Quotes by George Bernard Shaw
(1856 - 1950)

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Actors	I do not want actors and acresses to understand my plays. That is not necessary. If they will only pronounce the correct sounds I can guarantee the results.
Affection	All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.
America	An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.
Americans	I have defined the 100% American as 99% an idiot. And they just adore me.
Americans	Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
Art	If more than ten percent of the population likes a painting it should be burned, for it must be bad
Art	Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
Assassination	Assassination is the extreme form of censorship
Baseball	Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
Beliefs	The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
Brahms	There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
Capital Punishment	There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
Chess	Chess is a foolish expedient of making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.
Church	The Churches must learn humility as well as teach it.
Conversation	The problem with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
Country	O Lord! I don't know which is the worst of the country, the walking or the sitting at home with nothing to do.
Criticism	If you will only take the precaution to go in long enough after it commences and to come out long enough before it is over, you will not find it wearisome.
Critics	Reviewing has one advantage over suicide; in suicide you take it out of yourself; in reviewing you take it out of other people.
Critics	A drama critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.
Cynicism	The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
Democracy	Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Democracy	The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Democracy	Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Doctors	A doctor's reputation is made by the number of eminent men who die under his care.
Doctors	We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.
Drinking	Alcohol is a very necessary article. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
Duty	When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
Economists	If all economists, were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
English	England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
Experience	We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
Family	Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us that a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
Fashion	Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesman.
Funerals	What bereaved people need is a little comic relief, and this is why funerals are so farcical.
Gambling	Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich; that is why the bishops dare not denounce it fundamentally.
Gentlemen	I am a gentleman, I live by robbing the poor.
God	Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
God	There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the Will of God on every possible subject.
Government	A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.
Heaven	Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside.
History	Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
Hope	"He who has never hoped can never despair."
Hunting	When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
Ireland	I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.
Liberty	Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it.
Life	A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Life	Life is a disease: and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.
Life	Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Marriage	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.
Marriage	Marriage is popular because ir combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
Martyrdom	Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
Middle Class	In the middle classes, where the segregation of the artificially limited family in its little brick box is horribly complete, bad manners, ugly dresses, awkwardness, cowardice, peevishness and all the pretty vices of unsociablity flourish like mushrooms in a cellar.
Money	Lack of money is the root of all evil.
Money	Make money and the whole nation will conspire to make you a gentleman.
Morality	Bourgeois morality is largely a system of making cheap virtues a cloak for expensive vices.
Morality	Morality consists in suspecting other people of not being legally married.
Music	The chief objection to playing wind instruments is that is prolongs the life of the player.
Music	Let a short Act of Parliment be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols, or bombs without incurring any penalties.
Opinions	If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.
Parenthood	There may be some doubt as to who are the best people to have charge of children, but there can be no doubt that parents are the worst
Patriotism	Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
Patriotism	Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
People	The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist.
Pessimists	A pessimist thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
Professions	All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
Quotations	I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
Reason	Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Respectability	The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. - ("Man and Superman" (1903), act I)
Shakespear	With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare, when I measure my mind agaist his.
Sincerity	It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
Teaching	He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
Thought	Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
Time	Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
War	Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
Women	Home is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse.
World	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.

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