George Bernard Shaw

…with the black marble which gives the fireplace the air of a miniature family vault, to suggest early Victorian commercial respectability, belief in money, Bible fetichism, fear of hell always at war with fear of poverty, instinctive horror of the passionate character of art, love and Roman Catholic religion, and all the first fruits of plutocracy in the early generations of the industrial revolution.

Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.

The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

You’ll never have a quiet world until you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.

None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch but envy.

The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.

Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

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

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

If there be three distinct and separate Persons, then three distinct and separate Substances. . . . And since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God . . . then unless the Father, Son and Spirit are three distinct Nothings, they must be three distinct Substances, and consequently three distinct Gods.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.