Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

“A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor liess, and the man who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means.There is no such thing in the country.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich--something for nothing.” -George Bernard Shaw

“Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Hell is full of musical amateurs.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Lack of money is the root of all evil.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.” -George Bernard Shaw

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” -George Bernard Shaw

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
-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.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Answers to Nine Questions"

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah" (1921), part 1, act 1

“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.” -George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman" (1903), act 4

“A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” -George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman" (1903), act I

“The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Man and Superman" (1903), act I

“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Misalliance"

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) act II

“There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893), act III

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "Pygmalion" (1913)

“One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.” -George Bernard Shaw, "The Apple Cart" (1930), act I

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" (1901), act II

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw, "You Never Can Tell" (1898), act I

“"Do you know what a pessimist is?" "A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it."”
-George Bernard Shaw, An Unsocial Socialist (1887) ch. 5

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska (1919)

“Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921) pt. 5

“He who has never hoped can never despair.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) act 4

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” -George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) Act III

“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.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Candida (1898) act 1

“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Candida (1898) act 1

“Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Everybody's Political What's What? (1944) ch. 9

“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Everybody's Political What's What? (1944) ch. 30

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.”
-George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island (1907) act 2

No comments: