George Bernard Shaw

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

A man’s interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

The Leninist antagonism to the most essential features of socialism was evident from the very start. Lenin and Trotsky, upon assuming power, immediately devoted themselves to destroying the liberatory potential of Soviets and factory committees.

I hope my own children never have to fight a war.

If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.

…if you want to be praised and have your books reviewed and told how brilliant you are and get great jobs, it’s not advisable to be a dissident. It’s not impossible, and in fact the system has enough looseness in it so that it can be done, but it is not easy.

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this-who will count the votes, and how.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

The individualist…recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom.

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any treat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

Distress is so severe that among white middle-aged Americans, mortality is actually increasing, something unheard of in functioning societies apart from war or pestilence. There are similar phenomena in Europe under the ‘business first’ (‘neoliberal’/’austerity’) assault.

Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.

The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.