Dramatist · Irish · 1856 – 1950 · 219 quotes
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
George Bernard Shaw
Dramatist · Irish · 1856 – 1950
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.
We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.
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.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
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.
The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.
England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.
If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.
Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.
We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.
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.
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.
The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
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.
Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.
The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.
It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.
Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.
Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.
