George Bernard Shaw

I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it.

I want to be all used up when I die.

There is only one universal passion fear.

The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity.

Better is the enemy of good.

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

To delay justice, is injustice.

Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.