Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

I like a bit of mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog.

Lack of money is the root of of all evil.

God is on the side of the big battalions.

The universal regard for money is the one hopeful fact in our civilization.

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

He who has never hoped can never despair.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound.

We sing in a church, why can we not dance there?

The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.

Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence.

Decency cannot be discussed without indecency!

The roulette table pays nobody except him that keeps it. Nevertheless a passion for gaming is common, though a passion for keeping roulette tables is unknown.

In art, as in politics, there is no such thing as gratitude.

This is the true joy-the being used for the purpose recognized as a mighty one.

Love is the gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

A man's interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to live in a stationary one, and do without change.

Do not try to live forever, you will not succeed.

People exaggerate the value of things they haven't got: everybody worships truth and unselfishness because they have no experience with them.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

Most people go to their grave with their music inside them.

Science, never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Independence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results.

Hinduism is so elastic and subtle that the most profound Methodist and crudest Idolator are equally at home with it.

A good intention is like the seed of a tree whose fruit we do not know.

Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.

This planet is obviously being used as an insane asylum by other planets.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books nobody reads.

In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.

Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

You see things and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'

He who has never hoped, can never despair.

This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

I have nothing to offer you but my strength for your defence, my honesty for your surety, my ability and industry for your livelihood, and my authority and position for your dignity. That is all it becomes a man to offer a woman.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of inhumanity.

Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport. When a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again everytime a child is born.

It is easy -- terribly easy -- to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that, to break a man's spirit is devil's work.

When you read a biography remember that the truth is never fit for publication.

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.

We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-traveller of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead- ahead of myself as well as you.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.

Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why. ' I dream of things that never were, and say, 'Why not?'

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language: the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination.

People get tired of everything, and of nothing sooner than of what they most like.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.

Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.

Hell is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.

No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another.

Revelations: A curious record of the visions of a drug addict.

Boasting about modesty is typical of the English.

A conquered nation is like a man with cancer: he can think of nothing else.

The worst cliques are those which consist of one man.

A man's own self is the last person to believe in him, and is harder to cheat than the rest of the world.

My opportunities were still there, nay, they multiplied tenfold; but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail, and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.

I was convinced that Ceylon is the cradle of the human race because everybody there looks an original. All other nations are obviously mass produced.

We have in England a curious belief in first-rate people, meaning all the people we do not know; and this consoles us for the undeniable second-rateness of the people we do know.

Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence.

There is always danger for those who are afraid.

Truth telling is not compatible with the defence of the realm.

Just as I cannot remember any time when I could not read and write, I cannot remember any time when I did not exercise my imagination in daydreams about women.

No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.

A book is like a child: it is easier to bring it into the world than to control it when it is launched there.

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

We educate one another; and we cannot do this if half of us consider the other half not good enough to talk to.

When a prisoner sees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to think where he shall get his dinner outside.

The trouble with the media is that it seems unable to distinguish between the end of the world and a bicycle accident.

Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.

What is wrong with the prosaic Englishman is what is wrong with the prosaic men of all countries: stupidity.

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.