Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

wooden pedestal

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 patriotism  

Add your own tags  

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 jealousy  

Add your own tags  

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 love  

Add your own tags  

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 courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 success  

Add your own tags  

Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 ability  martyrdom  

Add your own tags  

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.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 perseverance  

Add your own tags  

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 integrity  

Add your own tags  

Youth is wasted on the young.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 age  

Add your own tags  

And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 violence  

Add your own tags  

All sorts of bodily diseases are produced by half-used minds.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 mind  

Add your own tags  

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 government  money  

Add your own tags  

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.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 religion  

Add your own tags  

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 government  democracy  

Add your own tags  

Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 media  

Add your own tags  

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.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 labor  unemployment  

Add your own tags  

There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 baseball  

Add your own tags  

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 vegetarianism  

Add your own tags  

The churches must learn humility as well as teach it.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 religion  

Add your own tags  

A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 vegetarianism  

Add your own tags  

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.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 marriage  

Add your own tags  

"Independence"...[is] middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 community  

Add your own tags  

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 goals  

Add your own tags  

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 art  

Add your own tags  

There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 parents  children  

Add your own tags  

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 carpe-diem  

Add your own tags  

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 truth  

Add your own tags  

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once a week.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 thinking  

Add your own tags  

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 integrity  

Add your own tags  

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 religion  

Add your own tags  

I like a bit of mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog; they're the best for everyday.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 dogs  

Add your own tags  

This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 helping  

Add your own tags  

What is life but a seires of inspired follies The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance it doesn't come every day.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 difficulty  

Add your own tags  

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

section label

 age  children  youth  

Add your own tags  

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 conformity  

Add your own tags  

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.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 society  

Add your own tags  

Let me give you one definition of ethics: It is good to maintain life and to further life; it is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound, universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 life  

Add your own tags  

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 community  

Add your own tags  

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 forgiveness  nature  

Add your own tags  

Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don't eat has been proved to be indispensable for life. But I go marching on.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 food  

Add your own tags  

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 change  conformity  

Add your own tags  

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 patriotism  

Add your own tags  

My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 vegetarianism  

Add your own tags  

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 games  

Add your own tags  

Our ideals, like the gods of old, are constantly demanding human sacrifices.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 ideals  

Add your own tags  

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years, and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 purpose  

Add your own tags  

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 happiness  

Add your own tags  

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 genius  

Add your own tags  

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 conformity  

Add your own tags  

No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 religion  jesus  

Add your own tags  

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 dental  

Add your own tags  

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 freedom  liberty  

Add your own tags  

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 conformity  

Add your own tags  

A mind of the caliber of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 cows  

Add your own tags  

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 marriage  

Add your own tags  

Most people do not pray; they only beg.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 prayer  

Add your own tags  

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 responsibility  wisdom  

Add your own tags  

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 self-respect  

Add your own tags  

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 speaking  

Add your own tags  

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 travel  

Add your own tags  

All dress is fancy dress, is it not, except our natural skins?
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 clothing  

Add your own tags  

Death is for many of us the gate of hell; but we are inside on the way out, not outside on the way in.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 death  

Add your own tags  

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 happiness  

Add your own tags  

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

section label

 happiness  

Add your own tags  

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

section label

 parents  

Add your own tags  

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
Link to Quote
George Bernard Shaw Quotes

section label

 religion  

Add your own tags