-
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like the state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
George Bernard Shaw -
God's trustiest lieutenants often lack official credentials. They may be professed atheists who are also men of honour and high public spirit.
George Bernard Shaw
-
An index is a great leveller.
George Bernard Shaw -
Most of the money given by rich people in "charity" is made up of conscience money, "ransom," political bribery, and bids for titles.... One buys moral credit by signing a cheque, which is easier than turning a prayer wheel.
George Bernard Shaw -
Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.
George Bernard Shaw -
The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.
George Bernard Shaw -
Instruction in sex is as important as instruction in food; yet not only are our adolescents not taught the physiology of sex, but never warned that the strongest sexual attraction may exist between persons so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they could not endure living together for a week much less a lifetime.
George Bernard Shaw -
In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.
George Bernard Shaw
-
In a living society every day is a day of judgment; and its recognition as such is not the end of all things but the beginning ofa real civilization.
George Bernard Shaw -
We must reform society before we can reform ourselves.
George Bernard Shaw -
What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?
George Bernard Shaw -
We throw the whole drudgery of creation on one sex, and then imply that no female of any delicacy would initiate any effort in that direction.
George Bernard Shaw -
If you cannot have what you believe in you must believe in what you have.
George Bernard Shaw -
As long as you don't fly openly in the face of society, society doesn't ask any inconvenient questions; and it makes precious short work of the cads who do. There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.
George Bernard Shaw
-
When domestic servants are treated as human beings it is not worth while to keep them.
George Bernard Shaw -
If you say that God is good, great, blessed, wise or any such thing, the starting point is this : God is.
George Bernard Shaw -
Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly. He was hardly cold in his grave, or high in his heaven (as you please), before the apostles dragged the tradition of him down to the level of the thing it has remained ever since.
George Bernard Shaw -
Perhaps you know some well-off families who do not seem to suffer from their riches. They do not overeat themselves; they find occupations to keep themselves in health; they do not worry about their position; they put their money into safe investments and are content with a low rate of interest; and they bring up their children to live simply and do useful work. But this means that they do not live like rich people at all, and might therefore just as well have ordinary incomes.
George Bernard Shaw -
To a professional critic theatre-going is the curse of Adam. The play is the evil he is paid to endure in the sweat of his brow; and the sooner it is over, the better.
George Bernard Shaw -
Have you no morals, man?' 'Can't afford them,Governor.
George Bernard Shaw
-
Stimulate the phagocytes.
George Bernard Shaw -
The only power a god can teach is the power of doing without happiness.
George Bernard Shaw -
There is not one single established religion that an intelligent, educated man can believe.
George Bernard Shaw -
I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.
George Bernard Shaw