George Bernard Shaw

This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. It works beautifully as long as I think the same things as he does.

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

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

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

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

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that, unsuspected, ripens with the flower of the pleasure that concealed it.

The never-ending task of self improvement.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

Whether he knew it or not, the life he lived was his penance. Punishing himself, for what he believes are his sins. Consciously or subconsciously, he creates the world he lives in. Never believing that he is deserving happiness, deserving joy. His self-destructive nature, in his eyes, and his eyes only, is justified. Everyone is deserving absolution, but he needs to understand, that he is the only one able to forgive himself.

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one – to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.