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I Must Remind You That Our Credulity Is Not To Be Measured By The Truth Of The Things We Believe. When Men Believed That The Earthwas Flat, They Were Not Credulous: They Were Using Their Common Sense, And, If Asked To Prove That The Earth Was Flat, Would Have Said Simply, "look At It." Those Who Refuse To Believe That It Is Round Are Exercising A Wholesome Skepticism.
-George Bernard Shaw
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I Must Remind You

George Bernard Shaw
I Must Remind You That Our Credulity Is Not To Be Measured By The Truth Of The Things We Believe. When Men Believed That The Earthwas Flat, They Were Not Credulous: They Were Using Their Common Sense, And, If Asked To Prove That The Earth Was Flat, Would Have Said Simply, "look At It." Those Who Refuse To Believe That It Is Round Are Exercising A Wholesome Skepticism.
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Believe
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Writing
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Women
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Common
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Progress Of Society
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Epidemics
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Eczema
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Men
Thinking
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Stupid
Stupidity
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Freedom
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Way
Kind
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Boxing
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Telling The Truth
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Relaxation
Logical
Fascism
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Family
Members
Tyranny
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Children
Motherhood
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Political Necessities Sometime Turn Out To Be Political Mistakes.
Mistake
Political
Politics
Until The Men Of Action Clear Out The Talkers We Who Have Social Consciences Are At The Mercy Of Those Who Have None.
Freedom
Men
Action
Perhaps I Had Better Inform My Protestant Readers That The Famous Dogma Of Papal Infallibility Is By Far The Most Modest Pretension Of The Kind In Existence. Compared With Our Infallible Democracies, Our Infallible Medical Councils, Our Infallible Astronomers, Our Infallible Judges, And Our Infallible Parliaments, The Pope Is On His Knees In The Dust Confessing His Ignorance Before The Throne Of God, Asking Only That As To Certain Historical Matters On Which He Has Clearly More Sources Of Information Open To Him Than Anyone Else His Decision Shall Be Taken As Final.
Taken
Ignorance
Dust
There Is No Accomplishment So Easy To Acquire As Politeness And None More Profitable.
Accomplishment
Easy
Politeness
Men Trifle With Their Business And Their Politics But Never Trifle With Their Games. It Brings Truth Home To Them. They Cannot Pretend They Have Won When They Have Lost Nor That They Had A Magnificent Drive When They Foozled It. The Englishman Is At His Best On The Links And At His Worst In The Cabinet.
Home
Golf
Men
No Use Slaving For Me And Then Saying You Want To Be Cared For: Who Cares For A Slave? If You Come Back, Come Back For The Sake Of Good Fellowship; For You’ll Get Nothing Else.
Use
Care
Want
[chess] Is A Foolish Expedient For Making Idle People Believe They Are Doing Something Very Clever, When They Are Only Wasting Their Time.
Life
Clever
Stupid
If More Than 10% Of The People Like A Painting, You Can Be Sure It's Bad.
People
Painting
Standards
As Well Consult A Butcher On The Value Of Vegetarianism As A Doctor On The Worth Of Vaccination.
Doctors
Vegetarianism
Vaccines
To Be In Hell Is To Drift; To Be In Heaven Is To Steer.
Life
Heaven
Hell
Now That We Have Learned To Fly The Air Like Birds, Swim Under Water Like Fish, We Lack One Thing - To Learn To Live On Earth As Human Beings.
Air
Water
Bird
In Heaven An Angel Is Nobody In Particular.
Angel
Heaven
Particular
Happiness And Beauty Are By-products. Folly Is The Direct Pursuit Of Happiness And Beauty.
Happiness
Pursuit
Folly
All Dress Is Fancy Dress, Is It Not, Except Our Natural Skins?
Skins
Dresses
Fancy
Changeable Women Are More Endurable That Monotonous Ones; They Are Sometimes Murdered But Never Deserted.
Women
Sometimes
Monotonous
Revelations: A Curious Record Of The Visions Of A Drug Addict.
Drug
Vision
Records
I Showed My Appreciation Of My Native Land In The Usual Irish Way: By Getting Out Of It As Soon As I Possibly Could.
Appreciation
Land
Usual
Very Nice Sort Of Place, Oxford, I Should Think, For People That Like That Sort Of Place. They Teach You To Be A Gentleman There. In The Polytechnic They Teach You To Be An Engineer Or Such Like. See?
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Teaching
Science
If In The Library Of Your House You Do Not Have The Works Of The Ancient Greek Writers, Then You Live In A House With No Light.
Light
House
Greek
The Minorities Are Sometimes Right. The Majorities Never.
Majority
Minorities
Sometimes
There Is Nothing That Can Be Changed More Completely Than Human Nature When The Job Is Taken In Hand Early Enough.
