Thursday, March 03, 2005

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS!

This was fantastic and I never knew it existed before! In this truly rare video clip on the Nobel Prize site, George Bernard Shaw proposes a toast to Albert Einstein. One great man to another.

And it is incredible. Shaw, with his characteristic eloquence and penetrating candor says,
"If I were asked to propose a toast to Napoleon, I can undoubtedly say many very flattering things about him. But one thing which I could not say, would be perhaps the most important thing. And that is, that it would perhaps have been better for the human race, if he had never been born"!

Absolutely brilliant!! Wow! Shaw sure should have been around during the last US election!

In another witty statement, Shaw makes clear in one stroke, the distinction between fleeting moments and permanent monuments:
"Einstein is among those men who have not made empires, but who have gone beyond that, who have made the Universe. They are among those whose hands are unstained by the blood of their fellow men. Ptolemy's Universe lasted for fourteen hundred years. Newton's Universe lasted for two hundred years. I can't tell you how long Einstein's Universe is going to last..."

I watched the clip again and again, and am going to remember it for a long time indeed . Particularly delightful are Einstein's hearty and loud laughs at Shaw's statements. The brevity, liveliness and candor of the whole short piece is simply marvelous. Do have a look at it!

3 Comments:

Blogger Sumedha said...

I agree :-)
I am a huge fan of G.B. Shaw's.
Self-advertisement:
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2004_07_01_fromhelicon_archive.html

7:37 AM  
Blogger Wavefunction said...

Yes. I remember reading your review and thoughts. They were very good :-)
I LOVE his 'Pygmalion'

7:40 AM  
Blogger Sumedha said...

There were so many subtleties in the play that 'My Fair Lady' glossed over. I wonder what Shaw thought about the movie?

8:00 AM  

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