All great truths begin as blasphemies. — George Bernard Shaw

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Insight: We tend to think of truth as something ancient and settled, handed down intact like a family heirloom. But Shaw's observation flips this. Every idea we now treat as obvious—that women should vote, that slavery is wrong, that the Earth orbits the sun—was once considered dangerous nonsense. Someone had to say it first, knowing most people would recoil. This matters because it explains why we feel so resistant to certain ideas today. That resistance isn't always a sign we're right to dismiss them. Sometimes it's just the normal human response to anything that threatens our current worldview. The things that make us most uncomfortable—about how we work, raise kids, think about success, or treat each other—might contain kernels of truth we're not ready for yet. The tricky part is that not every blasphemy becomes truth, and not every unpopular idea deserves respect just for being unpopular. But Shaw's point is simpler: if you want to spot where genuine change might be coming, look for the claims that make people angry rather than thoughtful. That's often where the real conversation needs to happen.

Source: Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress, 1918