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Conversation
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She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.
-George Bernard Shaw
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I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Cowardice/Weakness
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Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Crime
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When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
-George Bernard Shaw
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The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Curiosity
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A man's interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Cynicism
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The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Dance, Dancing
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A perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Danger
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In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Death
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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
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I want to be all used up when I die.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Debt / Borrow / Loan
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The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Deception/Lying
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The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Democracy
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I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them You are supreme: exercise your power. They say, That's right: tell us what to do; and I tell them. I say Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me. And they do. That's democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, The Revolutionist's Handbook
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Desires
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Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Doctors
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The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquette by giving him away.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Duty
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When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Economics
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If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Education
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What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.
-George Bernard Shaw
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A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Envy / Jealousy
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Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Equality
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Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.
-George Bernard Shaw
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Books by and about George Bernard Shaw