George Bernard Shaw Quotes
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Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby...
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Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.
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What 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.
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I'm only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler. I don't like beer.
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I don't believe in morality. I'm a disciple of Bernard Shaw.
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The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one.
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Greatness is one of the sensations of littleness...
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The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.
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It is very doubtful whether man is enough of a political animal to produce a good, sensible, serious and efficient constitution. All the evidence is against it.
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It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.
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I find it easy to forgive the man who invented a devilish instrument like dynamite, but how can one ever forgive the diabolical mind that invented the Nobel Prize in Literature?
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The statesman cannot govern without stability of belief, true or false.
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There is in man a specific lust for cruelty which infects even his passion of pity and makes it savage.
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The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
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The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.
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Consistency is the enemy of enterprise, just as symmetry is the enemy of art.
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If all the statisticians in the world were laid head to toe, they wouldn't be able to reach a conclusion
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Give me the artist who breathes it like a native, and goes about his work in it as quietly as a common man goes about his ordinary business. Mozart did so; and that is why I like him. Even if I did not, I should pretend to; for a taste in his music is a mark of caste among musicians, and should be worn, like a tall hat, by the amateur who wishes to pass for a true Brahmin.
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What is really important in Man is the part of him that we do not understand. Of much of it we are not even conscious, just as we are not normally conscious of keeping up our circulation by our heart-pump, though if we neglect it we die.
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Patriotism is a word which always commemorates a robbery.
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Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
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It seems as though every time you learn something new you have to give up something.
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Fine art is the only teacher except torture.
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You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.