Explore Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

Creation is a miracle of daily recurrence. 'A miracle a minute' would not be a bad slogan for God.

A statesman who confines himself to popular legislation - or, for the matter of that, a playwright who confines himself to popular plays - is like a blind man's dog who goes wherever the blind man pulls him, on the ground that both of them want to go to the same place.

If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all.

The idea of personal salvation is intensely repugnant to me when it is not absurd. Imagine Roosevelt, the big brute, preserving his personality in a future state and swaggering about as a celestial Rough Rider!

Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

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

Youth is wasted on the young.

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

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

No use slaving for me and then saying you want to be cared for: who cares for a slave? If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship; for you’ll get nothing else.

Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?Making life means making trouble. There’s only one way of escaping trouble; and that’s killing things.

But to admire a strong person and to live under that strong person’s thumb are two different things.

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.

The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.