George Bernard Shaw

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

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.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

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.

The doctor learns that if he gets ahead of the superstitions of his patients he is a ruined man; and the result is that he instinctively takes care not to get ahead of them.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

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

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

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

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

I will never do this, says one, yet does it: I am resolved to do this, says another; but flags upon second Thoughts: Or does it, tho’ awkwardly, for his Word’s sake: As if it were worse to break his Word, than to do amiss in keeping it.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.