George Bernard Shaw

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Though I can make my extravaganzas appear credible, I cannot make the truth appear so.

Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Revolutions are always verbose.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure –tangible material prosperity in this world -is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to asceticism.

Familiarity breeds contempt and children.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. A lady of my acquaintance said, I don’t care so much for what they say as I do for what makes them say it.

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

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

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.