# Quote — George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

> 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.

- Author: [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md)
- Book: [Major Barbara](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#Major_Barbara_(1905)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/major-barbara/society-with-all

## More from this book

> 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)