Life
Success
Nature
I Am Oppressed With A Dread Of Living Forever. That Is The Only Disadvantage Of Vegetarianism.
Vegetarianism
Forever
Vegan Food
A Contract For Better For Worse Is A Contract That Should Not Be Tolerated.
Marriage
Should
Contracts
When You Prevent Me From Doing Anything I Want To Do, That Is Persecution; When I Prevent You From Doing Anything You Want To Do, That Is Law, Order, And Morals.
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Law
Want
There Is No Sincerer Love Than The Love Of Food.
Thanksgiving
Witty
Humorous
Nietzche . . . He Was A Confirmed Life Force Worshipper. It Was He Who Raked Up The Superman, Who Is As Old As Prometheus; And The 20th Century Will Run After This Newest Of The Old Crazes When It Gets Tired Of The World, The Flesh, And Your Humble Servant.
Running
Tired
Humble
Anarchism Is A Game At Which The Police Can Beat You.
Games
Political
Police
The Play Was A Great Success, But Audience Was A Dismal Failure.
Inspirational
Funny
Play
We Live In An Atmosphere Of Shame. We Are Ashamed Of Everything That Is Real About Us; Ashamed Of Ourselves, Of Our Relatives, Of Our Incomes, Of Our Accents, Of Our Opinions, Of Our Experience, Just As We Are Ashamed Of Our Naked Skins.
Real
Atmosphere
Skins
Don't Order Any Black Things. Rejoice In His Memory; And Be Radiant: Leave Grief To The Children. Wear Violet And Purple. Be Patient With The Poor People Who Will Snivel: They Don't Know; And They Think They Will Live For Ever, Which Makes Death A Division Instead Of A Bond.
Memories
Children
Grief
Consistency Is The Enemy Of Enterprise, Just As Symmetry Is The Enemy Of Art.
Inspirational
Life
Art
All Great Truth First Starts As Blasphemy.
Firsts
Blasphemy
At Present, Intelligent People Do Not Have Their Children Vaccinated, Nor Does The Law Now Compel Them To. The Result Is Not, As The Jennerians Prophesied, The Extermination Of The Human Race By Smallpox; On The Contrary More People Are Now Killed By Vaccination Than By Smallpox.
Children
Intelligent
Race
A Man Of Genius Is Not A Man Who Sees More Than Other Men Do. On The Contrary, It Is Very Often Found That He Is Absentminded Andobserves Much Less Than Other People.... Why Is It That The Public Have Such An Exaggerated Respect For Him--after He Is Dead? The Reason Is That The Man Of Genius Understands The Importance Of The Few Things He Sees.
Men
People
Genius
The Only Way For A Woman To Provide For Herself Decently Is For Her To Be Good To Some Man That Can Afford To Be Good To Her.
Men
Way
Be Good
Communism, Being The Lay Form Of Catholicism, And Indeed Meaning The Same Thing, Has Never Had Any Lack Of Chaplains.
Communism
Form
Chaplains
Let Wife And Child Perish, And Lay Bricks For Your Last Crust, Rather Than Part With An Iota Of Your [copy]rights.
Children
Rights
Wife
The Truth Sticks In Our Throats With All The Sauces It Is Served With: It Will Never Go Down Until We Take It Without Any Sauce At All.
Sauce
Sticks
Throat
Whenever An Obviously Well Founded Statement Is Made In England By A Person Specially Well Acquainted With The Facts, That Unlucky Person Is Instantly And Frantically Contradicted By All The People Who Obviously Know Nothing About It.
People
Facts
England
In Your Dread Of Dictators You Established A State Of Society In Which Every Ward Boss Is A Dictator, Every Private Employer A Dictator, Every Financier A Dictator, All With The Livelihood Of The Workers At His Mercy, And No Public Responsibility.
Responsibility
Boss
Revolution
Justice Is Impartiality. Only Strangers Are Impartial.
Justice
Stranger
Impartiality
Imprisonment, As It Exists Today, Is A Worse Crime Than Any Of Those Committed By Its Victims.
Society
Today
Crime
A Life Spent Making Mistakes Is Not Only More Honorable, But More Useful Than A Life Spent Doing Nothing.
Inspirational
Life
Motivational
Property Is Organized Robbery.
Robbery
Organized
Property
We All Go About Longing For Love: It Is The First Need Of Our Natures, The Loudest Cry Of Our Hearts.
Heart
Firsts
Needs
The Fickleness Of The Women I Love Is Only Equalled By The Infernal Constancy Of The Women Who Love Me.
Love
Women
Constancy
The Most Sincere Form Of Love Is Love For Food
Food
Love Is
Sincere
All Classes In Proportion To Their Lack Of Travel And Familiarity With Foreign Literature Are Bellicose, Prejudiced Against Foreigners, Fond Of Fighting As A Cruel Sport - In Short, Dog-like In Their Notions Of Foreign Policy.
