Pygmalion

by George Bernard Shaw

He is of the energetic, scientific type, heartily, even violently interested in everything that can be studied as a scientific subject, and careless about himself and other people, including their feelings.

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day. I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.

Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.

Done to me! Ruined me. Destroyed my happiness. Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle class morality.

Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street. That was the beginning of self-respect for me.

the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.

The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.