Saint Joan

By George Bernard Shaw QUOTATION: We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Poulengey, in Saint Joan, sc. 1.

QUOTATION: The degree of tolerance attainable at any moment depends on the strain under which society is maintaining its cohesion.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo–Irish playwright, critic. (1924). Saint Joan, preface, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).

QUOTATION: Joan: I hear voices telling me what to do. They come from God. Robert: They come from your imagination. Joan: Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (First produced 1923). Saint Joan, sc. 1, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).

QUOTATION: It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Saint Joan, preface (1923).

QUOTATION: The law of God is a law of change, and ... when the Churches set themselves against change as such, they are setting themselves against the law of God.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (1924). Saint Joan, preface, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).

QUOTATION: The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (First produced 1923). Bishop Cauchon, in Saint Joan, epilogue, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).

QUOTATION: There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (First produced 1923). Earl of Warwick, in Saint Joan, sc. 4, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).

QUOTATION: 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.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. The nobleman, in Saint Joan, sc. 4.

QUOTATION: A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles. They may seem very wonderful to the people who witness them, and very simple to those who perform them. That does not matter: if they confirm or create faith they are true miracles.
ATTRIBUTION: George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (First produced 1923). The Archbishop, in Saint Joan, sc. 2, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 6, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1973).