Famous Quotes by George Bernard Shaw
- Paradoxes are the only truths. More
- Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the... More
- No severity of punishment deters when detection is uncertain, as it always must be. More
- You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes... More
- I am a sort of collector of religions; and the curious thing is that I find I can believe them all. More
- Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. More
- Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea... More
- I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who seeks in contemplation to discover... More
- Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don’t... More
- The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not... More
- Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. More
- If parents would only realize how they bore their children! More
- As I write, there is a craze for what is called psychoanalysis, or the cure of diseases by... More
- During the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I ... [urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a... More
- What is the historical function of Parliament in this country? It is to prevent the Government... More
- All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies. More
- If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. More
- I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty... More
- The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be... More
- I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality. More
- The national anthem belongs to the eighteenth century. In it you find us ordering God about to do... More
- You are all fundamentalists with a top dressing of science. That is why you are the stupidest of... More
- The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them;... More
- There is something in you that I respect, and that makes me desire to have you for my enemy. More
- I am a Millionaire. That is my religion. More
- You are all alike, you respectable people. You can’t tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch... More
- He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. More
- The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues beside it: all the other dishonors are... More
- There are two things necessary to Salvation.... Money and gunpowder. More
- The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is... More
- The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a... More
- Why not give Christianity a trial? More
- Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly. He was hardly... More
- I must remind you that our credulity is not to be measured by the truth of the things we believe.... More
- If it could be proved today that not one of the miracles of Jesus actually occurred, that proof... More
- All great truths begin as blasphemies. More
- Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house... More
- A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income. More
- Unless comedy touches me as well as amuses me, it leaves me with a sense of having wasted my... More
- The more reasonable a student was in mathematics, the more unreasonable she was in the affairs of... More
- When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty. More
- All industries are brought under the control of such people [film producers] by Capitalism. If... More
- The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German... More
- A pornographic novelist is one who exploits the sexual instinct as a prostitute does. A... More
- We all have—to put it as nicely as I can—our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower... More
- All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to children by the hands of storytellers and... More
- Blasphemy and sedition (meaning the truth about Church and State). More
- Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful. More
- I can’t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. More
- Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the... More
- Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but... More
- It will do you no good if I get over this. A doctor’s reputation is made by the number of... More
- Whenever I see the word Operation, especially Trifling Operation, I at once write off the patient... More
- Dogmatic toleration is nonsense: I would no more tolerate the teaching of Calvinism to children... More
- Schools and schoolmasters, as we have them today, are not popular as places of education and... More
- The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic. More
- I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead—ahead... More
- With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I... More
- My rank is the highest known in Switzerland: I am a free citizen. More
- No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that... More
- I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is... More
- The surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know how to handle money is to give him some. More
- Nothing makes a man so selfish as work. More
- Give a man health and a course to steer; and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s... More
- We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize... More
- What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. More
- First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. More
- Cleopatra: Was I right to avenge myself?... Caesar: If one man in all the world can be found, now... More
- Theodotus: Caesar: once in ten generations of men, the world gains an immortal book. Caesar: If... More
- Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world. More
- He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. More
- This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what... More
- When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be... More
- Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world. More
- I feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that... More
- A man’s interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a... More
- It’s a dangerous thing to be married right up to the hilt, like my daughter’s husband. The... More
- A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is... More
- The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who... More
- The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.... More
- Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life... More
- Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good... More
- If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper—and... More
- To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in... More
- Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannnot endure it.... Happiness... More
- Man may have his opinion as to the relative importance of feeding his body and nourishing his... More
- We are compelled by the theory of God’s already achieved perfection to make Him a devil as well... More
- You said that my manner in that book was not serious enough—that I made people laugh in my most... More
- The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine. More
- Worst of all, there is no sign of any relaxation of antisemitism. Logically it has nothing to do... More
- The test of a man’s or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. Anybody can behave... More
- A veteran journalist ... has never had time to think twice before he writes. More
- It is not true that men can be divided into absolutely honest persons and absolutely dishonest... More
- What is Virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married? More
- Well, dearie, men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. But you... More
- Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people... More
- The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light. More
- There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich... More
- Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. More
- Not until he acquires European manners does the American anarchist become the gentleman who... More
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