George Bernard Shaw

“ LADY UTTERWORD. Why is Randall such an obvious rotter? He is well bred; he has been at a public school and a university; he has been in the Foreign Office; he knows the best people and has lived all his life among them. Why is he so unsatisfactory, so contemptible? Why can't he get a valet to stay with him longer than a few months? Just because he is too lazy and pleasure-loving to hunt and shoot. He strums the piano, and sketches, and runs after married women, and reads literary books and poems. He actually plays the flute; but I never let him bring it into my house. ”

“ CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. It had better be lost. Any fool can govern with a stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is not God's way. The man is a numskull.
LADY UTTERWORD. The man is worth all of you rolled into one. What do you say, Miss Dunn?
ELLIE. I think my father would do very well if people did not put upon him and cheat him and despise him because he is so good.
MANGAN [contemptuously] . I think I see Mazzini Dunn getting into parliament or pushing his way into the Government. ”

“ But, you know, though the people in the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except, of course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to. Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things considered. ”

“ It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play at earthquakes with.
MAZZINI. I know. I used often to think about that when I was young.
HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do something?
MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote pamphlets. That was all I could do. ”

“ MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing.
ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That they don't exist?
MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make them pay. ”

“ What a lovely night! It seems made for us.
HECTOR. The night takes no interest in us. What are we to the night? ”

“ ELLIE. No. Only the last thing the captain said before he went to sleep.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. I'm not asleep.
HECTOR. Randall is. Also Mr Mazzini Dunn. Mangan, too, probably.
MANGAN. No.
HECTOR. Oh, you are there. I thought Hesione would have sent you to bed by this time.
MRS HUSHABYE [coming to the back of the garden seat, into the light, with Mangan] . I think I shall. He keeps telling me he has a presentiment that he is going to die. I never met a man so greedy for sympathy.
MANGAN [plaintively] . But I have a presentiment. I really have. And you wouldn't listen. ”

“ MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the rocks.
MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you, they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until she is lost in the light as othe r things are lost in the darkness. ”

“ I never lived until I learned to ride; and I shall never ride really well because I didn't begin as a child. There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes. It isn't mere convention: everybody can see that the people who hunt are the right people and the people who don't are the wrong ones.
CAPTAIN SHO TOVER. There is some truth in this. My ship made a man of me; and a ship is the horse of the sea.
LADY UTTERWORD. Exactly how Hastings explained your being a gentleman. ”

“ Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of the household; ”

“ We've stripped ourselves morally naked: well, let us strip ourselves physically naked as well, and see how we like it. I tell you I can't bear this. I was brought up to be respectable. I don't mind the women dyeing their hair and the men drinking: it's human nature. ”

“ ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and Shakespeare. Marcus's tigers are false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; there is nothing really strong and true about Hesione but her beautiful black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration ”

“ Even on the lies of Marcus there is a blessing; but on Mr Mangan's money there is none.
MANGAN. I don't understand a word of that.
ELLIE. Neither do I. But I know it means something.
MANGAN. Don't say there was any difficulty about the blessing. I was ready to get a bishop to marry us.
MRS HUSHABYE. Isn't he a fool, pettikins?
HECTOR [fiercely] . Do not scorn the man. We are all fools.
Mazzini, in pyjamas and a richly colored silk dressing gown, comes from the house, on Lady Utterword's side. MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! here comes the only man who ever resisted me. What's the matter, Mr Dunn? ”

“ The captain is in his bunk, drinking bottled ditch-water; and the crew is gambling in the forecastle. She will strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in favor of England because you were born in it? ”