"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."
Liberty means responsibility. That is
why most men dread it.
"The worst sin towards our fellow
creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's
the essence of inhumanity."
"The fickleness of the women I love is
only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me." --
George Bernard Shaw, The Philanderer (1898), Act II
"If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience?"
All progress is initiated
by challenging current conceptions,
and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
There is no love sincerer than the love
of food.
To be in hell is to drift; to be in
heaven is to steer.
"The power of accurate observation is
commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
A fool's brain digests philosophy into
folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence
University education. -- G. B. Shaw
Democracy is a device that insures we
shall be governed no better than we deserve
Democracy is a form of government that
substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the
corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw
G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go
on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go
into his office and say to his secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw
this morning?' and when she says `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll
have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my
boy."
"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."
I often quote myself; it adds spice to
my conversation. -- G. B. Shaw
NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this
soldier,
Guiseppe? Everything he says is
wrong.
GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency,
and then everything he says will be right.
-- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of
Destiny"
The English have no respect for their
language, and will not teach their children to speak it. -- G. B.
Shaw
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.
There is no satisfaction in hanging a
man who does not object to it. -- G. B. Shaw
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.
"England and America are two countries
separated by the same language."
"A government that robs Peter to pay
Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul."
-- (1944), Everybody's Political What's
What? ch. 30
"A life spent making mistakes is not
only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing
nothing." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"He who can, does. He who cannot,
teaches."
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: Education'
"Hegel was right when he said that we
learn from history that man can never learn anything from history."
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless
you are also stupid."
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
"Lack of money is the root of all
evil."
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists'
"Martyrdom is the only way a person can
become famous without ability."
"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."
"Nothing is ever accomplished by a
reasonable man."
"The longer I live the more I see that
I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have
so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my
time."
"You see things and say 'Why?'; but I
dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?'"
"There are some experiences in life
which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is
listening to the Brahms Requiem."
"There is no sincerer love than the
love of food."
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music
is the brandy of the damned.
If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not an example.
I am not a teacher---only
a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way.
I pointed ahead---
ahead of myself
as well as of you.
Chess is a foolish expedient for making
idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they
are only wasting their time.
Do not try to live forever. You will
not succeed.
Do not waste your time on Social
Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the
matter with the rich is Uselessness.
Every man is a revolutionist concerning
the thing he understands. For example, every person who has mastered
a profession is a sceptic concerning it, and consequently a
revolutionist.
If you cannot get rid of the family
skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Patriotism is a pernicious,
psychopathic form of idiocy.
Patriotism is your conviction that this
country is superior to all others because you were born in
it.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman,
but 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.
She had lost the art of conversation,
but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict
without a single amiable trait.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive
could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
Man and Superman act 1,
(1903)
A miracle, my friend, is an event which
creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles. Frauds
deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it
is not a fraud, but a miracle.
Saint Joan sc. 2, (1924)
A strange lady giving an address in
Zurich wrote him [Shaw] a proposal, thus: `You have the
greatest brain in the world, and I have the most beautiful body; so
we ought to produce the most perfect child.' Shaw asked: `What if the
child inherits my body and your brains?'
in Hesketh Pearson _Bernard Shaw_ (1942)
p. 310
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.
_Major Barbara_ (1907) act 2
Anarchism is a game at which the police
can beat you.
_Misalliance_ (1914) p. 85
Do not do unto others as you would they
should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: The Golden Rule'
Englishmen never will be slaves: they
are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them
to do.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) act 3
Every man over forty is a
scoundrel.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
Gin was mother's milk to
her.
_Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
HIGGINS: Doolittle, you're either an honest man or a rogue. DOOLITTLE: A little of both, Guv'nor. Like the rest of us, a little of both. Pygmalion (1916)
He who has never hoped can never
despair.
_Caesar and Cleopatra_ (1901) act
4
I am a Millionaire. That is my
religion.
_Major Barbara_ (1907) act 2
I don't believe in morality. I am a
disciple of Bernard Shaw.
_The Doctor's Dillema_ (1911) act
3
I never resist temptation because I
have found things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
_The Apple Cart_ (1930)
interlude
How can what an Englishman believes be
heresy? It is a contradiction in terms.
_Saint Joan_ (1924) sc. 4
If parents would only realize how they
bore their own children!
_Misalliance_ (1914)
If you strike a child take care that
you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A
blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: How to Beat Children'
In heaven an angel is nobody in
particular.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: Greatness'
Is the devil to have all the passions
as well as all the good tunes?
_Man and Superman_ (1903) act 1
It's all the young can do for the old,
to shock them and keep them up to date.
_Fanny's First Play_ (1914)
`Induction'
MENDOZA: I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich. TANNER: I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. _Man and Superman_ act 3
Money is indeed the most important
thing in the world; and all the sound and successful personal and
national morality should have this fact for its basis.
_The Irrational Knot_ (1905) preface, p.
xiv
Must then a Christ perish in torment in
every age to save those that have no imagination?
_Saint Joan_ (1924) epilogue
My aunt died of influenza: so they
said. But it's my belief they done the old woman in.
_Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
No eggs! No eggs!! Thousand thunders,
man, what do you mean by no eggs?
_Saint Joan_ (1924) sc. 1
Nobody can say a word against Greek: it
stamps a man at once as an educated gentleman.
_Major Barbara_ (1907) act 1
One man that has a mind and knows it
can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
_The Apple Cart_ (1930) act 1
PICKERING: Have you no morals, man? DOOLITTLE: Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me _Pygmalion_ (1916) act 2
SWINDON: What will history say? BURGOYNE: History, sir, will tell lies as usual. _The Devil's Disciple_ (1901) act 3
Take care to get what you like, or you
will be forced to like what you get.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
The golden rule is that there are no
golden rules.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for
Revolutionists: The Golden Rule'
The thought of two thousand people
munching celery at the same time horrified me.
in G. Liebermann _The Greatest Laughs of
All Time_
Explaining why had turned down an
invitation to a vegetarian gala dinner.
They all thought she was dead; but my
father he kept ladling gin down her throat till she came to so sudden
that she bit the bowl of the spoon.
_Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of
creation. She sacrifices herself to it.
_Man and Superman_ (1903) act 1
Well, sir, you never can tell. Thats a
principle in life with me, sir. If youll excuse me having such a
thing, sir.
_You Never Can Tell_ (1898) act
2
What Englishmen will give his mind to
politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?
_The Apple Cart_ (1930) act 1
When a stupid man is doing something he
is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
_Caesar and Cleopatra_ (1901) act
3
Peace is not only better than war, but
infinitely more arduous.
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.
We must make the world honest before we
can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best
policy.
Life does not cease to be funny when
people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people
laugh.
Criminals do not die by the hands of
the law. They die by the hands of other men.
My way of joking is to tell the truth.
It is the funniest joke in the world.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice
other people without blushing.
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.
"Nobel Prize money is a lifebelt thrown
to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety." -- George
Bernard Shaw
"Assassination is the extreme form of
censorship."
"I was a freethinker before I knew how
to think."
"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a
crime to waste it on children."
If all economists were laid end to end,
they would not reach a conclusion.
Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the worst.
British playwright
The liars punishment is, not in the
least that he cannot be believed, but that he cannot believe anyone
else.
Some men see things as they are and ask
why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
A life spent making mistakes is not
only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
The more things a man is ashamed of,
the more respectable he is.
"Men are wise in proportion, not to
their experience, but to their capacity for experience."
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.
I want to sleep...
George Bernard Shaw's last
words
