George Bernard Shaw

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.

We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first.

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.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

Kings are not born they are made by universal hallucination.

How real is any of the past, being every moment revalued to make the present possible.

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

All colors will agree in the dark.

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

You must learn to drink the cup of life as it comes … without stirring it up from the bottom. That’s where the bitter dregs are!

We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.