Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw
page 21 of 239 (08%)
rule to do at least one kind action every day, feel very much as I
should if I heard them persuade children to get drunk at least
once every day? Apart from the initial absurdity of accepting as
permanent a state of things in which there would be in this
country misery enough to supply occasion for several thousand
million kind actions per annum, the effect on the character of the
doers of the actions would be so appalling, that one month of any
serious attempt to carry out such counsels would probably bring
about more stringent legislation against actions going beyond the
strict letter of the law in the way of kindness than we have now
against excess in the opposite direction.

There is no more dangerous mistake than the mistake of supposing
that we cannot have too much of a good thing. The truth is, an
immoderately good man is very much more dangerous than an
immoderately bad man: that is why Savonarola was burnt and John of
Leyden torn to pieces with red-hot pincers whilst multitudes of
unredeemed rascals were being let off with clipped ears, burnt
palms, a flogging, or a few years in the galleys. That is why
Christianity never got any grip of the world until it virtually
reduced its claims on the ordinary citizen's attention to a couple
of hours every seventh day, and let him alone on week-days. If the
fanatics who are preoccupied day in and day out with their
salvation were healthy, virtuous, and wise, the Laodiceanism of
the ordinary man might be regarded as a deplorable shortcoming;
but, as a matter of fact, no more frightful misfortune could
threaten us than a general spread of fanaticism. What people call
goodness has to be kept in check just as carefully as what they
call badness; for the human constitution will not stand very much
of either without serious psychological mischief, ending in
DigitalOcean Referral Badge