George Bernard Shaw

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

The only thing grief as taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.