Famous Quotes by George Bernard Shaw
Below are famous quotes by George Bernard Shaw - Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 - 1950).
A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.
A pessimist thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
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.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
All my life, affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.
All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
An institution which is populare because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.
Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.
Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it.
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
England and America are two countries seperated by the same language.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.
Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.
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.
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.
Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich--something for nothing.
He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.
He who has never hoped can never despair.
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
Hell is full of musical amateurs.
Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.
I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
If more than ten percent of the population likes a painting it should be burned, for it must be bad.
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.
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
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.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
It is most unwise for people in love to marry
It is most unwise for people in love to marry.
It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.
Lack of money is the root of all evil.
Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols, or bombs without incurring any penalties.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Life is a disease; and the only diference between one another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.
Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful.
Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.
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.
Nobel prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.
Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Success covers a multitude of blunders.
Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.
The 100% American is 99% an idiot.
The chief objection of playing wind instruments is that it prolongs the life of the player.
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.
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
The love of money is the root of all virtue.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
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.
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.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist.
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...
To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.
We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.
What God hath joined together no man shall put asunder: God will take care of that.
What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
What is virtue but the trades unionism of the married.
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.
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
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.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
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