A Quote by George Bernard Shaw

If Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

George Bernard Shaw

Quote Topics

Benevolent Capable Chance Democracy Despot Despotism Failed Only Population Requires Voters Want Which Whole

Quote Author

George Bernard Shaw
Irish - Playwright
July 26, 1856 - November 2, 1950

There is nothing everyone is so afraid of as being told how vastly much he is capable of. You are capable of - do you want to know? - you are capable of living in poverty; you are capable of standing almost any kind of maltreatment, abuse, etc. But you do not wish to know about it, isn't that so? You would be furious with him who told you so, and only call that person your friend who bolsters you in saying: 'No, this I cannot bear, this is beyond my strength, etc.

Soren Kierkegaard

I am the only candidate capable of delivering these three things as prime minister, and tonight it is clear that I am also the only one capable of drawing support from the whole of the Conservative party.

Theresa May

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

Fisher Ames

It is in our incompleteness, of which we are aware, that education as a permanent process is grounded. Women and men are capable of being educated only to the extent that they are capable of recognizing themselves as unfinished.

Paulo Freire

Never may a man prone to believe scandal be a despot or a popular leader! Under his guidance, democracy itself will be despotism.

Apollonius of Tyana

When we consider that each of us has only one life to live, isn’t it rather tragic to find men and women, with brains capable of comprehending the stars and the planets, talking about the weather; men and women, with hands capable of creating works of art, using those hands only for routine tasks; men and women, capable of independent thought, using their minds as a bowling-alley for popular ideas; men and women, capable of greatness, wallowing in mediocrity; men and women, capable of self-expression, slowly dying a mental death while they babble the confused monotone of the mob?

Neil Gaiman

If you want to make real money, do something that scares the crap out of 99% of the population, and only one person in a couple of hundred is physically capable of.

Charlie Kelly

All men are capable of reason. That is the fundamental principle of democracy Because everybody's mind is capable of true knowledge, you don't have to have a special authority, or a special revelation telling you that this is the way things should be.

Joseph Campbell

Not everybody out here trains with me; not everybody knows what I'm capable of. My coaches know what I'm capable of, my training partners know what I'm capable of, and I know what I'm capable of.

Kamaru Usman

It's funny how you have to keep changing, or showing that you are capable of doing something different from people's expectations. People really only do remember you from the last thing you've done, or desperately want to put you into a position that they think you're capable of.

Dominic Cooper

Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Louise J. Kaplan

The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance.

A. P. Herbert

The mind which is most capable of receiving impressions is very often the least capable of drawing conclusions.

Virginia Woolf

Love is taking chances when every rational part of you screams, ‘Don’t risk it.’ Because it’s only when your heart has been ripped open that you get a chance to find the one person capable of making it whole.