Quotes from George Bernard Shaw

Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.

My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.

To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.

There is always danger for those who are afraid.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.

The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.

The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination

The longer I live, the more I realize that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time!

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It ia a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations.

Two things define you: Your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

Whisky is liquid sunshine.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

That is the injustice of a woman's lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks, to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals their affection from her.

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

The plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress of society that they should be shocked pretty often.

I can't turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.

I do not know what I think until I write it.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it.