Quotes & Sayings About Bernard Shaw

If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't buy 'em in boxes, like toy soldiers. — George Bernard Shaw

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance. — George Bernard Shaw

BORN: 1856 George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman, Major Barbara), Dublin 1894 Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, Crome Yellow), Godalming, England DIED: 1934 Winsor McCay — Tom Nissley

Better see rightly on a pound a week than squint on a million. — George Bernard Shaw

I must remind you that our credulity is not to be measured by the truth of the things we believe. When men believed that the earthwas flat, they were not credulous: they were using their common sense, and, if asked to prove that the earth was flat, would have said simply, "Look at it." Those who refuse to believe that it is round are exercising a wholesome skepticism. — George Bernard Shaw

What is the use of straining after an amiable view of things, when a cynical view is most likely to be the true one?. — George Bernard Shaw

There was only one virtue, pugnacity; only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war. — George Bernard Shaw

The Nazi movement is in many respects one which has my warmest sympathy. — George Bernard Shaw

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it. — George Bernard Shaw

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it. — George Bernard Shaw

A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony. — George Bernard Shaw

I would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot. — George Bernard Shaw

The word "utopia" has two meanings. It means both "good place" and "nowhere". That's the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn't want to live in the perfect place, either. "A life time of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on earth," wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. — Eric Weiner

Without music we shall surely perish of drink, morphia, and all sorts of artificial exaggerations of the cruder delights of the senses. — George Bernard Shaw

Literature is too full of 'acknowledgments' and squabbles about originality ... — George Bernard Shaw

As people get their opinions so largely from the newspapers they read, the corruption of the schools would not matter so much if the Press were free. But the Press is not free. As it costs at least a quarter of a million of money to establish a daily newspaper in London, the newspapers are owned by rich men. And they depend on the advertisements of other rich men. Editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones. — George Bernard Shaw

How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it? — George Bernard Shaw

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again! The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on. — George Bernard Shaw

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat — George Bernard Shaw

All roads end at the grave, which is the gate to nothingness. — George Bernard Shaw

It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true. — George Bernard Shaw

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. — George Bernard Shaw

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one, and do without change — George Bernard Shaw

Happiness and beauty are by-products. Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty. — George Bernard Shaw

I was told that my diet was so poor that I could not repair the bones that were broken and operated on. So I have just had an Xradiograph taken; and lo! perfectly mended solid bone so beautifully white that I have left instructions that, if I die, a glove stretcher is to be made of me and sent to you as a souvenir — George Bernard Shaw

It is one of the mysterious ways of Allah to make women troublesome when he makes them beautiful. — George Bernard Shaw

It is easier to put people in chains than to remove them if the chains bring prestige, said George Bernard Shaw. — Simone De Beauvoir

A dinner! How horrible! I am to be made the pretext for killing all those wretched animals and birds, and fish! Thank you for nothing. Now if it were to be a fast instead of a feast; say a solemn three days' abstention from corpses in my honour, I could at least pretend to believe that it was disinterested. Blood sacrifices are not in my line — George Bernard Shaw

The function of comedy is to dispelunconsciousness by turning the searchlight of the keenest moral and intellectual analysisright on to it. — George Bernard Shaw

Popular Christianity has for its emblem a gibbet, for its chief sensation a sanginary execution after torture, for its central mystery is an insane vengeance bought off by a trumpery expiation. But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the sacred mystery of equality and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance. — George Bernard Shaw

In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. — George Bernard Shaw

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. — George Bernard Shaw

It's a pity youth is wasted on the young. — George Bernard Shaw

While browsing in a second-hand bookshop one day, George Bernard Shaw was amused to find a copy of one of his own works which he himself had inscribed for a friend: "To
, with esteem, George Bernard Shaw."
He immediately purchased the book and returned it to the friend with a second inscription: "With renewed esteem, George Bernard Shaw. — George Bernard Shaw

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react. — George Bernard Shaw

If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all. — George Bernard Shaw

The only person who acts sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measure anew every time he sees me. Everyone else goes by their old measurements. — George Bernard Shaw

There is only one universal passion fear. — George Bernard Shaw

Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her. — George Bernard Shaw

Think what cowards men would be if they had to bear children. Women are altogether a superior species. — George Bernard Shaw

I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation. — F Scott Fitzgerald

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

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

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example. — George Bernard Shaw

Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better. — George Bernard Shaw

CHARTERIS [unfolding his arms in terror] No, please. Dont. As a philosopher, it's my business to tell other people the truth; but it's not their business to tell it to me. I dont like it: it hurts. — George Bernard Shaw

