George Bernard Shaw
You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners.
Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.
Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven't got it.
Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
"Do you know what a pessimist is?" "A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it."
Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Lack of money is the root of all evil.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than saying a drunken man is happier than a sober man.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.
Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
It is most unwise for people in love to marry.
The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful.
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
He who has never hoped can never despair.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
Hell is full of musical amateurs.
Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.
I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and , if they can't find them, make them.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
Majesty: when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares it as his duty.
A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.
Liberty also means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
I’d like to be the person I could have been but never was.
Successful people in this world are those who get up and look for circumstances they want. If they can't find them, they make them.
Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich--something for nothing.
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.
If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a footrule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.
Hell is to drift; heaven is to steer.
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends.
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means.There is no such thing in the country.
History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.
A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
