Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Self-sacrifice can be used as a moral excuse to justify harming others.
- In plain terms
- Claiming you sacrificed yourself makes it easier to hurt people without feeling guilty.
- What can you take from it?
- Be wary when self-sacrifice is used to justify harm.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When does sacrifice become an excuse?
- Who benefits from the sacrifice?
Another view
Some self-sacrifice is genuine and not used to justify harm.
More from George Bernard Shaw
Two starving men cannot be twice as hungry as one; but two rascals can be ten times as vicious as one.
Permalink to quote #125 What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
Permalink to quote #127 Happiness and beauty are by-products.
Permalink to quote #124
Related quotes
A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau quote #2 Any community's arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necess…
Lois McMaster BujoldLois McMaster Bujold quote #6 Fay: The Ten Commandments. She was a great believer in some of them.
Joe OrtonJoe Orton quote #7