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could. — George Bernard Shaw

It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, until she is wooed. That is how the spider waits for the fly. — George Bernard Shaw

A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone had licked it. — George Bernard Shaw

The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light. — George Bernard Shaw

It is not true that men can be divided into absolutely honest persons and absolutely dishonest ones. Our honesty varies with the strain put on it. — George Bernard Shaw

And if I am further pressed to declare straightforwardly whether I mean to disparage these authorities [who criticize Ibsen], I reply, pointedly, that I do. I affirm that such criticisms are written by men who know as much of political life as I know of navigation. (P. 56) — George Bernard Shaw

We cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our own diseases by them. — George Bernard Shaw

Oh, come! That boot is on the other leg. Why should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that — George Bernard Shaw

The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization. Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty ... Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys basic people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people. — George Bernard Shaw

All great truths begin as blasphemies. — George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions
I say the most licentious of human institutions: that is the secret of its popularity.And a woman seeking a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey. The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error. — George Bernard Shaw

It is the tame elephants who enjoy capturing the wild ones. — George Bernard Shaw

I myself have been particularly careful never to say a civil word to the United States. I have scoffed at their inhabitants as a nation of villagers. I have defined the 100 % American as 99 % an idiot. And they adore me. — George Bernard Shaw

You may well ask me why ... I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all. — George Bernard Shaw

The world was to Shakespeare a great stage of fools on which he was utterly bewildered. His pregnant observations of life are not coordinated into any philosophy. — George Bernard Shaw

Only where there is pecuniary equality can the distinction of merit stand out. — George Bernard Shaw

Marry Ann; and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration in her than in a plate of muffins. — George Bernard Shaw

In a living society every day is a day of judgment; and its recognition as such is not the end of all things but the beginning ofa real civilization. — George Bernard Shaw

Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so. — George Bernard Shaw

Worst of all, there is no sign of any relaxation of antisemitism. Logically it has nothing to do with Fascism. But the human raceis imitative rather than logical; and as Fascism spreads antisemitism spreads. — George Bernard Shaw

The minorities are sometimes right. The majorities never. — George Bernard Shaw

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family. — George Bernard Shaw

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

Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural. — George Bernard Shaw

Men are always thinking that they are going to do something grandly wicked to their enemies; but when it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones. — George Bernard Shaw

I don't know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum — George Bernard Shaw

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world. — George Bernard Shaw

Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses. — George Bernard Shaw

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub. — George Bernard Shaw

I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals. — George Bernard Shaw

Then the violet coffin moved again and went in feet first. And behold! The feet burst miraculously into streaming ribbons of garnet coloured lovely flame, smokeless and eager, like pentecostal tongues, and as the whole coffin passed in it sprang into flame all over; and my mother became that beautiful fire. — George Bernard Shaw

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office. — George Bernard Shaw

Nature holds no brief for the human experiment; it must stand or fall by its results. — George Bernard Shaw

The hand of the painter is incurably mechanical: his technique is incurably artificial ... The camera ... is so utterly unmechanical. — George Bernard Shaw

What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead. — George Bernard Shaw

Love is a simple thing and a deep thing: it is an act of life and not an illusion. Art is an illusion. — George Bernard Shaw

Syllables govern the world. — George Bernard Shaw

Just as the liar 's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed , but that he cannot believe any one else; so a guilty society can more easily be persuaded that any apparently innocent act is guilty than that any apparently guilty act is innocent. — George Bernard Shaw

A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception. — George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker. — Will Rogers

Life is a first draft ... with NO rewrite. — 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. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life. — George Bernard Shaw

Though justice be Thy plea, consider this: That in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. — George Bernard Shaw

When a prisoner sees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to think where he shall get his dinner outside. — George Bernard Shaw

The beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human handwriting. — George Bernard Shaw

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. — George Bernard Shaw

When the horrors of anarchy force us to set up laws that forbid us to fight and torture one another for sport, we still snatch at every excuse for declaring individuals outside the protection of law and torturing them to our hearts content. — George Bernard Shaw

I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another, all would be well with the world. I found when I tried to put that into practice, not only were other people seldom lovable but I wasn't very lovable myself. — George Bernard Shaw

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. — George Bernard Shaw

A genius is a person who is seeing further and probing deeper than other people has a different set of ethical valuations from their and has energy enough to give effect to this extra vision and its valuations in whatever manner best suits his or her — George Bernard Shaw

In gambling the many must lose in order that the few may win. — George Bernard Shaw

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. — George Bernard Shaw

Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial. — George Bernard Shaw

Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous. — George Bernard Shaw