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George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Playwright
Born On
1856-07-26
Died On
1950-11-02
Birth Place
Portobello, Dublin, Ireland
Death Place
Ayot St Lawrence, England
Birth Sign
leo
Father
George Carr Shaw
Mother
Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw
Spouse
Charlotte Payne-Townshend
Nationality
Irish
Education
Wesley College
Writers
Apart from his literary prowess, Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw also gained a lot of prominence for his dry humor and sarcasm. This aspect of his personality was very evident during Shaw's interactions with those who wished to use his literary works to gain commercial success. One such instance was during the meeting between the renowned American movie producer, Sam Goldwyn and George. Sam contacted Shaw to buy the rights for a few of the acclaimed author's plays. The writer put forth an extensive set of rigid terms, which Goldwyn presumed he could haggle about. The Hollywood stalwart tried deterring the playwright from his stance by saying, "Think of millions of people who would get a chance to see your plays who would otherwise never see them. Think of the contribution it would be to art." To this, the master of wit replied, "The trouble is, Mr. Goldwyn, that you think of nothing but Art and I think of nothing but money." However, the attitude of Shaw was completely different when the then struggling Hungarian filmmaker, Gabriel Pascal approached the writer. Pascal expressed his interest in producing the dramatist's plays. When asked how much money the film-maker had for funding the works, Gabriel replied, "Fifteen shillings and six pence - but I owe a pound." His brazenness impressed Shaw to such an extent that the author went ahead and paid the one pound to the film-maker to clear off all debts. Their association resulted in the highly acclaimed 1938 British film, "Pygmalion". They also went on to create magic with subsequent movies such as "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Major Barbara".

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

Youth is wasted on the young.

George Bernard Shaw

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

George Bernard Shaw

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

George Bernard Shaw

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

George Bernard Shaw

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

George Bernard Shaw

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'

George Bernard Shaw

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

George Bernard Shaw

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

George Bernard Shaw

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

George Bernard Shaw

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

George Bernard Shaw

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

George Bernard Shaw

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

George Bernard Shaw

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

George Bernard Shaw

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

George Bernard Shaw

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.

George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

George Bernard Shaw

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

George Bernard Shaw

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

George Bernard Shaw

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

George Bernard Shaw

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

George Bernard Shaw

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

George Bernard Shaw

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.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

George Bernard Shaw

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

George Bernard Shaw

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

George Bernard Shaw

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

George Bernard Shaw

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

George Bernard Shaw

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.

George Bernard Shaw

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

George Bernard Shaw

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

George Bernard Shaw

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

George Bernard Shaw

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

George Bernard Shaw

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

George Bernard Shaw

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

George Bernard Shaw

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

George Bernard Shaw

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

George Bernard Shaw

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

George Bernard Shaw

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

George Bernard Shaw

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

George Bernard Shaw

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

George Bernard Shaw

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

George Bernard Shaw

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

George Bernard Shaw

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all.

George Bernard Shaw

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

George Bernard Shaw

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.

George Bernard Shaw

It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right.

George Bernard Shaw

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

George Bernard Shaw

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

George Bernard Shaw

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

George Bernard Shaw

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

George Bernard Shaw

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

George Bernard Shaw

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

George Bernard Shaw

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

George Bernard Shaw

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

George Bernard Shaw

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

George Bernard Shaw

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

George Bernard Shaw

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

George Bernard Shaw

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.

George Bernard Shaw

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

George Bernard Shaw

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

George Bernard Shaw

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

George Bernard Shaw

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

George Bernard Shaw

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

George Bernard Shaw

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

George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

George Bernard Shaw

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

George Bernard Shaw

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

George Bernard Shaw

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

George Bernard Shaw

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

George Bernard Shaw

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

George Bernard Shaw

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

George Bernard Shaw

Creation is a miracle of daily recurrence. 'A miracle a minute' would not be a bad slogan for God.

George Bernard Shaw

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

George Bernard Shaw

Property is organized robbery.

George Bernard Shaw

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

George Bernard Shaw

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

George Bernard Shaw

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

George Bernard Shaw

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

George Bernard Shaw