George Bernard Shaw

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. 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.

Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the children. Wear violet and purple. Be patient with the poor people who will snivel: they don’t know; and they think they will live for ever, which makes death a division instead of a bond.

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

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.

What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Dharma is what the Buddha taught. It is the way of understanding and love-how to understand, how to love, how to make understanding and love into real things.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

The most dangerous people are those who have passion but lack wisdom.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

You are alive, so be fully alive.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.