George Bernard Shaw

To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

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

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do what is right.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.

The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.

The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.

Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change thing I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.