George Bernard Shaw was born on July 26, 1856, in Portobelo, Ireland.
Shaw and his family lived a financially decent life, and he was motivated to provide support to his family. George Shaw chose a career path in arts and expressed his thoughts and experiences in his novels. Shaw was an avid reader since childhood and a playwriter, political activist, and recipient of the Noble Prize for literature.
Initially, his work was rejected by many publishers. But he did not get disappointed. Subsequently, he joined the Fabian Society and was an active member.
The Society was a group of socialists who aimed at transforming England via a vibrant political base. He had a golden career as an activist and a critic. He influenced Western theater and politics. Shaw also wrote reviews for different books, movies, and theaters.
He passed away in 1950, leaving great quotes and lessons to learn for every individual. Here are some great quotes written by the Irish writer. Read further to find more George Bernard Shaw quotes.
Inspirational George Bernard Shaw Quotes
"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."
"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance."
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
"This is the true joy of life- the being used for the purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown out to the scrap heap."
“Imagination is the beginning of creation.”
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances."
“Life is a first draft… with no rewrite.”
"People who get into this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."
"The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it."
George Bernard Shaw Quotes On Happiness
"A happy family is but an earlier heaven."
"It is a curious sensation, the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burnt; nothing matters anymore. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace."
"The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not."
"Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby."
"We have no right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it."
"When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth."
"Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind and indeed cannot endure it."
"Happiness is not the object of life; life has no object; it is an end in itself, and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intense quality of life."
"A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on Earth."
"Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not."
"Happiness and beauty are by-products. Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty."
"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 outline yourself."
George Bernard Shaw Quotes On Life
"Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness."
"Life consists of only two tragedies."
"The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man."
"Poverty doesn't bring happiness; it brings degradation."
"Life is not meant to be easy, my child, but take courage- it can be delightful."
“He who can does. He who cannot, teaches.”
"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."
"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."
"The longer I live, the more I realize that I am never wrong about anything and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time!"
"You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something."
"Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable."
"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech."
"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
"After all, the wrong road always leads somewhere."
"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it."
"The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute."
"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic."
"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."
"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."
"Life does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power."
"The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated."
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
"A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it."
"The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure."
"Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself."
"I’m an atheist and I thank God for it."
George Bernard Shaw Quotes On Love And Death
"Dying is a troublesome business; there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one's heart; but death is a splendid thing- a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph."
"In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death, he outdoes Nature herself, and produces chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, persistence, and famine."
"There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth; his heart is in his weapons."
"Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love, and beauty."
"Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similar that breed their kind. It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give."
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
"As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death."
"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world."
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."
"The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business."
"If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."
"First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity."
"There is no love sincere than the love for food."
"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated."
Miscellaneous Quotes By George Bernard Shaw Quotes
“You see things, and you say 'Why'? But I dream things that never were, and I say, 'Why not?'.”
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything."
"Two percent of the people think. Three percent of the people think they think. And ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think."
"Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time."
"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul."
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
"Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but due to their capacity for experience."
"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."
"Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man."
“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.”
"The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me."
"Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."
"Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing."
"Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice but them."
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing he read made him mad."
"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."
"Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends."
"Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it."
"I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you."
"When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity."
"A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
"England and America are two countries separated by a common language."
"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this Earth?"
"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."
"Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning."
