George Bernard Shaw: Trending quotes (page 13)

“You see, lots of the real people can't do it at all: they're such fools that they think style comes by nature to people in their position; and so they never learn. There's always something professional about doing a thing superlatively well.”

George Bernard Shaw

1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

People , Fools , Nature , Thinking

“The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.”

George Bernard Shaw

1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)

Music , Thinking

“Where equality is undisputed, so also is subordination.”

George Bernard Shaw

#28
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“The whole strength of England lies in the fact that the enormous majority of the English people are snobs.”

George Bernard Shaw

Hotchkiss
1900s, Getting Married (1908)

People

“Political necessities sometimes turn out to be political mistakes.”

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan

Saint Joan : A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (1923) - Full text online http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200811h.html
1920s

“I ask you, what am I? I’m one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man.”

George Bernard Shaw

Act II
1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

Thinking

“The salvation of the world depends on the men who will not take evil good-humouredly, and whose laughter destroys the fool instead of encouraging him.”

George Bernard Shaw

What is the New Element in the Norwegian School?
1890s, Quintessence Of Ibsenism (1891; 1913)

Men , World , Fools , Laughter

“A healthy nation is as unconscious of its nationality as a healthy man of his bones. But if you break a nation's nationality it will think of nothing else but getting it set again.”

George Bernard Shaw

Preface
1900s, John Bull's Other Island (1907)

Thinking

“Time enough to think of the future when you haven't any future to think of.”

George Bernard Shaw

1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

Thinking , Time , Future

“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of Hell.”

George Bernard Shaw

1910s, Misalliance (1910)

Hell , Holiday

“Geniuses are horrid, intolerant, easily offended, sleeplessly self-conscious men, who expect their wives to be angels with no further business in life than to pet and worship their husbands. Even at the best they are not comfortable men to live with; and a perfect husband is one who is perfectly comfortable to live with.”

George Bernard Shaw

1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)

Life , Men , Angels , Business

“The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.”

George Bernard Shaw

Act IV
1890s, The Philanderer (1893)

“It is quite useless to declare that all men are born free if you deny that they are born good. Guarantee a man's goodness and his liberty will take care of itself. To guarantee his freedom on condition that you approve of his moral character is formally to abolish all freedom whatsoever, as every man's liberty is at the mercy of a moral indictment which any fool can trump up against everyone who violates custom, whether as a prophet or as a rascal.”

George Bernard Shaw

Preface
1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

Men , Fools , Freedom

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity.”

George Bernard Shaw

Act I
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)

“Obedience simulates subordination as fear of the police simulates honesty.”

George Bernard Shaw

#88
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Fear

“Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.”

George Bernard Shaw

Franklyn, in Pt. II : The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)

Men

“To understand a saint, you must hear the devil's advocate; and the same is true of the artist.”

George Bernard Shaw

The Sanity of Art: An Exposure of the Current Nonsense about Artists being Degenerate (1908)
1900s

Understanding

“They have accepted the burden of eternal life. They have taken the agony from birth; and their life does not fail them even in the hour of their destruction.”

George Bernard Shaw

Lilith, in Pt. V
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)

Life , Birth

“Howbeit, Paul succeeded in stealing the image of Christ crucified for the figure-head of his Salvationist vessel, with its Adam posing as the natural man, its doctrine of original sin, and its damnation avoidable only by faith in the sacrifice of the cross. In fact, no sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.”

George Bernard Shaw

Preface, Paul
1910s, Androcles and the Lion (1913)

Faith , Nature , Christ

“Your father is a fool skin deep; but you are a fool to your very marrow.”

George Bernard Shaw

Eve to Cain, in Pt. I, Act II
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)

Fools