100 Quotes by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright and critic, left an indelible mark on the world of theater with his thought-provoking plays that often blended wit and social commentary. His works, which include classics like "Pygmalion" and "Man and Superman," engaged audiences with sharp dialogue and layered characters that challenged conventional norms. Shaw's plays were a vehicle for exploring complex topics, such as class disparity, gender roles, and the pursuit of self-discovery. His unique ability to infuse humor into serious subjects made his plays both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Shaw's contributions to theater extended beyond his writing, as he was also an outspoken advocate for social and political change, using his platform to address issues like education reform and women's rights. Through his plays and activism, Shaw encouraged audiences to question societal conventions and envision a more just and equitable world.
George Bernard Shaw Quotes
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. (Meaning)
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. (Quote Meaning)
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react. (Meaning)
A cigarette is a pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other. (Quote Meaning)
Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great. (Meaning)
The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school. (Quote Meaning)
Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything. (Meaning)
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. (Quote Meaning)
Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it. (Meaning)
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get. (Quote Meaning)
War does not decide who is right but who is left. (Meaning)
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. (Quote Meaning)
There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot. (Meaning)
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. (Quote Meaning)
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth. (Meaning)
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies. (Quote Meaning)
Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless. (Meaning)
If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate. (Quote Meaning)
Indifference is the essence of inhumanity. (Meaning)
Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. (Quote Meaning)
Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals (Meaning)
Decency is indecency's conspiracy of silence (Quote Meaning)
My way of joking is to tell the truth (Meaning)
No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does (Quote Meaning)
English is the easiest language to speak badly. (Meaning)
Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby (Quote Meaning)
Activity is the only road to knowledge. (Meaning)
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. (Quote Meaning)
After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere. (Meaning)
The sound body is the product of the sound mind. (Quote Meaning)
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out. (Meaning)
The harder I work the more I live. (Quote Meaning)
The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty. (Meaning)
Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. (Quote Meaning)
Success covers a multitude of blunders. (Meaning)
I want to be all used up when I die. (Quote Meaning)
A happy family is but an earlier heaven. (Meaning)
Imagination is the beginning of creation. (Quote Meaning)
If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do. (Meaning)
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. (Quote Meaning)
A family is a tyranny ruled over by it's weakest member. (Meaning)
What is life but a series of inspired follies. (Quote Meaning)
There is no sincerer love than the love of food. (Meaning)
Better never than late. (Quote Meaning)
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is. (Meaning)
Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning. (Quote Meaning)
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. (Meaning)
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious. (Quote Meaning)
All great truths begin as blasphemies. (Meaning)
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses. (Quote Meaning)
Syllables govern the world. (Meaning)
The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. (Quote Meaning)
Lack of money is the root of all evil. (Meaning)
To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer. (Quote Meaning)
First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. (Meaning)
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. (Quote Meaning)
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. (Meaning)
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. (Quote Meaning)
If you teach a man anything, he will never learn. (Meaning)
Music is the brandy of the damned. (Quote Meaning)
The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor. (Meaning)
There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? (Meaning)
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. (Quote Meaning)
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. (Meaning)
There is no love sincerer than the love of food. (Quote Meaning)
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules. (Meaning)
Youth is wasted on the young. (Quote Meaning)
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. (Meaning)
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. (Quote Meaning)
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. (Meaning)
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. (Quote Meaning)
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. (Meaning)
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. (Quote Meaning)
Don't lose faith. Promise yourself that you will be a success story, and I promise you that all the forces of the universe will unite to come to your aid; you might not feel today or for a while, but the longer you wait the bigger the prize.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
Write your Sad times in Sand. Write your Good times in Stone.
Islam is the best religion and Muslims are the worst followers
You see things and you say, 'Why?'. But I dream things and I say, 'Why not?'.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. (Meaning)
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
A cigarette is a pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other.
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. (Quote Meaning)
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. (Meaning)
Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.
A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.
If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains.
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
The person I miss most is the one I could have been.
Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. (Quote Meaning)
Some people look at the world and say 'why?' Some people look at the world and say 'why not?'
Most people do not pray; they only beg.
The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.
The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.
Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid...There is no harm in a well-fed lion. It has no ideals, no sect, no party.
Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
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. (Meaning)
Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business. (Quote Meaning)
Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.
Life is a first draft... with NO rewrite.
The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.
The harder I work the more I live.
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?
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.
Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. (Meaning)
Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. (Quote Meaning)
Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny; they have only shifted it to another shoulder.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. (Meaning)
Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
The only person who acts sensibly is my tailor. He takes my measure anew every time he sees me. Everyone else goes by their old measurements.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
There is not one single established religion that an intelligent, educated man can believe.
I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
If there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It's in the nature of governments to tell lies.
It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society; it is belief.
Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.
It is not enough to know what is good: you must be able to do it.
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. (Meaning)
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. (Quote Meaning)
I believe in the discipline of silence, and could talk for hours about it.
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
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.
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does
Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing - to learn to live on earth as human beings.
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
The most sincere form of love is love for food
The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
Newspaper: A device unable to distinguish between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.
Being a mother means that your heart is no longer yours; it wanders wherever your children do
Experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn.
Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
If any religion had a chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam.
Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby
Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.
Grain by grain, a loaf. Stone upon stone, a palace.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
Our lives are shaped not as much by our experiences as by our expectations.
The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe.
Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it.
War does not decide who is right but who is left.
We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.
Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.
Discussing vaccination with a doctor is like discussing vegetarianism with a butcher.
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
Where there is no knowledge ignorance calls itself science.
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. (Meaning)
I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.
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.
Gardening is the only unquestionably useful job.
Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.
Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless.
Heartbreak is life educating us.
It is not that I am so clever; it is that everyone else is so stupid.
It is the first duty of every man not to be poor.
If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.
The best way to get your point across is to entertain.
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.
Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.
The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some.
Indifference is the essence of inhumanity.
Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.
I want to be all used up when I die.
It is not pleasure that makes life worth living. It is life that makes pleasure worth having.
Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results.
My way of joking is to tell the truth
People expect too much of one year and too little of ten.
The man who has never made a mistake will never make anything else.
Start with the belief that your life can indeed be changed, and that you have the power to change it.
Don't waste time collecting other people's autographs; rather devote it to making your own autograph worth collecting.
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
I no longer desire happiness: life is nobler than that.
One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.
Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.
It is one of the mysterious ways of Allah to make women troublesome when he makes them beautiful.
We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the loudest cry of our hearts.
Principles without programs are platitudes.
There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in.
If all you are going to do in life are the things that are convenient and comfortable, the great things never get done.
When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted?
― George Bernard Shaw Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
