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The Popular Definition Of Tragedy Is Heavy Drama In Which Everyone Is Killed In The Last Act, Comedy Being Light Drama In Which Everyone Is Married In The Last Act.
-George Bernard Shaw
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The Popular Definition Of

George Bernard Shaw
The Popular Definition Of Tragedy Is Heavy Drama In Which Everyone Is Killed In The Last Act, Comedy Being Light Drama In Which Everyone Is Married In The Last Act.
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Topic
Drama
Light
Tragedy
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Ignorance
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Hunting
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Curiosity
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Typical
Capitalist
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Real
Self
Breathing
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Love
Inspirational
Life
We Should Have Had Socialism Already, But For The Socialists, Am Quite Willing To Drop The Name If Dropping It Will Help Me To Get The Thing.
Should Have
Socialism
Should
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Women
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Brain
If You Begin By Sacrificing Yourself To Those You Love, You Will End By Hating Those To Whom You Have Sacrificed Yourself.
Hate
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Sacrifice
Journalists Are Too Poorly Paid In This Country To Know Anything That Is Fit For Publication.
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Journalist
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Compassion Is The Fellow-feeling Of The Unsound.
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Money Is A Most Important Thing In The World.
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When A Man Teaches Something He Does Not Know To Somebody Else Who Has No Aptitude For It, And Gives Him A Certificate Of Proficiency, The Latter Has Completed The Education Of A Gentleman.
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Giving
Gentleman
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Two
Mouths
To Me The Sole Hope Of Human Salvation Lies In Teaching.
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Teacher
As Well Consult A Butcher On The Value Of Vegetarianism As A Doctor On The Worth Of Vaccination.
Doctors
Vegetarianism
Vaccines
My Rank Is The Highest Known In Switzerland: I'm A Free Citizen.
Switzerland
Citizens
Known
Decency Is Indecency's Conspiracy Of Silence
Silence
Conspiracy
Decency
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Law
Hypocrisy
The Most Revolutionary Invention Of The Nineteenth Century Was The Artificial Sterilization Of Marriage.
Revolutionary
Invention
Century
The Practical Question, Then, Is What To Do With The Children. Tolerate Them At Home We Will Not. Let Them Run Loose In The Streets We Dare Not Until Our Streets Become Safe Places For Children, Which, To Our Utter Shame, They Are Not At Present, Though They Can Hardly Be Worse Than Some Homes And Some Schools.
Running
Children
Home
A Day's Work Is A Day's Work, Neither More Nor Less, And The Man Or Woman Who Does It Needs A Day's Sustenance, A Night's Repose And Due Leisure, Whether They Be Painter Or Ploughman.
Hard Work
Night
Men
We Sing In A Church, Why Can We Not Dance There?
Church
Why Not
Rebellious
During The Suffragette Revolt Of 1913 I[urged] That What Was Needed Was Not The Vote, But A Constitutional Amendment Enactingthat All Representative Bodies Shall Consist Of Women And Men In Equal Numbers, Whether Elected Or Nominated Or Coopted Or Registered Or Picked Up In The Street Like A Coroner's Jury. In The Case Of Elected Bodies The Only Way Of Effecting This Is By The Coupled Vote. The Representative Unit Must Not Be A Man Or A Woman But A Man And A Woman.
Women
Numbers
Body
A Man Of Great Common Sense And Good Taste - Meaning Thereby A Man Without Originality Or Moral Courage.
Courage
Men
Common Sense
How Can What An Englishman Believes Be Hearsay? It Is A Contradiction In Terms.
Believe
Rebellious
Contradiction
I Often Quote Myself. It Adds Spice To My Conversation.
Book
Beer
Self
The Longer I Live, The More Convinced Am I That This Planet Is Used By Other Planets As A Lunatic Asylum.
Lunatic Asylums
Used
Planets
There Was Only One Virtue, Pugnacity; Only One Vice, Pacifism. That Is An Essential Condition Of War.
War
Vices
Essentials
Am Reserving Two Tickets For You For My Premiere. Come And Bring A Friend - If You Have One. Telegram Inviting Winston Churchill To Opening Night Of Pygmalion. Churchill Wired Back: Impossible To Be Present For The First Performance. Will Attend The Second - If There Is One.
Friendship
Night
Pygmalion
Hypocrisy ... Is Only Bad When It Is Improperly Used.
