“The last word remains with Christ and Handel; and this must stand as the best defence of Tolerance until a better man than I makes a better job of it.”

— George Bernard Shaw

Preface, The Sacredness Of Criticism
1930s, On the Rocks (1933)
Context: The last word remains with Christ and Handel; and this must stand as the best defence of Tolerance until a better man than I makes a better job of it.
Put shortly and undramatically the case is that a civilization cannot progress without criticism, and must therefore, to save itself from stagnation and putrefaction, declare impunity for criticism. This means impunity not only for propositions which, however novel, seem interesting, statesmanlike, and respectable, but for propositions that shock the uncritical as obscene, seditious, blasphemous, heretical, and revolutionary.

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 "The last word remains with Christ and Handel; and this must stand as the best defence of Tolerance until a better man t…" by George Bernard Shaw?

George Bernard Shaw photo

George Bernard Shaw 413

Irish playwright 1856–1950

Related quotes

“… generally speaking, Muslim tolerance of unbelievers was far better than anything available in Christendom, until the rise of secularism in the 17th century.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Source: Books, Islam: The Religion and the People (2008), p. 146.

“An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim — that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 345.

“The furniture is comfortable to me. Rather than making a chair to sleep in or a machine to live it, it is better to make a bed. A straight chair is best for eating or writing. The third position is standing.”

Donald Judd (1928–1994) artist

Source: 1990s, "It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp," 1993, p. 21

“A heart-memory is better than a mere head-memory. Better to carry away a little of the love of Christ in our souls, than if we were able to repeat every word of every sermon we ever heard.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 373.

“Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Source: Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949

“Hitler did a better job than Stalin of accomplishing Lenin’s totalitarian promises—better, too, than Mussolini,…”

François Furet (1927–1997) French historian

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 205

“Better to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ.”

Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643) participant in the Antinomian Controversy

As quoted in American Criminal Trials Vol. I (1841) by Peleg W. Chandler, p. 26

“I've always loved the first day of school better than the last day of school. Firsts are best because they are beginnings.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“For better to come, good must stand aside.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Related topics