George Bernard Shaw

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.

Your own safety is at stake when your neighbor’s house is in flames.

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

My finger can point to the moon, but my finger is not the moon. You don’t have to become my finger, nor do you have to worship my finger. You have to forget my finger, and look at where it is pointing.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Friends are thieves of time.

Almost any man knows how to earn money, but not one in a million knows how to spend it.

You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed receipt.

To know fulfillment, nourish what is for the belly and not the eye.