George Bernard Shaw

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

The worst sin… is… to be indifferent.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

The future is purchased by the present.

You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

We have more than we use.

Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?

We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Houses are built to live in, and not to look on: therefore let use be preferred before uniformity.

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.