George Bernard Shaw

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic 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.

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

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

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

Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

Every calamity is a spur and valuable hint.

It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things.

The more experiments you make the better.

My life is a struggle.

It is proved…that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world – and never will.