# Major Barbara - Author: [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md) - Quotes: 13 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara ## Quotes > You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/you-have-learnt.md) Topics: [science](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/science.md) > You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/you-cannot-have.md) Topics: [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md) > It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good. Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment which any fool can trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or as a rascal. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/it-is-quite.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [freedom](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom.md) > It is not the sale of my soul that troubles me: I have sold it too often to care about that. I have sold it for a professorship. I have sold it for an income. ... What is all human conduct but the daily and hourly sale of our souls for trifles? [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/it-is-not.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md) > I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/i-cant-talk.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md) > Undershaft: You have made for yourself something that you call a morality or a religion or what not. It doesn't fit the facts. Well, scrap it. Scrap it and get one that does fit. That is what is wrong with the world at present. It scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it wont scrap its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions and its old political constitutions. Whats the result? In machinery it does very well; but in morals and religion and politics it is working at a loss that brings it nearer bankruptcy every year. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/undershaft-you-have.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md) > The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier: the manners and habits of a duke would cost a city clerk his situation. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/the-faults-of-the.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md) > The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/the-greatest-of-evils.md) Topics: [evil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil.md) > Undershaft: My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/undershaft-my-religion.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [money](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money.md) > He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/he-knows-nothing.md) Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md) > I exclude the hypothesis of complete originality on [Charles] Lever's part, because a man can no more be completely original in that sense than a tree can grow out of air. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/i-exclude-the.md) Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md) > Cusins: Call you poverty a crime? > > Undershaft: The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues beside it: all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound or smell of it. What you call crime is nothing: a murder here and a theft there, a blow now and a curse then: what do they matter? they are only the accidents and illnesses of life: there are not fifty genuine professional criminals in London. But there are millions of poor people, abject people, dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people. They poison us morally and physically: they kill the happiness of society: they force us to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down into their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/cusins-call-you.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [crime](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/crime.md) > Society, with all its prisons and bayonets and whips and ostracisms and starvations, is powerless in the face of the Anarchist who is prepared to sacrifice his own life in the battle with it. Our natural safety from the cheap and devastating explosives which every Russian student can make ... lies in the fact that brave and resolute men, when they are rascals, will not risk their skins for the good of humanity, and, when they are sympathetic enough to care for humanity, abhor murder, and never commit it until their consciences are outraged beyond endurance. The remedy is, then, simply not to outrage their consciences. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/society-with-all.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md)