George Bernard Shaw Quotes
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German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen.
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A man's behaviour may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he ismorally behaving like a scoundrel. And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles.
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A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
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What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.
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I don't know what to say about this book. The experience on which it is founded is so extraordinary, that an honest record of it should be preserved . . . But it would have driven me mad; and I am not sure that the author came out of it without a slight derangement.
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A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
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A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.
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Decency cannot be discussed without indecency!
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If ever I utter an oath again may my soul be blasted to eternal damnation!
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If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
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I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly feed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.
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I was told that my diet was so poor that I could not repair the bones that were broken and operated on. So I have just had an Xradiograph taken; and lo! perfectly mended solid bone so beautifully white that I have left instructions that, if I die, a glove stretcher is to be made of me and sent to you as a souvenir...
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I do not want actors and actresses to understand my plays. That is not necessary. If they will only pronounce the correct sounds I can guarantee the results.
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Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural.
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Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.
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Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
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Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.
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I can't control what life did to me, but I can control how I react. Therein lies the difference.
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Taking all the round of professions and occupations, you will find that every man is the worse for being poor; and the doctor is a specially dangerous man when poor.
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If I refuse to allow my leg to be amputated, its mortification and my death may prove that I was wrong; but if I let the leg go, nobody can ever prove that it would not have mortified had I been obstinate. Operation is therefore the safe side for the surgeon as well as the lucrative side.
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A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
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A pornographic novelist is one who exploits the sexual instinct as a prostitute does. A legitimate sex novel elucidates it or brings out its poetry, tragedy, or comedy.
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We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
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I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.