24 George Bernard Shaw Quotes on Shaw

George Bernard Shaw quotes on shaw

15. [Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.

17. Why was I born with such contemporaries?

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

30. God help England if she had no Scots to think for her!

35. It's well to be off with the Old Woman before you're on with the New.

58. Progress can do nothing but make the most of us all as we are:

65. Marry Ann; and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration in her than in a plate of muffins.

76. I was a hypocrite; and it served me right to be sent to heaven.

88. Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice. Yet all his civilization is founded on his cowardice, on his abject tameness, which he calls his respectability. There are limits to what a mule or an ass will stand; but Man will suffer himself to be degraded until his vileness becomes so loathsome to his oppressors that they themselves are forced to reform it.

100. Well, well, go your way, Senor Don Juan. I prefer to be my own master and not the tool of any blundering universal force. I know that beauty is good to look at; that music is good to hear; that love is good to feel; and that they are all good to think about and talk about. I know that to be well exercised in these sensations, emotions, and studies is to be a refined and cultivated being. Whatever they may say of me in churches on earth, I know that it is universally admitted in good society that the prince of Darkness is a gentleman; and that is enough for me.

105. [between his teeth] Goon. Talk politics, you idiots: nothing sounds more respectable. Keep it up, I tell you.

149. 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.

150. The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.

151. You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself.

152. Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows dont understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you cant see the quintessential equality of all the religions.

156. I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog; they're the best for every day.

159. Death is for many of us the gate of hell; but we are inside on the way out, not outside on the way in.

163. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

165. The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

166. He ain't a copper just look at 'is boots!

169. What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.

172. I heard your prayers Thank God it's all over!

173. You see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There's always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.

232. The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.

243. Shaw: Am reserving two seats for my show. Come bring a friend - if you have one.