Quotes from George Bernard Shaw

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

I'm one of the undeserving poor.

Pothinus: "Is it possible that Caesar, the conqueror of the world, has time to occupy himself with such a trifle as our taxes?" Caesar: "My friend, taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world."

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

All dress is fancy dress, is it not, except our natural skins?

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them.

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.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don't eat has been proved to be indispensable for life. But I go marching on.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal your own.

All sorts of bodily diseases are produced by half-used minds.

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?

It's easier to replace a dead man than a good picture.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.