How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line)
Quote #1
You see, Stephen, your father must be fabulously wealthy, because there is always a war going on somewhere. (1.39)
In the first Act, Lady Brit gets right to the point and acquaints us with her central dilemma: she needs money, and her estranged hubby has plenty of it because he makes weapons (the demand for which is always pretty high, she says). Mankind's violent tendencies and the moral quandaries involved in feeding those tendencies are pretty frequent topics in the play.
Quote #2
It is not only the cannons, but the war loans that Lazarus arranges under cover of giving credit for the cannons. You know, Stephen, it's perfectly scandalous. Those two men, Andrew Undershaft and Lazarus, positively have Europe under their thumbs. That is why your father is able to behave as he does. He is above the law. Do you think Bismarck or Gladstone or Disraeli could have openly defied every social and moral obligation all their lives as your father has? They simply wouldn't have dared. I asked Gladstone to take it up. I asked The Times to take it up. I asked the Lord Chamberlain to take it up. But it was just like asking them to declare war on the Sultan. They wouldn't. They said they couldn't touch him. I believe they were afraid. (1.41)
Lady Brit goes on to outline just how powerful Undershaft and his partner, Lazarus, are in England (and the world) because they make weapons. If Lady Brit is to be believed, some pretty big-deal English politicians were cowed by the power of these men and refused to go after Undershaft for having "openly defied every social and moral obligation all their lives."
Quote #3
LOMAX [leniently]: Well, the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will be abolished, eh?
UNDERSHAFT: Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. No, Mr Lomax, I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil, and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My morality—my religion—must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it. (1.212-213)
Undershaft doesn't seem to be an especially violent man, but what sets him apart from his family is that he absolutely believes that violence will exist regardless of what he does . . . So, according to his view, he might as well not end up bankrupt from idealism.