Popular George Bernard Shaw's Quotes And Sayings

It is not that I am so clever; it is that everyone else is so stupid.

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

Heartbreak is life educating us.

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

I believe in the discipline of silence, and could talk for hours about it.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

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

There is not one single established religion that an intelligent, educated man can believe.

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

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

If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth - beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals - would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?

The man who has never made a mistake will never make anything 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.

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

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny; they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

Capitalism drives the employers to do their worst to the employed, and the employed to do the least for them. And it boasts all the time of the incentive it provides to both to do their best! . . . The reason the Capitalist system has worked so far without jamming for more than a few months at a time, and then only in places, is that it has not yet succeeded in making a conquest of human nature so complete that everybody acts on strictly business principles.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

The harder I work the more I live.

Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals

It is not pleasure that makes life worth living. It is life that makes pleasure worth having.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.

I'm sick of all the reasonable people: they see all the reasons for doing nothing

It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some.

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby

Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.

A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.

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

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.

After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere.

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

People expect too much of one year and too little of ten.

Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results.

If there is anything I hate in a woman, it's want of character.

I like to quote myself frequently and often, it makes me sound much more intelligent than I actually am.

Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job.

I want to be all used up when I die.

No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does

The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.

Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the life.

I really don't think I could consent to go to Heaven if I thought there were no animals there.

Women are called womanly only when they regard themselves as existing solely for the use of men.

I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you.

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

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that men never learn anything from history.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like the state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

We veneer civilization by doing unkind things in a kind way.

The business man - the man to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom.

You cannot learn to skate without making yourself ridiculous - the ice of life is slippery.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

The worst sin... is... to be indifferent.

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.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

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.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

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

The most sincere form of love is love for food

A critic recently described me, with deadly acuteness, as having 'a kindly dislike of my fellow-creatures.' Perhaps dread would have been nearer the mark than dislike; for man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

What is life but a series of inspired follies.

English is the easiest language to speak badly.

Although I cannot lay an egg, I am a very good judge of omelettes

The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist

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 whatever I can.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation; and the pre-occupied person is neither happy nor unhappy, but simply alive and active. That is why it is necessary to happiness that one should be tired.

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

People who are hard, grasping and always ready to take advantage of their neighbors become very rich.

Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

Activity is the only road to knowledge.

You see things and you say, 'Why?'. But I dream things and I say, 'Why not?'.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

After studying the Hungarian language for years, I can confidently conclude that had Hungarian been my mother tongue, it would have been more precious. Simply because through this extraordinary, ancient and powerful language it is possible to precisely describe the tiniest differences and the most secretive tremors of emotions.

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

The sound body is the product of the sound mind.

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Remember that the progress of the world depends on your knowing better than your elders.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

I have very carefully studied Islam and the life of its Prophet (PBUH). I have done so both as a student of history and as a critic. And I have come to conclusion that Muhammad (PBUH) was indeed a great man and a deliverer and benefactor of mankind which was till then writhing under the most agonising Pain.

Start with the belief that your life can indeed be changed, and that you have the power to change it.

I would exchange every painting of Christ for one snapshot.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Syllables govern the world.

I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly feed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.

All progress means war with society.

It is easy - terribly easy - to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man's spirit is devil's work.

Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.