George Bernard Shaw

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

A lifetime of happiness? No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

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.

Things do not change; we change.

Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you?

There is no daily chore so trivial that it cannot be made important by skipping it two days running.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Go fish and hunt far and wide day by day – farther and wider – and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

To inherit property is not to be born – it is to be still-born, rather.

The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor, later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sellexactly our own history over again.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Responsibility is the price of greatness.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

Glances of true beauty can be seen in the faces of those who live in true meekness.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.