Quotes

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
-George Bernard Shaw

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
-George Bernard Shaw

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.
-George Bernard Shaw

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.
-George Bernard Shaw

If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion.
-George Bernard Shaw

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
-George Bernard Shaw

Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
-George Bernard Shaw

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.
-George Bernard Shaw

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
-George Bernard Shaw

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles.
-George Bernard Shaw

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
-George Bernard Shaw

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt.
-George Bernard Shaw

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.
-George Bernard Shaw

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
-George Bernard Shaw

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.
-George Bernard Shaw

One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
-George Bernard Shaw

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
-George Bernard Shaw

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
-George Bernard Shaw

A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

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

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

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
-George Bernard Shaw

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.
-George Bernard Shaw

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do.
-George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
-George Bernard Shaw

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
-George Bernard Shaw

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

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.
-George Bernard Shaw

We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
-George Bernard Shaw

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
-George Bernard Shaw

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.
-George Bernard Shaw

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
-George Bernard Shaw

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
-George Bernard Shaw

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.
-George Bernard Shaw

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
-George Bernard Shaw

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.
-George Bernard Shaw

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
-George Bernard Shaw

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

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

Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability.
-George Bernard Shaw

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
-George Bernard Shaw