“No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.”

—  George Bernard Shaw

#41
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot." by George Bernard Shaw?
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw 413
Irish playwright 1856–1950

Related quotes

Sam Manekshaw photo

“Give me a man or a woman with common sense and who is not an idiot and I assure you can make a leader out of him or her.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

During a lecture on leadership quoted in [Field Marshal KM Kariappa Memorial Lectures, 1995-2000, http://books.google.com/books?id=Eux31FCNj8MC&pg=PA21, 2001, Lancer Publishers, 978-81-7062-119-5, 21–]

Peter Lorre photo

“For a lazy man I work awfully hard, I couldn't live without acting. In fact anybody who can live without that feeling is a complete idiot.”

Peter Lorre (1904–1964) Austrian actor

Movie Villain Peter Lorre http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-peter-lorre-19640324-story.html

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Jules Verne photo

“Man is so constituted that health is a purely negative state. Hunger once satisfied, it is difficult for a man to imagine the horrors of starvation; they cannot be understood without being felt.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

L’homme est ainsi fait, que sa santé est un effet purement négatif; une fois le besoin de manger satisfait, on se figure difficilement les horreurs de la faim; il faut les éprouver, pour les comprendre.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XLII: Headlong speed upward through the horrors of darkness

Vanna Bonta photo

“Innovation is strict common sense with wild imagination.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Inventors Digest http://www.inventorsdigest.com/archives/591#sthash.V1dXCLZB.dpuf magazine, interview; May 2009 issue

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Personality; or, What a Man Is
Essays

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

6th Public Talk, Saanen (28 July 1970) 'The Mechanical Activity of Thought" http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/the-impossible-question/1970-07-28-jiddu-krishnamurti-the-impossible-question-the-mechanical-activity-of-thought in The Impossible Question (1972) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=9&chid=57009, Part I, Ch. 6], p. 63 J.Krishnamurti Online, Serial No. 330
1970s
Context: What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally, but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit, of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind, polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.

“The specialist is a man who fears other subjects.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

George Holmes Howison photo

“We return, then, to the strict concomitance of the two series, as all that can in exact science be meant by the functional relation between the brain and the sense-perceptive consciousness.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument, p.299

Related topics