“Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.”
Source: The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
“Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.”
“Every man over forty is a scoundrel.”
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
Source: George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit
“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.”
“No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.”
“It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.”
“Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.”
“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”
“A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.”
“I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.”
“Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.”
“Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.”
Source: George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
“The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.”
“Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.”
Source: The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
“Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.”
“England and America are two countries separated by the same language.”
“Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.”
Source: Saint Joan
“The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.”
“Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“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.”
“The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.”
“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”
“Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.”
“I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“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.”
Source: The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929
“Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.”
“Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.”
“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.”
“The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.”
“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”
“I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.”
“I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.”
“Most people do not pray; they only beg.”
“Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.”
“You cannot be a hero without being a coward.”
“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.”
“In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.”
“It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.”
“He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.”
“It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.”
“Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.”
Source: The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more
“There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.”