Top 1385 Quotes & Sayings by George Bernard Shaw

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw.
Last updated on October 10, 2024.
George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.
A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. — © George Bernard Shaw
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.
Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. — © George Bernard Shaw
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them.
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.
You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. — © George Bernard Shaw
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.
The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.
You cannot be a hero without being a coward.
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.
Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. — © George Bernard Shaw
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
Youth is wasted on the young.
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
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