“Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in all things we deem important to the society and the individual.”

—  Jacques Barzun

"Bernard Shaw," in A Jacques Barzun Reader : Selections from his works (2002), p. 231

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 "Bernard Shaw remains the only model we have of what the citizen of a democracy should be: an informed participant in al…" by Jacques Barzun?
Jacques Barzun photo
Jacques Barzun 46
Historian 1907–2012

Related quotes

“Language education… may achieve what George Bernard Shaw asserted is the function of art.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: It may come as a surprise to our technocrat philosophers, but people do not read, write, speak, or listen primarily for the purpose of achieving a test score. They use language in order to conduct their lives, and to control their lives, and to understand their lives. An improvement in one's language abilities is therefore... observed in changes in one's purposes, perceptions, and evaluations. Language education... may achieve what George Bernard Shaw asserted is the function of art. "Art," he said in Quintessence of Ibsenismn, "should refine our sense of character and conduct, of justice and sympathy, greatly heightening our self knowledge, self-control, precision of action and considerateness, and making us intolerant of baseness, cruelty, injustice, and intellectual superficialty and vulgarity." …For my purposes, if you replace the word "art" with the phrase "language education," you will have a precise statement of what I have been trying to say.

Barack Obama photo

“As one former prisoner put it in speaking to his fellow citizens, “Politics is your job. It’s not only for [the] politicians.” And we have an expression in the United States that the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen -- not President, not Speaker, but citizen.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Yangon University Speech (November 2012)

William Saroyan photo

“Now, having a play on the same bill with a play by the one and only, the good and great, the impish and noble, the man and superman, George Bernard Shaw, is for me an honor, and I think a most fitting thing.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Hello Out There (1941)

George Bernard Shaw photo

“I don't believe in morality. I'm a disciple of Bernard Shaw.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Act III
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)

Barack Obama photo

“Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2017, Farewell Address (January 2017)
Context: It falls to each of us to be those anxious, jealous guardians of our democracy; to embrace the joyous task we've been given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours. Because for all our outward differences, we, in fact, all share the same proud title, the most important office in a democracy: Citizen. Citizen.

Al Gore photo

“The remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way — a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)

Benjamin Creme photo

“Local participation is the number one need. That is democracy. Politicians talk about democracy, but there really is not much democracy. They are the ones who make the decisions, and they are the government. In this way, your democracy is diminished. Democracy is democracy not only through voting but through participation. The more participation there is, the more democracy is a reality. Until that pertains we can only say there is a move towards democracy, no real democracy in the world.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007)

Alfredo Rocco photo

“The relations, therefore, between state and citizens are completely reversed by the fascist doctrine. Instead of the liberal-democratic formula, ‘society for the individual,’ we have, ‘individuals for society’ with this difference, however: that while the liberal doctrines eliminated society, fascism does not submerge the individual in the social group. It subordinates him but does not eliminate him, the individual as a part of his generation ever remaining an element of society however transient and insignificant he may be.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

Source: The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1925), p. 111

Philip Pullman photo

“This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with — and this is the important thing — responsibilities.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Surefish interview (2002)
Context: A sense of belonging, a sense of being part of a real and important story, a sense of being connected to other people, to people who are not here any more, to those who have gone before us. And a sense of being connected to the universe itself.
All those things were promised and summed up in the phrase, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. But if the Kingdom is dead, we still need those things. We can't live without those things because it's too bleak, it's too bare and we don't need to. We can find a way of creating them for ourselves if we think in terms of a Republic of Heaven.
This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with — and this is the important thing — responsibilities. With the responsibility to make this place into a Republic of Heaven for everyone. Not to live in it in a state of perpetual self-indulgence, but to work hard to make this place as good as we possibly can.

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Variant translation: Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XVII.

Related topics