George Bernard Shaw

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

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?

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder.

The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.

We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.

The cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy. It is the only dictator that free man acknowledges. It is the only security that free man desires.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

We hate the kindness which we understand.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.

Kings in this should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Humility like the darkness, reveals the heavenly lights.

Courage is exhilarating.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

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

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.