George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, act III, in Selected Plays with Prefaces, vol. 3, p. 418 (1948). Apollodorus is speaking to Cleopatra.

Majesty: when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

— George Bernard Shaw on Duty

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Majesty: when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." in the context of "George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra, act III, in Selected Plays with Prefaces, vol. 3, p. 418 (1948). Apollodorus is speaking to Cleopatra." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Duty" (Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
George Bernard Shaw

About George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist with a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory. He wrote more than sixty plays, including such works as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.