Shaw's emotional development was one with his intellectual strength. His path led him into the thick of the scrimmage, where more spontaneous natures defend themselves with the usual weapons of malice, humility, bad temper or conceit. But Shaw used the death ray of imperturbability. His feelings were never hurt, his envy never aroused, his conceit was a transparent fiction, he never quarreled." - Meaning and context.">
II
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Shaw's emotional development was one with his intellectual strength. His path led him into the thick of the scrimmage, where more spontaneous natures defend themselves with the usual weapons of malice, humility, bad temper or conceit. But Shaw used the death ray of imperturbability. His feelings were never hurt, his envy never aroused, his conceit was a transparent fiction, he never quarreled.

— Jacques Barzun

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Shaw's emotional development was one with his intellectual strength. His path led him into the thick of the scrimmage, where more spontaneous natures defend themselves with the usual weapons of malice, humility, bad temper or conceit. But Shaw used the death ray of imperturbability. His feelings were never hurt, his envy never aroused, his conceit was a transparent fiction, he never quarreled." in the context of "II" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Jacques Barzun" (Quotes, Bernard Shaw in Twilight (1943): First published in The Kenyon Review (Summer 1943)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Jacques Barzun

About Jacques Barzun

Jacques Barzun (November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-born American scholar, historian, critic, teacher and editor.