George Bernard Shaw

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Life on board a pleasure steamer violates every moral and physical condition of healthy life except fresh air. It is a guzzling, lounging, gambling, dog’s life. The only alternative to excitement is irritability.

You cannot be a hero without being a coward.

If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.

One can resist the invasion of an army, but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Do not assume anything. Clear your mind must be if you are to discover the real villains behind this plot.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

One thing you learn: if you want to reveal yourself, you also have to know where to stop.

The advantage of doing one’s praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.