George Bernard Shaw

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.

Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.

If you value a man’s regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper – and despise it.

That’s what I can’t stand. I know I’ll bounce back, and that’s what I can’t stand.

What fugitive from his country can also escape from himself.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

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.

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Love is indeed Heaven upon Earth; since Heaven above would not be Heaven without it: For where there is not Love; there is Fear: But perfect Love casts out Fear. And yet we naturally fear most to offend what we most Love. What we Love, we’ll Hear; what we Love, we’ll Trust; and what we Love, we’ll serve, ay, and suffer for too. If you love me (says our Blessed Redeemer) keep my Commandments. Why? Why then he’ll Love us; then we shall be his Friends; then he’ll send us the Comforter; then whatsoever we ask, we shall receive; and then where he is we shall be also, and that for ever. Behold the Fruits of Love; the Power, Vertue, Benefit and Beauty of Love! Love is above all; and when it prevails in us all, we shall all be Lovely, and in Love with God and one with another.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

In nature nothing can be given. All things are sold.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.