The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary. rather tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise.
George Bernard ShawWhen the military man approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs off its womankind.
George Bernard ShawI have found, after a good deal of consideration, that the best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for Him here.
George Bernard ShawThe ability to make witty observations is commonly refered to as "cynism" by people who lack it.
George Bernard ShawI am very sorry, but I cannot learn languages. I have tried hard, only to find that men of ordinary capacity can learn Sanskrit in less time that it takes me to buy a German Dictionary
George Bernard ShawEvery man to whom salvation is offered has an inalienable natural right to say 'No, thank you: I prefer to retain my full moral responsibility: it is not good for me to be able to load a scapegoat with my sins: I should be less careful how I committed them if I knew they would cost me nothing.
George Bernard ShawWhen people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one, and do without change
George Bernard ShawIf you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling.
George Bernard ShawIt's usually pointed out that women are not fit for political power, and ought not to be trusted with a vote because they are politically ignorant, socially prejudiced, narrow-minded, and selfish. True enough, but precisely the same is true of men!
George Bernard ShawIf we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all.
George Bernard ShawA modern gentleman [rich person] is necessarily the enemy of his country. Even in war he does not fight to defend it, but to prevent his power of preying on it from passing to a foreigner.
George Bernard ShawI can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve.
George Bernard ShawIf you cannot attain knowledge without torturing a dog, you must do without knowledge.
George Bernard ShawAs people get their opinions so largely from the newspapers they read... But the Press is not free, the newspapers are owned by rich men.
George Bernard ShawThe thief who is in prison is not necessarily more dishonest than his fellows at large, but mostly one who, through ignorance or stupidity [or racism or poverty! - Draffan] steals in a way that is not customary. He snatches a loaf from the baker's counter and is promptly run into gaol. Another man snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls who do not know the ways of company promoters; and, as likely as not, he is run into Parliament.
George Bernard ShawI feel nothing but the accursed happiness I have dreaded all my life long: the happiness that comes as life goes, the happiness of yielding and dreaming instead of resisting and doing, the sweetness of the fruit that is going rotten.
George Bernard ShawWe mustn't be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.
George Bernard ShawWhat is the matter with universities is that the students are school children, whereas it is of the very essence of university education that they should be adults.
George Bernard ShawWhat we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.
George Bernard ShawWe all have--to put it as nicely as I can--our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terriblepower that sometimes destroys us; but they don't talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before--truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.
George Bernard ShawGo on writing plays, my boy, One of these days one of these London producers will go into his office and say to his secretary, "Is there a play from Shaw this morning?" and when she says, "No," he will say, "Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish." And that's your chance, my boy.
George Bernard ShawWhen I speak of The Case for Equality I mean human equality; and that, of course, can only mean one thing: it means equality of income.
George Bernard ShawMy main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.
George Bernard Shaw