Daily Inspiration Quote by George Bernard Shaw

Shaw’s line slices patriotism down to its least flattering ingredient: accident. Not shared values, not earned loyalty, just the cosmic lottery of birthplace dressed up as moral certainty. The insult isn’t subtle, and that’s the point. As a dramatist and professional contrarian, Shaw treats “superior to all others” like a punchline whose setup is embarrassingly thin: because you were born in it. He exposes how quickly pride can become a logic-free alibi.

The intent is less to banish affection for one’s home than to shame the reflex that turns identity into hierarchy. Shaw’s subtext is psychological: people crave belonging, and nations are big, ready-made families. Patriotism, in this framing, becomes a socially acceptable way to say “my side” while pretending it’s reasoned judgment. The quote needles the self-congratulation hiding inside civic slogans, the way “we” quietly slides into “better than.”

Context matters: Shaw writes from an era when nationalism was hardening into the politics of mass persuasion, imperial competition, and eventually total war. Britain’s imperial confidence offered constant opportunities for smugness; Europe’s rising national mythologies offered even worse. Shaw’s wit is doing moral work here, using compression and sarcasm to make a dangerous habit look small and silly. He’s warning that the grand language of country can be powered by the pettiest of causes: sheer proximity to a flag.