famous quote attributed to Shaw. Can anyone else? --184.153.189.142 22:08, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Nor can I, I've searched Google books- a separate Wikipedia with a list of teetotallers lists him, so it may be fair to assume this came from one of his plays

 * There is this: Liquor therefore is for Shaw "the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living"*  (The Shaw Review, Volumes 10-12, 1967, p. 92) The snippet view won't let me find whether the asterisk points to a better citation. --Kgf0 (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Poverty stricken
"The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man."

Is there really no hyphen in "poverty stricken"?

Paul Magnussen (talk) 06:02, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Attributed but not sourced
In looking for the source of a quote, I find that it exists all over the internet but still without source. Can anyone help source this quote (and then add it to the page)?

Thanks!

 * "Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time." -- George Bernard Shaw

Westley Turner (talk) 17:45, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

 * It is actually by H. W. Shaw (Josh Billings), see . ~ DanielTom (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school / From a very early age, I’ve had to interrupt my education to go to school
(i) "The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school"

This is listed (twice) in the "Unsourced" section above, but the Wikiquote page already states that this is "Widely attributed to Shaw from the 1970s onward, but not known to exist in his published works. It is in keeping with some of his sardonic statements about the purposes and effectiveness of schools. First known attribution in print is in Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner's Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1971), "G. B. Shaw's line that the only time his education was interrupted was when he was in school captures the sense of this alienation.""

(ii) "From a very early age, I’ve had to interrupt my education to go to school"

"I've had" implies that the phenomenon is still in process, so this would only be grammatical if said by someone who is still at school. That doesn't sound like Shaw, unless it was spoken by a character.

In his memoir "Living to Tell the Tale" (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tiGVAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false), Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote that: “I had left the university the year before with the rash hope that I could earn a living in journalism and literature without any need to learn them, inspired by a sentence I believe I had read in George Bernard Shaw: "From a very early age I've had to interrupt my education to go to school"”

Re "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."
Probably misattributed? If not, misquoted/overparaphrased enough to be unfindable without some help, or published after 1922. Not in the Delphi edition, anyway (with admitted US copyright limitations.) 24.59.51.98 06:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC) (Schissel)

Jews
I've heard that he wrote or said:
 * "Jews need to stop being Jews and start being humans" or
 * "Jews need to stop being Jews and start being human beings" or
 * "Stop being Jews and start being human beings"
 * "[The Jews] had better stop being Jews and start being human beings." --possibly reliable source
 * This quote is sometimes attributed to "Literary Digest, October 12, 1932". This is incorrect.

What is the source of this? --User123o987name (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Found it: Shaw's "Shofar-Blast" The Literary Digest, October 22, 1932, p. 20 (PDF).

The full quote (newline character removed) is "This craving for bouquets is a symptom of racial degeneration. The Jews are worse than my own people, the Irish, at it. Those Jews who still want to be the chosen race - chosen by the late Lord Balfour - can go to Palestine and stew in their own juice. The rest had better stop being Jews and start being human beings. The day of races and nations is over. The future belongs to the citizens of the world who know that they are no better than other people. [L]et the great human community swallow up the Hittite as the Hittite swallowed up the Canaanite: both are now anachronisms. Why should I encourage their contempt for me by flattering them?" --User123o987name (talk) 20:23, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Attributed but not sourced
A reporter once said to George Bernard Shaw, “You have a marvelous gift for oratory. How did you develop it?” Shaw responded, “I learned to speak as men learn to skate or cycle, by doggedly making a fool of myself until I got used to it.” but I cannot find a source for it. Any clues? --WiseWoman (talk) 12:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D70TvftbL-k?t=600  It seems pretty popular on Google and DuckDuckGo image searches. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I find this all over the internet:

Jews... and Druze
I am interested in the provenance and context of another quote listed here,

"This is the real enemy, the invader from the East, the Druze, the ruffian, the oriental parasite; in a word: the Jew"

This is attributed to "London Morning Post, December 3, 1925" (in some sites the date is given as December 13).

I have not been able to find the context of this statement. Meanwhile, I have found that in the same month, Shaw was engaged in a debate with playwright Henry Bernstein, in the course of which he also makes a comparison between Jews and Druze. I have found the meaning of the debate hard to understand - Shaw seems to be arguing that Bernstein, a French Jew, thinks too highly of France - and Shaw, speaking in the persona of Joseph Caillaux, a French minister of finance, says

"The Jews come from Syria, don’t they? Druses! There you have what they are: Druses! Druses, Moors, Riff pirates — they are all the same: Jews."

So either Shaw had Jews and Druze on the brain that month; or perhaps the alleged quote is a distorted echo of the debate with Bernstein Mporter (talk) 06:56, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:George Bernard Shaw