George Bernard Shaw

All problems are finally scientific problems.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

Kings are not born they are made by universal hallucination.

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

In your Salvation shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look after the drainage.

Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

We hate the kindness which we understand.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.

You are alive, so be fully alive.

The only prudence in life is concentration.

Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

I recall a most ingenious piece in a Wisconsin quarterly some years ago in which ‘The Recognitions’ ’ debt to ‘Ulysses’ was established in such minute detail I was doubtful of my own firm recollection of never having read ‘Ulysses.