George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. Profound George Bernard Shaw quotes will fire up your brain and inspire you to look at life differently while making you laugh.
If you’re searching for deep quotes by authors that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by George Eliot, best George Orwell quotes and greatest Harper Lee quotes.
Famous George Bernard Shaw Quotes
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. George Bernard Shaw
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. 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
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. George Bernard Shaw
Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself. George Bernard Shaw
The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it. George Bernard Shaw
You see things you say, Why? But I dream things that never were and I say Why not? George Bernard Shaw
There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses. George Bernard Shaw
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. George Bernard Shaw
Animals are my friends and I don’t eat my friends. George Bernard Shaw
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. George Bernard Shaw
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. George Bernard Shaw
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.George Bernard Shaw
The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. George Bernard Shaw
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. George Bernard Shaw
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world. George Bernard Shaw
The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. George Bernard Shaw
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death. George Bernard Shaw
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. George Bernard Shaw
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. George Bernard Shaw
Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one. George Bernard Shaw
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw
A day’s work is a day’s work, neither more nor less, and the man who does it needs a day’s sustenance, a night’s repose and due leisure, whether he be painter or ploughman. George Bernard Shaw
You use a glass mirror to see your face you use works of art to see your soul. George Bernard Shaw
A fashion is nothing, but an induced epidemic. George Bernard Shaw
He knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. George Bernard Shaw
A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. George Bernard Shaw
A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it. 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
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. George Bernard Shaw
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it it would be hell on earth. George Bernard Shaw
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world. George Bernard Shaw
Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them. George Bernard Shaw
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. George Bernard Shaw
An American has no sense of privacy. He does not know what it means. There is no such thing in the country. George Bernard Shaw
After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere. George Bernard Shaw
The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure. George Bernard Shaw
Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men. George Bernard Shaw
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. George Bernard Shaw
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. George Bernard Shaw
England and America are two countries separated by a common language. George Bernard Shaw
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity. George Bernard Shaw
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. George Bernard Shaw
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out. George Bernard Shaw
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. George Bernard Shaw
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. George Bernard Shaw
Kings are not born they are made by artificial hallucination. George Bernard Shaw
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. George Bernard Shaw
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it. George Bernard Shaw
There is no sincerer love than the love of food. George Bernard Shaw
You see things and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say Why not? George Bernard Shaw
A happy family is but an earlier heaven. George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw
There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot. George Bernard Shaw
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. George Bernard Shaw
There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it. 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
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. George Bernard Shaw
Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. George Bernard Shaw
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. George Bernard Shaw
First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. George Bernard Shaw
The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves. George Bernard Shaw
Lack of money is the root of all evil. George Bernard Shaw
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid. George Bernard Shaw
The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people. George Bernard Shaw
Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. George Bernard Shaw
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. George Bernard Shaw
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. George Bernard Shaw
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. George Bernard Shaw
You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. George Bernard Shaw
Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not. George Bernard Shaw
I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me. 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
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
Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done. George Bernard Shaw
I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy. George Bernard Shaw
The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man. George Bernard Shaw
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me. George Bernard Shaw
You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub. George Bernard Shaw
When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work. 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
Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself. George Bernard Shaw
We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence on pain of liquidation. George Bernard Shaw
The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself. George Bernard Shaw
If I own a large part of Scotland, I can turn the people off the land practically into the sea or across the sea. I can take women in child-bearing and throw them into the snow and leave them there. That has been done. I can do it for no better reason than I think it is better to shoot deer on the land than allow people to live on it. George Bernard Shaw
If you’re 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. George Bernard Shaw
