Dramatist · Irish · 1856 – 1950 · 219 quotes
We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George Bernard Shaw
Dramatist · Irish · 1856 – 1950
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.
Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.
In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win.
Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn't got any.
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
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.
If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all.
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.
She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.
Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
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.
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.
The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.
Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.
