We must not stay as we are, doing always what was done last time, or we shall stick in the mud. Yet neither must we undertake a new world as catastrophic Utopians, and wreck our civilization in our hurry to mend it.
George Bernard ShawThe fact is that the intrinsic worth of the book, play or whatever the author is trying to sell is the least, last factor in the the whole transaction.
George Bernard ShawThe doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.
George Bernard ShawA man's own self is the last person to believe in him, and is harder to cheat than the rest of the world.
George Bernard ShawWhat we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawThere is not one single established religion that an intelligent, educated man can believe.
George Bernard ShawA moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle class unit.
George Bernard ShawSchools must not become the agencies through which propaganda advocated by any section of society is spread. The method of control always a crucial problem should be in harmony with the fundamental values and principles of the states and the entire e
George Bernard ShawSocial progress takes effect through the replacement of all institutions by new ones; and since every institution involves the recognition of the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the repudiation of an established duty at every step.
George Bernard ShawA true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
George Bernard ShawFew people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
George Bernard ShawPeople who are hard, grasping and always ready to take advantage of their neighbors become very rich.
George Bernard ShawLife contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it.
George Bernard ShawThough all society is founded on intolerance, all improvement is founded on tolerance.
George Bernard ShawOnly on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.
George Bernard ShawI do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.
George Bernard ShawOur laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons
George Bernard ShawOh, the frontier of hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.
George Bernard ShawAnd 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.
George Bernard ShawIt is long and hard and painful to create life: it is short and easy to steal the life others have made.
George Bernard ShawNowadays a parlor maid as ignorant as Queen Victoria was when she came to the throne would be classed as mentally defective.
George Bernard ShawThe apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.
George Bernard ShawIf Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.
George Bernard ShawWe are sick of war, we don't want to fight, And yet we gorge ourselves upon the dead.
George Bernard ShawWe must not stay as we are, doing always what was done last time; or we shall stick in the mud.
George Bernard ShawSet me anything to do as a task, and it is inconceivable the desire I have to do something else.
George Bernard ShawMy method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
George Bernard ShawEnglishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.
George Bernard ShawThere are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the Will of God on every possible subject
George Bernard ShawThe medical profession (is) a conspiracy to hide its own shortcomings. No doubt the same may be said of all professions. They are all conspiracies against the laity... (U)ntil there is a practicable alternative to blind trust in the doctor, the truth about the doctor is so terrible that we dare not face it.
George Bernard Shaw