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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw Quotes

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Famous George Bernard Shaw Quotes

“Our political experiment of democracy, the last refuge of cheap misgovernment.”

“Though the Life Force supplies us with its own purpose, it has no other brains to work with than those it has painfully and imperfectly evolved in our heads.”

“Remember always that the least plain sister is the family beauty.”

“An English army led by an Irish general: that might be a match for a French army led by an Italian general.”

“Assassination on the scaffold is the worst form of assassination.”

“The thief who is in prison is not necessarily more dishonest than his fellows at large, but mostly one who, through ignorance or stupidity [or racism or poverty! - Draffan] steals in a way that is not customary. He snatches a loaf from the baker's counter and is promptly run into gaol. Another man snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls who do not know the ways of company promoters; and, as likely as not, he is run into Parliament.”

“Women are called womanly only when they regard themselves as existing solely for the use of men.”

“Nobody supposes that doctors are less virtuous than judges; but a judge whose salary and reputation depended on whether the verdict was for plaintiff or defendant, prosecutor or prisoner, would be as little trusted as a general in the pay of the enemy.”

“What is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”

“Make me a beautiful word for doing things tomorrow; for that surely is a great and blessed invention.”

“Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.”

“The medical profession (is) a conspiracy to hide its own shortcomings. No doubt the same may be said of all professions. They are all conspiracies against the laity... (U)ntil there is a practicable alternative to blind trust in the doctor, the truth about the doctor is so terrible that we dare not face it.”

“The test to which all methods of treatment are finally brought is whether they are lucrative to doctors or not.”

“Effectiveness of assertion is the alpha and omega of style.”

“Geniuses are horrid, intolerant, easily offended, sleeplessly self-conscious men, who expect their wives to be angels with no further business in life than to pet and worship their husbands. Even at the best they are not comfortable men to live with; and a perfect husband is one who is perfectly comfortable to live with.”

“I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self.”

“I never climbed any ladder: I have achieved eminence by sheer gravitation.”

“If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling.”

“Just as the historian can teach no real history until he has cured his readers of the romantic delusion that the greatness of a queen consists in her being a pretty woman and having her head cut off, so the playwright of the first order can do nothing with his audience until he has cured them of looking at the stage through the keyhole, and sniffing round the theatre as prurient people sniff round the divorce court.”