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| George Bernard Shaw: born July 1856 died November 1950 was a renowned Irish playwright, journalist and critic |
Quotes by George Bernard Shaw
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity, no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it.
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one’s uncles.
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
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.
A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature.
The seven deadly sins… Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man’s neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted.
You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
When a lion meets another with a louder roar, the first lion thinks the last a bore.
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo.
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say. And then say it with the utmost levity.
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
“Martyrdom” is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
Life is a disease; and the only difference between on man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
Beware of the man who does not return your blow, for he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny; they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when the endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous.
Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination.
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.
Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
If parents would only realize how they bore their children.
I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.
The worst cliques are those which consist of one man.
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
Very few people can afford to be poor.
Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.
