Top 45 George Bernard Shaw Quotes


Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

The first prison I ever saw had inscribed on it cease to do evil: Learn to do well; but as the inscription was on the outside, the prisoners could not read it.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

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

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbor to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience!

Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.

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

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.


The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.

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

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.


There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.

The power of accurate observation ... is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

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

The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.


Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.

The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

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

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.

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

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality.

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