 |
Authors & Writing
|
|
You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Beauty
|
|
|
Beauty is all very well at first sight; but whoever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Belief
|
|
|
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 happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
|
I believe in Michelangelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Books
|
|
|
In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language: the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Bravery
|
|
|
I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Censorship
|
|
|
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books nobody reads.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
|
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, Preface to Mrs. Warren's Profession
|
|
|
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Chance
|
|
|
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. 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.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Change
|
|
|
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
|
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Charity
|
|
|
In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
|
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Chocolate
|
|
|
What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead.
-George Bernard Shaw, 1894
|
|
Christianity
|
|
|
The early Christian rules of life were not made to last, because the early Christians did not believe that the world itself was going to last.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Class
|
|
|
I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Community
|
|
|
This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 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 what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
-George Bernard Shaw, attributed as from a speech at Brighton
|
|
Confidence
|
|
|
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.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Conflict
|
|
|
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. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
|
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.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Consequences
|
|
|
Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Constitution
|
|
|
The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
|
Consumerism
|
|
|
You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it, than you do to consume wealth without producing it.
-George Bernard Shaw, Candida, Act I, 1898
|
|
Contradiction
|
|
|
How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.
-George Bernard Shaw
|
Books by and about George Bernard Shaw