Quotes by George Bernard Shaw (Page 4 of 4)

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

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

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do.

Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.

I want to be all used up when I die.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth?

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

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

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

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

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

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.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

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