George Bernard Shaw Quotes
There are two things necessary to Salvation.... Money and gunpowder.
Shaw, George Bernard. Major Barbara. Archibald Constable & Co., 1907, p. 83.
Jefferson was not anti-Christian as some accuse him. He was a great admirer of Jesus’ life and philosophy. He did object to the non-ethical aspects of Christianity—the rituals, miracles, dogma, hierarchy, and organized churches. See {611664} . Jefferson even went so far as to compile his own version of the Bible—New Testament sometimes called the “Jefferson Bible”—where he translated the material and then extracted the ethical principles leaving out everything else.
Much of the Catholic Church was greatly influenced by Aquinas long past his death. This quotation laid the foundation for the view, that anything the Church does, even if seemingly wrong or absurd, has some positive value. Here, Aquinas refused to totally condemn the Church practice of giving indulgences (official absolution for serious sins) to the rich in exchange for money. His view assumes that there must be some good in all acts of the church, even if we can not now determine it. This view makes reform very difficult even after the evil is recognized. Some theologians argue that although this perpetuates some bad practices, it provides stability and prevents leaders of the church from constantly trying to adapt the church to meet current popular or civil criticism.
George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
