George Bernard Shaw Quotes

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

With the exception of capitalism, there is nothing so revolting as revolution.

Just as the historian can teach no real history until he has cured his readers of the romantic delusion that the greatness of a queen consists in her being a pretty woman and having her head cut off, so the playwright of the first order can do nothing with his audience until he has cured them of looking at the stage through the keyhole, and sniffing round the theatre as prurient people sniff round the divorce court.

A great social reformer.

The policy of letting things alone, in the practical sense that the Government should never interfere with business or go into business itself, is called Laisser-faire by economists and politicians. It has broken down so completely in practice that it is now discredited; but it was all the fashion in politics a hundred years ago, and is still influentially advocated by men of business and their backers who naturally would like to be allowed to make money as they please without regard to the interest of the public.

Imprisonment is as irrevocable as death.

Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

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

Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.

What man really wishes to do he will find a means of doing.

Woman reduces us all to the common denominator.

A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people's time to look after them.

The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.

Is the devil to have all the passions as well as all the good tunes?

Your heart and your mouth wil be in two separate parts of your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand.

Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter.

The problem with the press is that they can't tell the difference between a bicycle crash and the end of civilization.

We are the living graves of murdered beasts.

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

Life is a first draft... with NO rewrite.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, 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. 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 what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out; but it catches fire again every time a child is born. Life is greater than death, and hope than despair.

The minorities are sometimes right. The majorities never.

You have no right to say that I am not sincere. I have found a happiness in art that real life has never given me. I am intensely in earnest about art. There is is a magic and mystery in art that you know nothing of.

The only power a god can teach is the power of doing without happiness.

Syllables govern the world.

The one point on which all women are in furious secret rebellion against the existing law is the saddling of the right to a child with the obligation to become the servant of a man.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

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

Only Lawyers and mental defectives are automatically exempt for jury duty.

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

I like a bit of mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog.

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

To endure the pain of living, we all drug ourselves more or less with gin, with literature, with superstitions, with romance, with idealism, political, sentimental, and moral, with every possible preparation of that universal hashish: imagination.

The writer who aims at producing the platitudes which are "not for an age, but for all time" has his reward in being unreadable inall ages.... The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only sort of man who writes about all people and about all time.

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

The philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.

As an old soldier, I admit the cowardice: it's as universal as seasickness, and matters just as little.

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

A succession of eye-openers each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief.

If the English can survive their food, they can survive anything.