Sports
Dog
Travel
Alcohol Is A Very Necessary Article. It Enables Parliament To Do Things At Eleven At Night That No Sane Person Would Do At Eleven In The Morning.
Morning
Drinking
Food
I Never Resist Temptation, Because I Have Found That Things That Are Bad For Me Do Not Tempt Me.
Humorous
Profound
Temptation
Hell Is Full Of Musical Amateurs.
Music
Clever
Hell
It Is The First Duty Of Every Man Not To Be Poor.
Men
Firsts
Poor
Deep Knowledge Is Not Knowledge Of The Thing Itself, But Knowledge Of A Thing Like The Thing. Then, You Gain Not One Knowledge, But Two Knowledges. Of The Thing. And Of The Original Thing With Is Like The Thing. Which Is The Barbarism Of The Privileged Class.
Class
Two
Gains
Marriage Is An Alliance Entered Into By A Man Who Can't Sleep With The Window Shut, And A Woman Who Can't Sleep With The Window Open.
Funny
Anniversary
Marriage
People Always Get Tired Of One Another. I Grow Tired Of Myself Whenever I Am Left Alone For Ten Minutes, And I Am Certain That I Am Fonder Of Myself Than Anyone Can Be Of Another Person.
Tired
People
Human Nature
My Reputation Grows With Every Failure.
Failure
Reputation
Learning From Failure
Reading Made Don Quixote A Gentleman, But Believing What He Read Made Him Mad.
Crazy
Believe
Reading
The Notion That Persons Should Be Safe From Extermination As Long As They Do Not Commit Willful Murder, Or Levy War Against The Crown, Or Kidnap, Or Throw Vitriol, Is Not Only To Limit Social Responsibility Unnecessarily, And To Privilege The Large Range Of Intolerable Misconduct That Lies Outside Them, But To Divert Attention From The Essential Justification For Extermination, Which Is Always Incorrigible Social Incompatibility And Nothing Else.
War
Lying
Responsibility
It Is The End Of Happiness And The Beginning Of Peace.
Broken Heart
Heartbreak
Heartache
If 'pygmalion' Is Not Good Enough For Your Friends With Its Own Verbal Music, Their Talent Must Be Altogether Extraordinary.
Pygmalion
Not Good Enough
Talent
Science Becomes Dangerous Only When It Imagines That It Has Reached Its Goal.
Science
Imagination
Goal
It Was From Handel That I Learned That Style Consists In Force Of Assertion.
Style
Force
Handel
There Are Two Things Necessary To Salvation.... Money And Gunpowder.
Two
Gunpowder
Salvation
Remember That The Progress Of The World Depends On Your Knowing Better Than Your Elders.
Knowing Better
Progress
World
Hell Is Not All Paved With Bad Intentions.
Hell
Intention
Bad Intentions
In The Middle Ages People Believed That The Earth Was Flat, For Which They Had At Least The Evidence Of Their Senses: We Believe It To Be Round, Not Because As Many As 1 Percent Of Us Could Give Physical Reasons For So Quaint A Belief, But Because Modern Science Has Convinced Us That Nothing That Is Obvious Is True, And That Everything That Is Magical, Improbable, Extraordinary, Gigantic, Microscopic, Heartless, Or Outrageous Is Scientific.
Believe
Science
Giving
What Is Both Surprising And Delightful Is That The Spectators Are Allowed, And Even Expected, To Join In The Vocal Part Of The Game...there Is No Reason Why The Field Should Not Try To Put The Batsman Off His Stroke At The Critical Moment By Neatly Timed Disparagements Of His Wife's Fidelity And His Mother's Respectability.
Baseball
Mother
Games
Not Everybody Is Strong Enough To Endure Life Without An Anesthetic. Drink Probably Averts More Gross Crime Than It Causes.
Strong
Causes
Drink
We Have In England A Curious Belief In First-rate People, Meaning All The People We Do Not Know; And This Consoles Us For The Undeniable Second-rateness Of The People We Do Know.
People
Luck
Firsts
Even A Vortex Is A Vortex In Something. You Can't Have A Whirlpool Without Water; And You Can't Have A Vortex Without Gas, Or Molecules Or Atoms Or Ions Or Electrons Or Something, Not Nothing.
Ions
Water
Molecules
The English Have No Respect For Their Language, And Will Not Teach Their Children To Speak It. They Spell It So Abominably That No Man Can Teach Himself What It Soundslike.it Isimpossible Foran Englishmanto Openhis Mouth Without Making Some Other Englishman Hate Or Despise Him.
Children
Hate
Men
Not Until He Acquires European Manners Does The American Anarchist Become The Gentleman Who Assures You That People Cannot Be Mademoral By Act Of Parliament (the Truth Being That It Is Only By Acts Of Parliament That Men In Large Communities Can Be Made Moral, Even When They Want To).
Men
Law
People
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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