Then there came a very intelligent gentleman named Adolf Hitler and he, knowing perfectly well that the powers would not fight, he snapped his fingers at the Treaty of Versailles. Just exactly as if we in England had been in the same position. As if the powers had beaten us and sat on our head." - Meaning and context.">
From an interview (1935), as cited in James Curran, Anthony Smith and Pauline Wingate (eds.) Impacts and Influences: Media Power in the Twentieth Century (Taylor & Francis, 1987), pp. 90-91 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-iy-9m9SU

The news from Germany is the very best news that we have had since the war. Ever since 1918 we, like all the other powers, have been behaving just as badly as we possibly could. Well now, when Germany fell, they want and they sat on Germany's head and they kept sitting on Germany's head, although it was quite preposterous, quite evident to any sensible persona, that they couldn't go on like that forever. Then there came a very intelligent gentleman named Adolf Hitler and he, knowing perfectly well that the powers would not fight, he snapped his fingers at the Treaty of Versailles. Just exactly as if we in England had been in the same position. As if the powers had beaten us and sat on our head.

— George Bernard Shaw

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The news from Germany is the very best news that we have had since the war. Ever since 1918 we, like all the other powers, have been behaving just as badly as we possibly could. Well now, when Germany fell, they want and they sat on Germany's head and they kept sitting on Germany's head, although it was quite preposterous, quite evident to any sensible persona, that they couldn't go on like that forever. Then there came a very intelligent gentleman named Adolf Hitler and he, knowing perfectly well that the powers would not fight, he snapped his fingers at the Treaty of Versailles. Just exactly as if we in England had been in the same position. As if the powers had beaten us and sat on our head." in the context of "From an interview (1935), as cited in James Curran, Anthony Smith and Pauline Wingate (eds.) Impacts and Influences: Media Power in the Twentieth Century (Taylor & Francis, 1987), pp. 90-91 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW-iy-9m9SU" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "George Bernard Shaw" (Quotes, 1930s) 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.