George Bernard Shaw Quotes

Well, I tell you again to get rid of your Constitution. But I suppose you won't do it. You have a good president and you have a bad Constitution, and the bad Constitution gets the better of the good President all the time. The end of it will be is that you might as well have an English Prime Minister.

Οι άνθρωποι πάντα κατηγορούν τις συνθήκες ζωής τους γι’ αυτό που οι ίδιοι είναι. Δεν πιστεύω στις περιστάσεις και τις συνθήκες. Οι άνθρωποι που πετυχαίνουν σ’ αυτό τον κόσμο είναι αυτοί που προχωρούν, διαλέγουν τις συνθήκες και τις περιστάσεις που θέλουν κι όταν δεν τις βρίσκουν τις δημιουργούν.

MENDOZA. I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.

TANNER. [promptly] I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. Shake hands.

Şi optimistul şi pesimistul sunt utili societăţii. Optimistul a inventat avionul, iar pesimistul paraşuta.

I object to all punishment whatsoever. I don't want to punish anybody, but there are an extraordinary number of people who I want to kill. Not in any unkind or personal spirit. But it must be evident to all of you, you must all know have a dozen (1/12) people at least, who are no use in this world; who are more trouble than they are worth. And I think it would be a good thing to make everybody come before a properly appointed board just as he might come before the income tax commissioners and say every 5 years or every 7 years, just put them there, and say, sir or madam, now will you be kind enough to justify your existence? If you can’t justify your existence; if you’re not pulling your weight in the social boat; if you are not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.

(on the question if he thought The Holy Ghost wrote the bible): I think The Holy Ghost has written all books.

The weak may not be admired and hero-worshipped; but they are by no means disliked or shunned; and they never seem to have the least difficulty in marrying people who are too good for them. They may fail in emergencies; but life is not one long emergency: it is mostly a string of situations for which no exceptional strength is needed, and with which even rather weak people can cope if they have a stronger partner to help them out.

We shall never be able to keep the secret unless everybody knows what it is.

Decency cannot be discussed without indecency!

But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

You scandalous woman, will you throw away even your hypocrisy?

We should refuse to tolerate poverty as a social institution not because the poor are the salt of the earth, but because 'the poor in a lump are bad'.

Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore, they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because the don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give.