Quotes from George Bernard Shaw

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Englishmen never will be slaves; they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.

A soldier is an anachronism of which we must get rid.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport: wlien the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

He who can does. He who can't, teaches.

Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.

One man who has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Life is a first draft... with NO rewrite.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it.

A man who loses his money gains, at the least, experience, and sometimes, something better.

We have in England a curious belief in first-rate people, meaning all the people we do not know; and this consoles us for the undeniable second-rateness of the people we do know.

The confusing of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, ignominious capitulation, acceptance of defeat.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

My mother married a very good man ... and she is not at all keen on my doing the same.

To disbelieve in marriage is easy: to love a married woman is easy; but to betray a comrade, to be disloyal to a host, to break the covenant of bread and salt, is impossible.