Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

George Bernard Shaw Playwright

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Jul 26, 1856
  • Died: Nov 2, 1950

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. He was also an essayist, novelist and short story writer. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems with a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Issues which engaged Shaw's attention included education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn't got any.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

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.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

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

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

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.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.

The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one really inflexible point of honor.

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Power does not corrupt men fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

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.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.

You use a glass mirror to see your face you use works of art to see your soul.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

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

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire the other is to get it.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

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

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

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.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.

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

My reputation grows with every failure.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Beware of false knowledge it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.

Beauty is all very well at first sight but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

It's easier to replace a dead man than a good picture.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

An index is a great leveller.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.