“Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless.”

Source: Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943), IV
Context: For Shaw as for Goethe, the obligation to strive is a primary feeling: reason initiates nothing and would stop everything. Its use is to come after the fact and devise helpful justification of action. Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless. There is, Shaw reminds us, no argument in behalf of moral conduct which would not equally well support immoral. But it is clearly impossible (and immoral) to exact moral conduct, cultivation, and grace from those whom circumstances force to lead sub-human lives. Therefore society must be reformed.

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 "Culture, humaneness, spiritual grace, are not forced upon us by logic: they either are self-evident or pointless." by Jacques Barzun?
Jacques Barzun photo
Jacques Barzun 46
Historian 1907–2012

Related quotes

Evelyn Underhill photo
Abraham Joshua Heschel photo

“In the realm of faith, God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 337.
Heschel made similar statements in earlier writings: The great insight is not attained when we ponder or infer the beyond from the here. In the realm of the ineffable, God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy of Religion (1951)
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Context: In the realm of faith, God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. To rationalists He is something after which they seek in the darkness with the light of their reason. To men of faith He is the light.

Franz Werfel photo

“Happiness is … the grace of being permitted to unfold … all the spiritual powers planted within us.”

Franz Werfel (1890–1945) Austrian-Bohemian author

As quoted in Journey to New Beginnings : Finding Peace Within (2006) by Debbie Ziemann, p. 167

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Cultural dominance by either the left or the right hemisphere is largely dependent upon environmental factors.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 72

“Civilization is mutual aid and self-defense; culture is the judge, the lawbook and the forces of Law & Ordure”

"Episodes and Visions", p. 308
Desert Solitaire (1968)
Context: To make the distinction unmistakably clear: Civilization is the vital force in human history; culture is that inert mass of institutions and organizations which accumulate around and tend to drag down the advance of life; Civilization is Giordano Bruno facing death by fire; culture is the Cardinal Bellarmino, after ten years of inquisition, sending Bruno to the stake in the Campo di Fiori; Civilization is Sartre; culture Cocteau; Civilization is mutual aid and self-defense; culture is the judge, the lawbook and the forces of Law & Ordure (sic); Civilization is uprising, insurrection, revolution; culture is the war of state against state, or of machines against people, as in Hungary and Vietnam; Civilization is tolerance, detachment and humor, or passion, anger, revenge; culture is the entrance examination, the gas chamber, the doctoral dissertation and the electric chair; Civilization is the Ukrainian peasant Nestor Makhno fighting the Germans, then the Reds, then the Whites, then the Reds again; culture is Stalin and the Fatherland; Civilization is Jesus turning water into wine; culture is Christ walking on the waves; Civilization is a youth with a Molotov cocktail in his hand; culture is the Soviet tank or the L. A. cop that guns him down; Civilization is the wild river; culture, 592,000 tons of cement; Civilization flows; culture thickens and coagulates, like tired, sick, stifled blood.

Zafar Mirzo photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1910s, A Book of Prefaces (1917), Ch. 4

Flannery O’Connor photo

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Aldous Huxley photo

Related topics