Man and Superman: A Comedy and a PhilosophyBrentano's, 1903 - 244 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
ANARCHIST ANN rising artist beauty become believe better Biskra brain brigands century CHAUFFEUR civilization comes dare dear death DEVIL DON JUAN dream English Enry face father feel force gentleman goes Granny guardian hand happy heart heaven HECTOR hell Herbert Spencer hero honor human husband instinct Jack John Tanner labor lady libertine live looks Louisa MALONE man's marriage marry masters of reality matter mean Meliorist MENDOZA mind MISS RAMSDEN Miss Robinson Miss Whitefield Molière moral mother motor car murder natural never Nietzsche OCTAVIUS OLD WOMAN passion person philosopher play political poor Proletarian Democracy Rhoda rising romantic Señora sense shew Sierra sits social SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT sort soul STATUE STRAKER stupid Superman suppose talk TANNER Tavy tell things tion told true turns understand villa VIOLET whilst women writing table young
Popular passages
Page xxxii - This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
Page 84 - I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.
Page 227 - I will do unto others as I would they should do unto me.' 1903 GB SHAW Man & Superman 227 Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you.
Page 22 - Quite unscrupulous. The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art. To women he is half vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to study them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their inmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see visions and dream dreams,...
Page 238 - The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Page 22 - To women he is half vivisector, half vampire. He gets into intimate relations with them to study them, to strip the mask of convention from them, to surprise their inmost secrets, knowing that they have the power to rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue him from his cold reason, to make him see visions and dream dreams, to inspire him, as he calls it. He persuades women that they may do this for their own purpose whilst he really means them to do it for his.
Page 119 - I knew what she would be like in thirty years' time. I noted the gleam of gold from a dead tooth in the laughing mouth: I made curious observations of the strange odors of the chemistry of the nerves. The visions of my romantic reveries, in which I had trod the plains of heaven with a deathless, ageless creature of coral and ivory, deserted me in that supreme hour. I remembered them and desperately strove to recover their illusion; but they now seemed the emptiest of inventions: my judgment was not...
Page 134 - The philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.
Page 169 - I, who have always been an enigma and a possibility, shall be merely somebody else's property — and damaged goods at that: a secondhand man at best. ANN. Well, your wife can put on a cap and make herself ugly to keep you in countenance, like my grandmother. TANNER. So that she may make her triumph more insolent by publicly throwing away the bait the moment the trap snaps on the victim!
Page 87 - Instead of the Sierra there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. No sky, no peaks, no light, no sound, no time nor space, utter void. Then somewhere the beginning of a pallor, and with it a faint throbbing buzz as of a ghostly violoncello palpitating on the same note endlessly. A couple of ghostly violins presently take advantage of this bass CtUa r and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the void, an incorporeal but visible man, seated, absurdly enough, on nothing.