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.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

If you injure your neighbour, better not do it by halves.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

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

Do one thing every day that scares you.

It is by the goodness of God that we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.

That’s what I can’t stand. I know I’ll bounce back, and that’s what I can’t stand.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.