You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing—a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Nature, Death
Every genuinely benevolent person loathes almsgiving and mendicity.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Charity
All sorts of bodily diseases are produced by half-used minds.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Mind
My father must have had some elementary education for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Father, Fathers
You cannot be a hero without being a coward.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Heroism, Heroes, Heroes/Heroism
I never expect a soldier to think.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Soldiers
Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Books
The most popular method of distributing wealth is the method of the roulette table.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Gambling
Greatness is the secular name for Divinity : both mean simply what lies beyond us.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Greatness
Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Work
We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years, and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Purpose
Ladies and gentleman are permitted to have friends in the kennel, but not in the kitchen.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Servants, Service
The relation of master and servant is advantageous only to masters who do not scruple to abuse their authority, and to servants who do not scruple to abuse their trust.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Servants
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 censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Progress, Censorship
A man of great common sense and good taste—meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Originality, Style, Taste
Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Health
He knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Politics, Career
Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Humankind, Humanity
We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Politics
As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual man weapons against the common man. I now want to give the common man weapons against the intellectual man
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Weapon
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
—George Bernard Shaw
Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog’s life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Travel, Tourism
Woman, reduces us all to a common denominator.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Woman
Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Titles
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Laughter, Challenges, Humor, Life
I do not want actors and actresses to understand my plays. That is not necessary. If they will only pronounce the correct sounds I can guarantee the results.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Acting
I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Atheism
If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentlemen, he may pronounce as he pleases.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Language
There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the neurotic classes.
—George Bernard Shaw
Topics: Society
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William Butler Yeats Irish Poet
- George William Russell Irish Author
- Oscar Wilde Irish Poet, Playwright
- Maurice Maeterlinck Belgian Dramatist
- Brendan Behan Irish Poet
- Oliver Goldsmith Anglo-Irish Novelist, Poet
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan Irish-born British Playwright
- Robertson Davies Canadian Novelist, Playwright
- Elizabeth Bowen Irish Novelist
- Edmund Burke British Philosopher, Statesman
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