95 George Bernard Shaw Quotes & Sayings to Inspire You to Keep Going
George Bernard Shaw (born 26 July 1856, Portobello, Dublin, Ireland — died 2 November 1950, Ayot Saint Lawrence, United Kingdom), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, political activist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He wrote over sixty plays in the course of his life, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). Shaw was the first person to be awarded both a Nobel Prize for literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938) for Best Writing, Screenplay for his role in adapting his own play Pygmalion for the screen.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.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.Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. 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. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
George Bernard Shaw
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.
George Bernard Shaw
Youth is wasted on the young.There is no love sincerer than the love of food.People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. 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.There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.A happy family is but an earlier heaven.People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.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.Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!Two percent of the people think. Three percent of the people think they think. And ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it...
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
George Bernard Shaw
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.All great truths begin as blasphemies.After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.Write your Sad times in Sand, Write your Good times in Stone.Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.Discussing vaccination with a doctor is like discussing vegetarianism with a butcher.Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.A cigarette is a pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other.Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it.Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.
Don't lose faith. Promise yourself that you will be a success story, and I promise you that all the forces of the universe will unite to come to your aid; you might not feel today or for a while, but the longer you wait the bigger the prize.
George Bernard Shaw
The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure.Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.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.Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
My religious convictions and scientific views cannot at present be more specifically defined than as those of a believer in creative evolution. I desire that no public monument or work of art or inscription or sermon or ritual service commemorating me shall suggest that I accepted the tenets peculiar to any established church or denomination nor take the form of a cross or any other instrument of torture or symbol of blood sacrifice.
[From the will of GBS]
George Bernard Shaw
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.Experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn.The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.Now that we have learned to fly in the air like birds and dive in the sea like fish, only one thing remains – to learn to live on earth like humans.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.A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.Common people do not pray; they only beg.He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.
