“There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.”
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 no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.”
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
“Virtue is insufficient temptation.”
“What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?”
“You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.”
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
“Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.”
Source: Nelly Sachs, Jean-Paul Sartre, George Bernard Shaw, Frans Eemil Sillanpää, René Sully-Prudhomme
“General consultant to mankind.”
“Syllables govern the world.”
“The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic.”
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
“The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.”
Source: Heartbreak House
“What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?”
“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.”
“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”
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
“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.”
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild' is a snivelling modern invention, with no warrant in the gospels.”
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
“When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.”
“The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.”
“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.”
“Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!”
“After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.”
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
“The longer I live, the more I realize that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time!”
“My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.”
“I have very carefully studied Islam and the life of its Prophet (PBUH). I have done so both as a student of history and as a critic. And I have come to conclusion that Muhammad (PBUH) was indeed a great man and a deliverer and benefactor of mankind which was till then writhing under the most agonising Pain.”
“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, 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
“While browsing in a second-hand bookshop one day, George Bernard Shaw was amused to find a copy of one of his own works which he himself had inscribed for a friend: "To ----, with esteem, George Bernard Shaw." He immediately purchased the book and returned it to the friend with a second inscription: "With renewed esteem, George Bernard Shaw.”
“Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.”
“I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen.”
“For four wicked centuries the world has dreamed this foolish dream of efficiency; and the end is not yet. But the end will come.”
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
“It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.”
“When the horrors of anarchy force us to set up laws that forbid us to fight and torture one another for sport, we still snatch at every excuse for declaring individuals outside the protection of law and torturing them to our hearts content.”
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
“Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.”
“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.”
Source: The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929
“Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.”
“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
“In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.”
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 more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.”
“The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.”
“I have my own soul. My own spark of divine fire.”
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
“A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith.”
“If any religion had a chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam.”
“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
Source: Pygmalion
“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”
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
“No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship; for you’ll get nothing else.”
Source: Pygmalion
“Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?Making life means making trouble. There’s only one way of escaping trouble; and that’s killing things.”
Source: Pygmalion
“But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person’s thumb are two different things.”
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
“What is life but a series of inspired follies.”
Source: Pygmalion
“Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another.”
“The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure.”
“Shall I turn up the light for you? No, give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light.”
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
