Best George Bernard Shaw Quotes
George Bernard Shaw Quotes About Happiness, Food, Death, Politics, Leadership, & Love! Nobel Prize-winning Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw had an indelible impact on Western culture, theatre, and politics via his work. In 1856, he was born in Dublin. Because he detested the idea of formal schooling, his career path was erratic. While still a teenager, he worked in an estate agent’s office before moving to London, where he rose to prominence as a music and theatre critic throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He was also an active member of the Fabian Society, where he wrote several pamphlets.
To show his critique of the English theatre, he started his creative career as a writer before turning to playwriting as an ardent supporter of Ibsen’s new theatre (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891). One of his earlier plays was appropriately titled Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898). However, around the exact moment he was working on his masterwork Saint Joan (1923), a reimagining of the well-known tale of the French virgin that spans from the Middle Ages to the current day, discussion sometimes overshadows drama, as in Back to Methuselah (1921).
His other notable works are Caesar and Cleopatra (1901), a history drama rich in contemporary analogies, and Androcles with the Lion (1912), in which he attempted a kind of retroactive history by drawing parallels between modern movements and the Christian period. On Nov. 2, 1950, he died. During 1930 and 1950, the year of Shaw’s demise, his entire works were published in thirty-six volumes. Shaw’s comedies have a unique blend of dramatic, comedic, and socially conscious humour.
Best George Bernard Shaw Quotes
1. “If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” – George Bernard Shaw
2. “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” – George Bernard Shaw
3. “The power of accurate observation…is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.” – George Bernard Shaw
4. “The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.” – George Bernard Shaw
5. “There are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.” – George Bernard Shaw
6. “We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.” – George Bernard Shaw
7. “Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.” – George Bernard Shaw
8. “He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” – George Bernard Shaw
9. “The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” – George Bernard Shaw
10. “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.” – George Bernard Shaw
10. “Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.” – George Bernard Shaw
12. “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
13. “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw
14. “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
15. “A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.” – George Bernard Shaw
16. “A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.” – George Bernard Shaw
17. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw
18. “A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.” – George Bernard Shaw
19. “Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.” – George Bernard Shaw
20. “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
George Bernard Shaw quotes about politics and history
21. “Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.” – George Bernard Shaw
22. “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” – George Bernard Shaw
23. “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” – George Bernard Shaw
24. “Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.” – George Bernard Shaw
25. “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
26. “Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich – something for nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw
27. “Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.” – George Bernard Shaw
28. “Hell is full of musical amateurs.” – George Bernard Shaw
29. “I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.” – George Bernard Shaw
30. “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.” – George Bernard Shaw
