George Bernard Shaw > Quotes

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― 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

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

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

“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.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Getting Married

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!”
― George Bernard Shaw

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."
— George Bernard Shaw, playwright (to Winston Churchill)

"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
— Churchill's response”
― George Bernard Shaw

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

“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 Quintessence of Ibsenism

“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

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.”
― George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“The worst sin towards 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

“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

“A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“I'm sorry this letter is so long, I didn't have time to make it shorter.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska the Bolshevik Empress

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.”
― 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, The Doctor's Dilemma: 2a Tragedy

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these 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.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it....”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.”
― 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, Androcles and the Lion

“Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it....”
― George Bernard Shaw, Music in London

“Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the 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.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

“Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“In heaven an angel is no one in particular.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“War does not decide who is right but who is left.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser people are full of doubts”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Alcohol is the anethesia by which we endure the operation of life.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“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

“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara