George Bernard Shaw

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

Genius always finds itself a century too early.

You are alive, so be fully alive.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

Strange – is it not? That of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Do what good thou canst unknown, and be not vain of what ought rather to be felt than seen.

Men have become the tools of their tools.