George Bernard Shaw Quotes
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Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.
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You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.
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Undershaft: My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
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To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God's hand, his brain as God's brain, his purpose as God's purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.
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The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
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There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king's head on republican principles.
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Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.
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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.
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I can wait: waiting and patience mean nothing to the eternal. I gave the woman the greatest of gifts: curiosity. By that her seed has been saved from my wrath; for I also am curious; and I have waited always to see what they will do tomorrow.
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My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.
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Democracy means the organization of society for the benefit and at the expense of everybody indiscriminately and not for the benefit of a privileged class.
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I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capability to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age... I have studied him - the wonderful man, and in my opinion far from being an Anti-Christ he must be called the Saviour of Humanity.
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I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one.
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When we want to read of the deeds that are done for love, whither do we turn? To the murder column.
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Even a vortex is a vortex in something. You can't have a whirlpool without water; and you can't have a vortex without gas, or molecules or atoms or ions or electrons or something, not nothing.
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The Italians must allow us to slaughter the Momands, because, if we do not kill the warlike hillmen, they will kill us. And we must allow the Italians to slaughter the Danakils for the same reason.
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All great art and literature is propaganda.
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This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the 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.
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The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.
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Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.
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Set me anything to do as a task, and it is inconceivable the desire I have to do something else.
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Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity...
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In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which every ward boss is a dictator, every private employer a dictator, every financier a dictator, all with the livelihood of the workers at his mercy, and no public responsibility.
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Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.