Hypocrisy
Used
Bourgeois Morality Is Largely A System Of Making Cheap Virtues A Cloak For Expensive Vices.
Vices
Morality
Virtue
That Is What All Poets Do: They Talk To Themselves Out Loud; And The World Overhears Them. But It's Horribly Lonely Not To Hear Someone Else Talk Sometimes.
Lonely
Poetry
World
A Man's Interest In The World Is Only An Overflow From His Interest In Himself.
Men
Curiosity
World
What Is Self-control? It Is Nothing But A Highly Developed Vital Sense, Dominating And Regulating The Mere Appetites. To Overlook The Very Existence Of This Supreme Sense; To Miss The Obvious Inference That It Is The Quality That Distinguishes The Fittest To Survive.
Self
Self Control
Quality
In An Article On Bunyan Lately Published In The "contemporary Review" - The Only Article On The Subject Worth Reading On The Subject I Ever Saw (yes, Thank You, I Am Familiar With Macaulay's Patronizing Prattle About "the Pilgrim's Progress") Etc.
Reading
Progress
Saws
Liberty Means Responsibility. That Is Why Most Men Dread It.
Inspirational
Freedom
Fear
Never Believe Anything A Writer Tells You About Himself. A Man Comes To Believe In The End The Lies He Tells Himself About Himself.
Lying
Believe
Writing
Our Ideals, Like The Gods Of Old, Are Constantly Demanding Human Sacrifices.
Sacrifice
Humans
Ideals
Man Is The Only Animals Of Which I Am Thoroughly And Cravenly Afraid.
Animal
Humans
Human Beings
Poverty Does Not Produce Unhappiness: It Produces Degradation.
Doe
Degradation
Poverty
I Can't Control What Life Did To Me, But I Can Control How I React. Therein Lies The Difference.
Lying
Differences
I Can
Any Man Who Is Not A Communist At The Age Of Twenty Is A Fool. Any Man Who Is Still A Communist At The Age Of Thirty Is An Even Bigger Fool.
Men
Age
Twenties
Freedom, My Good Girl, Means Being Able To Count On How Other People Will Behave.
Girl
Freedom
Mean
My Main Reason For Adopting Literature As A Profession Was That, As The Author Is Never Seen By His Clients, He Need Not Dress Respectably.
Literature
Clients
Dresses
We Are Told That When Jehovah Created The World He Saw That It Was Good What Would He Say Now
Environmental
World
Jehovah
Science Is Always Simple And Always Profound. It Is Only The Half-truths That Are Dangerous.
Science
Simple
Profound
In A Battle All You Need To Make You Fight Is A Little Hot Blood And The Knowledge That It's More Dangerous To Lose Than To Win.
Fighting
Winning
Blood
The Real Brahms Is Nothing More Than A Sentimental Voluptuary. Rather Tiresomely Addicted To Dressing Himself Up As Handel Or Beethoven And Making A Prolonged And Intolerable Noise.
Real
Noise
Sentimental
The Jews Generally Give Value. They Make You Pay; But They Deliver The Goods. In My Experience The Men Who Want Something For Nothing Are Invariably Christians.
Christian
Men
Want Something
Life Contains But Two Tragedies. One Is Not To Get Your Heart's Desire; The Other Is To Get It.
Life
Wisdom
Philosophical
Lack Of Money Is The Root Of Of All Evil.
Money
Roots
Greatest Wealth
No Sooner Had Jesus Knocked Over The Dragon Of Superstition Than Paul Boldly Set It On Its Legs Again In The Name Of Jesus.
Jesus
Dragons
Names
Affection Between Adults - If They Are Really Adult In Mind And Not Merely Grown Up Children - And Creatures So Relatively Selfish And Cruel As Children Necessarily Are Without Knowing It Or Meaning It, Cannot Be Called Natural.
Children
Selfish
Knowing
You Have Learnt Something. That Always Feels At First As If You Had Lost Something.
Inspirational
Education
Learning
Nothing Can Save Us From A Perpetual Headlong Fall Into A Bottomless Abyss But A Solid Footing Of Dogma; And We No Sooner Agree To That Than We Find That The Only Trustworthy Dogma Is That There Is No Dogma.
Fall
Dogma
Trustworthy
The Function Of Comedy Is To Dispelunconsciousness By Turning The Searchlight Of The Keenest Moral And Intellectual Analysisright On To It.
