RobinZ comments on Rationality Quotes: October 2009 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 October 2009 04:06PM

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Comment author: RobinZ 22 October 2009 04:46:10PM *  28 points [-]

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

Edit: The full citation is to his 1903 play Man and superman: a comedy and a philosophy, where the character John Tanner ("M.I.R.C., Member of the Idle Rich Class") says:

Yes, because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the old footing. I had become a new person ; and those who knew the old person laughed at me. The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor : he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.