Thursday, January 30, 2020

Quote of the Day (George Bernard Shaw, on Diplomacy as a ‘Lawless Affair of Family Intrigues’)


“Political science has been as recklessly neglected by Governments and electorates during my lifetime as sanitary science was in the days of Charles the Second. In international relations diplomacy has been a boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial brigandage, torpors of pseudo-good nature produced by laziness and spasms of ferocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled through….Nature gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. But when she struck at last she struck with a vengeance.” —Anglo-Irish playwright and Nobel Literature laureate George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “The Practical Business Men,” Preface to Heartbreak House (1919)

“A boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues…”

Hmmm….I can’t think of anything like that, can you?

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