George Bernard Shaw

Very few people can afford to be poor.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.

The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.

There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

I have been breaking silence these twenty-three years and have hardly made a rent in it.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

The true artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

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

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.