George Bernard Shaw Quotes

It would positively be a relief to me to dig Shakespeare up and throw stones at him.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.

I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.

Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it....

The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound.The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.

What we want to see is the child in pursuit of the knowledge not the knowledge in pursuit of the child.

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

There is always danger for those who are afraid.

Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it....

It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man'sto keep unmarried as long as he can.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

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.

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

HIGGINS. Have you no morals, man?DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.

The problem with communication…is the illusion that is has been accomplished.

HIGGINS [aggrieved] Do you mean that my language is improper?MRS HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper - say on a canal barge...

The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.

Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation

Youth is wasted on the young.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

The most distinguished persons become more revolutionary as they grow older.

The longer I live the more I see 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.

[Man] progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

How can she? She's incapable of understanding anything. Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?

You don't stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.

How we lavish our money and worship on Shakespeare without in the least knowing why!

You think, because you have a purpose, Nature must have one. You might as well expect it to have fingers and toes because you do.

It is easy-terribly easy-to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to to break a man's spirit is Devil's work.

My dear: in this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

Loyalty in a critic is corruption.

Some donkeys have amazing luck.

A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself.