There are some people in this world who seem to have a knack for everything they do. George Bernard Shaw is one of those people. A playwright, critic, and political activist, Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1856 and never stopped working until his death in 1950. This post will explore the many highlights of Shaw’s life and work.
Here are the deepest Poverty, Love, Time, Human Beings, Life, World, Learning quotes from George Bernard Shaw, and much more.
Some people look at the world and say ‘why?’ Some people look at the world and say ‘why not?’ — George Bernard Shaw
If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do. — George Bernard Shaw
In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it. — George Bernard Shaw
Money is a most important thing in the world. — George Bernard Shaw
Syllables govern the world. — George Bernard Shaw
Taxes are the chief business of a conqueror of the world. — George Bernard Shaw
The world is populated in The main by people who should not exist. — George Bernard Shaw
Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. — George Bernard Shaw
A man’s interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself. — George Bernard Shaw
In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness. — George Bernard Shaw
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world. — George Bernard Shaw
The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor. — George Bernard Shaw
At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world. — George Bernard Shaw
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world. — George Bernard Shaw
A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out. — George Bernard Shaw
Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world. — George Bernard Shaw
Remember that the progress of the world depends on your knowing better than your elders. — George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw is famous for his role in revolutionizing comedic drama. He was also a literary critic and a prominent British socialist.
Shaw’s most financially successful work, Pygmalion, was adapted into the popular Broadway musical My Fair Lady.
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Telling the truth is the funniest joke in the world. — George Bernard Shaw
You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. — George Bernard Shaw
The best reformers The world has ever seen are those who commence on Themselves. — George Bernard Shaw
What the world calls originality is only an unaccustomed method of tickling it. — George Bernard Shaw
Life would be tolerable but for its amusements. — George Bernard Shaw
Heartbreak is life educating us. — George Bernard Shaw
If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you’ll find you’ve done it. — George Bernard Shaw
Life is a first draft… with NO rewrite. — George Bernard Shaw
I no longer desire happiness: life is nobler than that. — George Bernard Shaw
Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the worst. — George Bernard Shaw
Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo. — George Bernard Shaw
Liberty is the breath of life to nations. — George Bernard Shaw
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. — George Bernard Shaw
Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful. — George Bernard Shaw
The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life. — George Bernard Shaw
I assume that to prevent illness in later life, you should never have been born at all. — George Bernard Shaw
Dancing is a very crude attempt to get into the rhythm of life. — George Bernard Shaw
What is life but a series of inspired follies. — George Bernard Shaw
The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die. — George Bernard Shaw
The greatest thing in life is to die young–but delay it as long as possible. — George Bernard Shaw
Life is too short for men to take it seriously. — George Bernard Shaw
Our lives are shaped not as much by our experiences as by our expectations. — George Bernard Shaw
Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life. — George Bernard Shaw
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. — George Bernard Shaw
Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent. — George Bernard Shaw
I hate the poor and look forward eagerly to their extermination. — George Bernard Shaw
Very few people can afford to be poor. — George Bernard Shaw
What is the matter with the poor is poverty; What is the matter with the rich is uselessness. — George Bernard Shaw
Higgins. Have you no morals, man? DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. — George Bernard Shaw
It is the first duty of every man not to be poor. — George Bernard Shaw
If a man is indolent, let him be poor. If he is drunken, let him be poor…. Also––somewhat inconsistently––blessed are the poor! — George Bernard Shaw
Our first duty, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor. — George Bernard Shaw
I am a gentleman: I lIve by robbIng the poor. — George Bernard Shaw
Nothing is more dangerous than a poor doctor: not even a poor employer or a poor landlord. — George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, as the youngest of three children.
He was raised in genteel poverty, and his mother’s career as a professional singer influenced his interest in music, art, and literature.
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I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.’ ‘I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. — George Bernard Shaw
The poor silly–clever Irishman takes off his hat to God’s Englishman. — George Bernard Shaw
The greatest evils and the worst of crimes is poverty; our first duty, a duty to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor. — George Bernard Shaw
If you teach a man anything, he will never learn. — George Bernard Shaw
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. — George Bernard Shaw
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history. — George Bernard Shaw
The churches must learn humility as well as teach it. — George Bernard Shaw
God made the world as an artist and that is why the world must learn from its artists. — George Bernard Shaw
Experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn. — George Bernard Shaw
We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. — George Bernard Shaw
The lesson intended by an author is hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to learn from his book. — George Bernard Shaw
The politician who once had to learn to flatter Kings has now to learn how to fascinate, amuse, coax, humbug, frighten, or otherwise strike the fancy of the electorate. — George Bernard Shaw
You don’t learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking, and getting well hammered yourself. — George Bernard Shaw
It is a monstrous thing to force a child to learn Latin or Greek or mathematics on the ground that they are an indispensable gymnastic for the mental powers. It would be monstrous even if it were true. — George Bernard Shaw
Who are those we love? Only those we do not hate. — George Bernard Shaw
It is most unwise for people in love to marry. — George Bernard Shaw
A love affair should always be a honeymoon. And the only way to make sure of that is to keep changing the man; for the same man can never keep it up. — George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw wrote rather unmemorable fiction throughout his 20s and early 30s.
In 1885 the drama critic William Archer recruited Shaw to write book, art, and musical reviews in various publications.
In 1895 Shaw began writing for the Saturday Review as a theatre critic, and from there he began to write his first plays. .
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If pity is akin to love, gratitude is akin to the other thing. — George Bernard Shaw
First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. — George Bernard Shaw
Be as romantic as you please about love … but you mustn’t be romantic about money. — George Bernard Shaw
There is no sincerer love than the love of food. — George Bernard Shaw
Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree. — George Bernard Shaw
Opera is when a tenor and soprano want to make love, but are prevented from doing so by a baritone. — George Bernard Shaw
If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself. — George Bernard Shaw
Love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the moment by its gratification. — George Bernard Shaw
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else. — George Bernard Shaw
The love of money is The root of all virtue. — George Bernard Shaw
My heart, my heart, be whole and free: Love is thine only enemy. — George Bernard Shaw
We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the loudest cry of our hearts. — George Bernard Shaw
Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love. — George Bernard Shaw
Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty. — George Bernard Shaw
The ideal love affair should be conducted by post. — George Bernard Shaw
The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post. — George Bernard Shaw
Being hurt by someone you truly care about leaves a hole in you heart that only love can fill. — George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw’s plays are thematically diverse.
He wove threads of humour and romance between analyses of contemporary hypocrisies and social tensions.
About the beginning of the 20th century, Shaw began affixing lengthy prefaces to his plays that engaged more deeply with their philosophical foundations
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I love little children too but I don’t cut off their heads and stick them in vases. — George Bernard Shaw
Time enough to think of the future when you haven’t any future to think of. — George Bernard Shaw
We must not stay as we are, doing always what was done last time; or we shall stick in the mud. — George Bernard Shaw
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. — George Bernard Shaw
We are the masters at the moment, and not only at the moment, but for a very long time to come. — George Bernard Shaw
The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me. — George Bernard Shaw
The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time. — George Bernard Shaw
Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time. — George Bernard Shaw
Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness. — George Bernard Shaw
A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes. — George Bernard Shaw
The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school. — George Bernard Shaw
Vegetarians claim to be immune from most diseases but they have been known to die from time to time. — George Bernard Shaw
It seems as though every time you learn something new you have to give up something. — George Bernard Shaw
I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time. — George Bernard Shaw
Once there was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time is called the Dark Ages. He who can, does. He who cannot teaches. — George Bernard Shaw
The only sensible person is my tailor. He measures me anew each time he sees me. — George Bernard Shaw
A learned man is an idler who kills time by study. — George Bernard Shaw
In the mid-1880s George Bernard Shaw joined the Fabian Society, a newly formed socialist club for middle-class intellectuals hoping to transform English society through culture.
He remained a socialist for the rest of his life. He also became a pacifist and an antiwar activist, attracting much criticism during World War I.
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A leArned mAn is An idler who kills time with study. bewAre of his fAlse knowledge it is more dAngerous thAn ignorAnce. — George Bernard Shaw
Don’t waste time collecting other people’s autographs; rather devote it to making your own autograph worth collecting. — George Bernard Shaw
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. — George Bernard Shaw
Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time. — George Bernard Shaw
You may well ask me why…I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all. — George Bernard Shaw
Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions. — George Bernard Shaw
I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize. — George Bernard Shaw
Our ideals, like the gods of old, are constantly demanding human sacrifices. — George Bernard Shaw
When I speak of The Case for Equality I mean human equality; and that, of course, can only mean one thing: it means equality of income. — George Bernard Shaw
The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years. — George Bernard Shaw
Unless the law of marriage were first made human, it could never become divine. — George Bernard Shaw
To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching. — George Bernard Shaw
Human misery is so appalling nowadays that if we allowed ourselves to dwell on it we should only add imaginary miseries of our own to the real miseries of others without doing them any good. — George Bernard Shaw
Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error. — George Bernard Shaw
Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character. — George Bernard Shaw
The confusing of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error. — George Bernard Shaw
Nature holds no brief for the human experiment; it must stand or fall by its results. — George Bernard Shaw
I was convinced that Ceylon is the cradle of the human race because everybody there looks an original. All other nations are obviously mass produced. — George Bernard Shaw
