Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Shaw compliments Americans on their strong instinctual political understanding.
In plain terms
He thinks Americans have a natural gift for politics.
What can you take from it?
Trust your natural instincts in public affairs.

Where it applies

  • political speech
  • national pride
  • civic duty

Putting it to work

  • trust intuition
  • engage civically
  • value national identity

Questions to consider

  • Can instinct guide politics well?
  • Do all people have political instinct?

Another view

Instincts can sometimes lead to flawed decisions.

More from George Bernard Shaw

  1. An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country.

    Permalink to quote #32

  2. The quality of a play is the quality of its ideas.

    Permalink to quote #34

  3. I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot.

    Permalink to quote #31

Related quotes

  1. 'My late mother used to say that it did not matter if you came to this country on the Mayflower or a slave ship, across the Rio Grande or through Ellis Island;…

    Carol Moseley BraunCarol Moseley Braun quote #1

  2. If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fe…

    Howard ZinnHoward Zinn quote #2

  3. The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.

    Spiro AgnewSpiro Agnew quote #4