George Bernard Shaw

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

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.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real center of the household.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

I desire to gain your Love and Friendship by a kind, Just and Peaceful Life.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential – there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.

Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore there be any kindness I can show…let me do it now.- William Penn

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with both.

The drama’s laws, the drama’s patrons give, for we that live to please, must please to live.

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.