George Bernard Shaw

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.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

A man who has no office to go to – I don’t care who he is – is a trial of which you can have no conception.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it.

Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.

What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Patience – the gift of being able to see past the emotion.

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.