Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Playwright

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsPeopleWorldThinkingFunnyInspirationalLifeChildrenKnowsShouldWellsMan And SupermanRebelliousWantDoeHumansMayFirstsWay

Famous George Bernard Shaw Quotes

“The epithet beautiful is used by surgeons to describe operations which their patients describe as ghastly, by physicists to describe methods of measurement which leave sentimentalists cold, by lawyers to describe cases which ruin all the parties to them, and by lovers to describe the objects of their infatuation, however unattractive they may appear to the unaffected spectators.”

MayBeautifulUsedPartyBeautyCasesObjectsColdLoversMethodPatientLawyerRuinsOperationsPhysicistInfatuationSpectatorsMeasurementSurgeonsUnattractiveGhastlyEpithetDescribe Me
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“In truth , mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or may not be true : what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he will never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable to cure himself the next time it attacks him.”

IfsMenMaySaidCertainNextTeachMankindMastersDiseaseCatSavedCuresBeing TrueNext Time
Book:Back to Methuselah
Create image

“When a bishop at the first shot abandons the worship of Christ and rallies his flock round the altar of Mars, he may be acting patriotically... but that does not justify him in pretending...that Christ is, in effect, Mars.”

FirstsMayDoeChristActingEffectsWorshipShotsRoundsJustifyAbandonPretendingMarsAltarsBishopsFlocks
Book: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
Create image

“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.”

MaySaidFacesDoubtTerribleDoctorsBlindDareProfessionMedicalAlternativesNo DoubtConspiracyShortcomingsMedical ProfessionBlind Trust
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”

IfsInspirationalWellsMayHumorFamilyAdviceMy FamilyDanceCleverAncestorFunny InspirationalAncestryFamily LoveSkeletonsAbout FamilyFamily HistoryDysfunctional FamilyGenealogyInspirational Family LoveExtended FamilyBest FamilyLove Your FamilyInspirational FamilyFunny FamilyFunny Family ReunionFamily TogethernessLoving Your FamilyCute FamilyFamily GatheringWit And HumorUnited Family
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.”

MaySeriousConsequenceRebellious
Book: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
Create image

“What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.”

MenBelieveMayFaithBeliefAssumptionCreedsMan And Superman
Book: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
Create image

“There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But in some respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor. . . .In the prison you are not forced to sit listening to turnkeys discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that they don't understand and don't care about, and therefore incapable of making you understand or care about. In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains.”

PeopleMayBookWholeBodyCareSchoolEarthInterestBrainWrittenSubjectsListeningPrisonDon't CareYour BodyHorribleInnocentInstanceTortureCharmGovernorsIncapable
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“We cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women's hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our own diseases by them.”

MayReasonWhiteAnimalPiecesCuttingFashionTearsTasteDiseaseBirdCuresBoardsTortureHatsNo ReasonThroatDiscoveringHeelsNailsGeeseLiverCalvesLiver Disease
Book: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
Create image

“We're human beings we are - all of us - and that's what people are liable to forget. Human beings don't like peace and goodwill and everybody loving everybody else. However much they may think they do, they don't really because they're not made like that. Human beings love eating and drinking and loving and hating. They also like showing off, grabbing all they can, fighting for their rights and bossing anybody who'll give them half a chance.”

PeopleThinkingGivingHumansMayMadeHateFightingChanceHuman BeingsForgetHalfRightsEatingDrinkingGoodwillShowing OffLiableGrabbingEating And Drinking
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“If you lived in London, where the whole system is one of false good-fellowship, and you may know a man for twenty years without finding out that he hates you like poison, you would soon have your eyes opened. There we do unkind things in a kind way: we say bitter things in a sweet voice: we always give our friends chloroform when we tear them to pieces.”

IfsKnowsMenWayGivingYearsKindMayWholeEyeHateVoicePiecesTearsSweetFindingsTwentiesLondonBitterPoisonHate YouFellowshipUnkindSweet VoiceChloroform
Book:You Never Can Tell
Create image

“Instruction in sex is as important as instruction in food; yet not only are our adolescents not taught the physiology of sex, but never warned that the strongest sexual attraction may exist between persons so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they could not endure living together for a week much less a lifetime.”

MayPersonsImportantTogetherSexWeekTaughtTasteCapacityLifetimeEndureAttractionStrongestInstructionLiving TogetherPhysiologyFunny Sex
Author:George Bernard Shaw
Create image

“The notion that Nature does not proceed by jumps is only one of the budget of plausible lies that we call classical education. Nature always proceeds by jumps. She may spend twenty thousand years making up her mind to jump; but when she makes it up at last, the jump is big enough to take us into a new age.”

YearsMindMayDoeEnoughBigsAgeLastsLyingNatureThousandTwentiesNotionBudgetsThousand YearsNew AgePlausibleMaking UpClassical Education
Book: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
Create image

“When you want to put something into your part that is not in the play, you must ask the author-or some other author-to lead up to the interpolation for you. Never forget that the effect of a line may depend not on its delivery, but on something said earlier in the play, either by somebody else or by yourself, and that if you change it, it may be necessary to change the whole first act as well.”

IfsWantFirstsWellsMaySaidPlayWholeAsksLinesForgetEffectsDependsTheatreNever ForgetDelivery
Book:Collected letters: 1926-1950
Create image

“In gambling the many must lose in order that the few may win.”

MayOrderWinningLosesMoneyLuckGambling
Book: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
Create image

“The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position in the dance of the electrons. Not for worlds would I question the precise accuracy of these calculations or the existence of electrons (whatever they may be). The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy.”

WorldMayPoorExistenceCuttingFateModernFiguresMovementPositionAngelConcernedDoctorsSettlingDivinityWarningAnnoyingPrecisePhysicistMedievalHeresyNeedlesCalculationsAccuracyCredulityElectrons
Book:The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929
Create image