“The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creators hand.”
“There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.”
“Being hurt by someone you truly care about leaves a hole in you heart that only love can fill.”
“When the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity; since sanity is, in the last analysis, nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
“How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.”
“The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.”
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
“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.”
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
“Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree.”
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 philosopher is Nature's pilot. And there you have our difference: to be in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.”
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 only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her.”
“The Jews generally give value. They make you pay; but they deliver the goods. In my experience the men who want something for nothing are invariably Christians.”
“When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.”
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
“Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?”
“In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.”
“Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.”
“I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them You are supreme: exercise your power. They say, That's right: tell us what to do; and I tell them. I say Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me. And they do. That's democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place.”
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
“My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately”
“There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst.”
“Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.”
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
“If women were as fastidious as men, morally or physically, there would be an end of the race.”
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 art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.”
“Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.”
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
“To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God's hand, his brain as God's brain, his purpose as God's purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.”
“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.”
“Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites.”
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
“My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.”
Source: Pygmalion and Major Barbara
“Justice is justice though it's always delayed and finally done only by mistake.”
“Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter.”
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
“People must not be forced to adopt me as their favourite author, even for their own good.”
“The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.”
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
“Brigham Young lived to become immortal in history as an American Moses by leading his people through the wilderness into an unpromised land.”
“The best bought-up children are those who have seen thier parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the first duty of a parent.”
“Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.”
“The British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding.”
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
“What is wrong with the prosaic Englishman is what is wrong with the prosaic men of all countries: stupidity.”
Source: Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy
“A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.”
“Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.”
“It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief.”
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 notion that inspiration is something that happened thousands of years ago, and was then finished and done with. . . the theory that God retired from business at that period and has not been heard from since, is as silly as it is blasphemous.”
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
“Being a mother means that your heart is no longer yours; it wanders wherever your children do”
“What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say I know instead of I am learning, and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for skepticism and activity.”
“The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.”
“Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.”
“This is my father. Try what you can with him! He won't listen to me, because he remembers what a fool I was when I was a baby.”
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 critic is one who leaves no turn unstoned.”
“Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. . . . It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog's life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.”
Source: Collected letters: 1926-1950
“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!”
“If you eliminate smoking and gambling, you will be amazed to find that almost all an Englishman's pleasures can be, and mostly are, shared by his dog.”
“The sex relation is not a personal relation. It can be irresistibly desired and rapturously consummated between persons who could not endure one another for a day in any other relation.”
“Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich-something for nothing.”
