George Bernard Shaw Quotes

670 Sourced Quotes

Vulgarity is a necessary part of a complete author's equipment; and the clown is sometimes the best part of the circus.

George Bernard Shaw
Most married couples spend the whole day apart, the woman in the house, the man in the office or study or workshop.

George Bernard Shaw
Love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the moment by its gratification.

George Bernard Shaw
RIDGEON: The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light.

George Bernard Shaw
The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols.

George Bernard Shaw
As an old soldier I admit the cowardice: it's as universal as sea sickness, and matters just as little.

George Bernard Shaw
When will we realize that the fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to.

George Bernard Shaw
When domestic servants are treated as human beings it is not worth while to keep them.

George Bernard Shaw
But a mother is like a broomstick or like the sun in the heavens, it does not matter which as far as one's knowledge of her is concerned: the broomstick is there and the sun is there; and whether the child is beaten by it or warmed and enlightened by it, it accepts it as a fact in nature, and does not conceive it as having had youth, passions, and weaknesses, or as still growing, yearning, suffering, and learning.

George Bernard Shaw
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

George Bernard Shaw
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

George Bernard Shaw
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
When we want to read of the deeds that are done for love, whither do we turn? To the murder column; and there we are rarely disappointed.

George Bernard Shaw
[Nobel Prize] money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.

George Bernard Shaw
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

George Bernard Shaw
Law is blind without counsel. The counsel men agree with is vain: it is only the echo of their own voices. A million echoes will not help you to rule righteously. But he who does not fear you and shews you the other side is a pearl of the greatest price. Slay me and you go blind to your damnation. The greatest of God's names is Counsellor; and when your Empire is dust and your name a byword among the nations the temples of the living God shall still ring with his praise as Wonderful! Counsellor! the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

George Bernard Shaw
Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.

George Bernard Shaw
All very fine, Mary; but my old-fashioned common sense is better than your clever modern nonsense.

George Bernard Shaw
Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous.

George Bernard Shaw
All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

George Bernard Shaw
It is in the hour of trial that a man finds his true profession.

George Bernard Shaw
Our ideals, like the gods of old, are constantly demanding human sacrifices.

George Bernard Shaw
Is the devil to have all the passions as well as all the good tunes?

George Bernard Shaw
Political necessities sometimes turn out to be political mistakes.

George Bernard Shaw
But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person's thumb are two different things.

George Bernard Shaw