Tuesday, August 23, 2011

George Bernard Shaw Philosophy ...


A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.


A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.


A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.


A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.


A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.


A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.


A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.


A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.


Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.


All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.


Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.


An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.


An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.
An index is a great leveller.

Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.


Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Better never than late.


Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.
Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.


Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.


England and America are two countries separated by the same language.


Every man over forty is a scoundrel.


Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.


Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.
George Bernard Shaw

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.
George Bernard Shaw

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.
George Bernard Shaw

General consultant to mankind.
George Bernard Shaw

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
George Bernard Shaw

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
George Bernard Shaw

He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
George Bernard Shaw

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs.
George Bernard Shaw

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
George Bernard Shaw

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.
George Bernard Shaw

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
George Bernard Shaw

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.
George Bernard Shaw

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
George Bernard Shaw

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.
George Bernard Shaw

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
George Bernard Shaw

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.
George Bernard Shaw

Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.
George Bernard Shaw

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.
George Bernard Shaw

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
George Bernard Shaw

Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.
George Bernard Shaw

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.
George Bernard Shaw

General consultant to mankind.
George Bernard Shaw

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
George Bernard Shaw

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
George Bernard Shaw

He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
George Bernard Shaw

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs.
George Bernard Shaw

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.
George Bernard Shaw

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.
George Bernard Shaw

I am a Christian. That obliges me to be a Communist.
George Bernard Shaw

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
George Bernard Shaw

I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.
George Bernard Shaw

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while.
George Bernard Shaw

I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.
George Bernard Shaw

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
George Bernard Shaw

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
George Bernard Shaw

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.
George Bernard Shaw

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
George Bernard Shaw

I want to be all used up when I die.
George Bernard Shaw

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.
George Bernard Shaw

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.
George Bernard Shaw

I'm an atheist and I thank God for it.
George Bernard Shaw

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
George Bernard Shaw

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
George Bernard Shaw

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do.
George Bernard Shaw

If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all.
George Bernard Shaw

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.
George Bernard Shaw

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

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.
George Bernard Shaw

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.
George Bernard Shaw

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
George Bernard Shaw

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.
George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
George Bernard Shaw

Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.
George Bernard Shaw

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
George Bernard Shaw

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.
George Bernard Shaw

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.
George Bernard Shaw

Most people do not pray; they only beg.
George Bernard Shaw

My reputation grows with every failure.
George Bernard Shaw

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.
George Bernard Shaw

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
George Bernard Shaw

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
George Bernard Shaw

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
George Bernard Shaw

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
George Bernard Shaw

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
George Bernard Shaw

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?
George Bernard Shaw

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.
George Bernard Shaw

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.
George Bernard Shaw

Syllables govern the world.
George Bernard Shaw

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
George Bernard Shaw

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.
George Bernard Shaw

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.
George Bernard Shaw

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.
George Bernard Shaw

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.
George Bernard Shaw

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
George Bernard Shaw

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.
George Bernard Shaw

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.
George Bernard Shaw

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
George Bernard Shaw

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.
George Bernard Shaw

The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic.
George Bernard Shaw

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
George Bernard Shaw

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.
George Bernard Shaw

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.
George Bernard Shaw

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.
George Bernard Shaw

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
George Bernard Shaw

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
George Bernard Shaw

There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.
George Bernard Shaw

There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.
George Bernard Shaw

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
George Bernard Shaw

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.
George Bernard Shaw

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.
George Bernard Shaw

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.
George Bernard Shaw

Very few people can afford to be poor.
George Bernard Shaw

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
George Bernard Shaw

Virtue is insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George Bernard Shaw

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
George Bernard Shaw

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
George Bernard Shaw

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
George Bernard Shaw

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
George Bernard Shaw

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.
George Bernard Shaw

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence... on pain of liquidation.
George Bernard Shaw

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
George Bernard Shaw

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?
George Bernard Shaw

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?
George Bernard Shaw

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard Shaw

When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn't got any.
George Bernard Shaw

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
George Bernard Shaw

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
George Bernard Shaw

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.
George Bernard Shaw

Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.
George Bernard Shaw

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!
George Bernard Shaw

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.
George Bernard Shaw

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.
George Bernard Shaw

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
George Bernard Shaw

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.
George Bernard Shaw

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.
George Bernard Shaw

You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
George Bernard Shaw

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
George Bernard Shaw

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
George Bernard Shaw

Youth is wasted on the young.
George Bernard Shaw

No comments:

Post a Comment