Intellectual
Comedy
Moral
In A Hospital They Throw You Out Into The Street Before You Are Half Cured, But In A Nursing Home They Don't Let You Out Till You Are Dead.
Home
Nursing
Half
Man Gives Every Reason For His Conduct Save One, Every Excuse For His Crimes Save One, Every Plea For His Safety Save One; And That One Is His Cowardice
Failure
Men
Giving
Who Is This Baby Ruth? And What Does She Do?
Funny
Baseball
Baby
Success Covers A Multitude Of Blunders.
Inspirational
Success
Congratulations
Where There Is No Knowledge Ignorance Calls Itself Science.
Ignorance
Knowledge
Science
The Only Time My Education Was Interrupted Was When I Was In School.
Funny
Senior
Time
The Reasonable Man Will Adjust To The Demands Of His Environment. The Unreasonable Man Expects His Environment To Adjust To His Own Needs. Therefore, All Progress Depends Upon The Unreasonable Man.
Men
Progress
Needs
Bible Worship, Though At Its Best It May Achieve Sublimity By Keeping Its Head In The Skies, May Also Make Itself Both Ridiculousand Dangerous By Having Its Feet Off The Ground.
Bible
Sky
Feet
Assassination Is The Extreme Form Of Censorship.
Death
Witty
Government
Be Like The Sun And Meadow, Which Are Not In The Least Concerned About The Coming Winter.
Winter
Sun
Meadows
The American Constitution, One Of The Few Modern Political Documents Drawn Up By Men Who Were Forced By The Sternest Circumstances To Think Out What They Really Had To Face, Instead Of Chopping Logic In A University Classroom.
Men
Thinking
Political
The Real Pleasure Of One's Life Is The Devotion To A Great Objective Of One's Consideration.
Real
Goal
Life Is
I'm Sick Of All The Reasonable People: They See All The Reasons For Doing Nothing
People
Sick
Doing Nothing
What You Are To Do Without Me I Cannot Imagine.
Imagine
I Learned Long Ago, Never To Wrestle With A Pig. You Get Dirty, And Besides, The Pig Likes It.
Dirty
Fighting
Naughty
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
Our Political Experiment Of Democracy, The Last Refuge Of Cheap Misgovernment.
Political
Democracy
Lasts
Everybody Who Does Not Live In A Prostitute's Bed And On A Diet Of Cocaine Snow Is Called An Ascetic Nowadays.
Snow
Bed
Doe
You Have Set Up In New York Harbor A Monstrous Idol Which You Call Liberty. The Only Thing That Remains To Complete That Monument Is To Put On Its Pedestal The Inscription Written By Dante On The Gate Of Hell: All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here.
New York
Idols
Liberty
When Men Die Of Disease They Are Said To Die From Natural Causes. When They Recover (and Mostly They Do) The Doctor Gets The Credit Of Curing Them.
Men
Doctors
Credit
If You Must Hold Yourself Up To Your Children As An Object Lesson, Hold Yourself Up As A Warning And Not As An Example.
Children
Parent
Example
In Order To Fully Realize How Bad A Popular Play Can Be, It Is Necessary To See It Twice.
Sarcastic
Sarcasm
Order
Instead Of Otello Being An Italian Opera Written In The Style Of Shakespeare, Othello Is A Play Written By Shakespeare In The Style Of Italian Opera.
Italian
Play
Style
God Is On The Side Of The Big Battalions.
Sides
Bigs
Total War
This Is My Father. Try What You Can With Him! He Won't Listen To Me, Because He Remembers What A Fool I Was When I Was A Baby.
Baby
Father
Trying
How You Ought Properly To Spell 'fish' In English: 'goti' .
Fishes
Ought
Spells
You'll Never Have A Quiet World Till You Knock The Patriotism Out Of The Human Race.
Peace
Patriotic
Race
The Perfect Love Affair Is One Which Is Conducted Entirely By Post.
Love
Funny
Humor
Napoleon: What Shall We Do With This Soldier, Giuseppe? Everything He Says Is Wrong. Giuseppe: Make Him A General, Excellency, And Then Everything He Says Will Be Right.
Funny
Humor
Soldier
You Don't Learn To Hold Your Own In The World By Standing On Guard, But By Attacking, And Getting Well Hammered Yourself.
Life
Get Well
Communication
There Is A Terrible Truthfulness About Photography That Sometimes Makes A Thing Look Ridiculous.
Photography
Looks
Ridiculous
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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