George Bernard Shaw: Man

George Bernard Shaw was Irish playwright. Explore interesting quotes on man.

George Bernard Shaw: 826 quotes39 likes

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

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)

“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)

“Socialists must be in favor of an aristocratic form of government. We must have the best men for the job... In the dictator you must have a man who has not only the power to govern but the force of character to impose himself as dictator whether you like him or not.”

George Bernard Shaw

“Socialism urged to find dictator,” Berkeley Daily Gazette (Nov. 30, 1927)
1890s

“I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.”

George Bernard Shaw

Act II
1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

“Perhaps woman's art is of woman's life a thing apart, 'tis man's whole existence; just as love is said to be the reverse — though it isn't.”

George Bernard Shaw

1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)

“The worst cliques are those which consist of one man.”

George Bernard Shaw

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

“Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.”

George Bernard Shaw

#83
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“I like a bit of a mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog; they're the best for every day.”

George Bernard Shaw

Episode I
1910s, Misalliance (1910)

“My way hither was the way of destiny; for I am he of whose genius you are the symbol: part brute, part woman, and part God — nothing of man in me at all. Have I read your riddle, Sphinx?”

George Bernard Shaw

Act I
1890s, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)

“The more a man possesses over and above what he uses, the more careworn he becomes.”

George Bernard Shaw

#108
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“In a stupid nation the man of genius becomes a god: everybody worships him and nobody does his will.”

George Bernard Shaw

#101
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

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

George Bernard Shaw

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

“You're not a man, you're a machine.”

George Bernard Shaw Arms and the Man

Arms and the Man, Act III (1898)
1890s

“I exclude the hypothesis of complete originality on [Charles] Lever's part, because a man can no more be completely original in that sense than a tree can grow out of air.”

George Bernard Shaw

Preface
1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

“There are no perfectly honorable men; but every true man has one main point of honor and a few minor ones.”

George Bernard Shaw

#68
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“The man who has graduated from the flogging block at Eton to the bench from which he sentences the garrotter to be flogged is the same social product as the garrotter who has been kicked by his father and cuffed by his mother until he has grown strong enough to throttle and rob the rich citizen whose money he desires.”

George Bernard Shaw

#55
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

“Again, there is the illusion of "increased command over Nature," meaning that cotton is cheap and that ten miles of country road on a bicycle have replaced four on foot. But even if man's increased command over Nature included any increased command over himself (the only sort of command relevant to his evolution into a higher being), the fact remains that it is only by running away from the increased command over Nature to country places where Nature is still in primitive command over Man that he can recover from the effects of the smoke, the stench, the foul air, the overcrowding, the racket, the ugliness, the dirt which the cheap cotton costs us.”

George Bernard Shaw

Notes
1890s, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)

“Women are not angels. They are as foolish as men in many ways; but they have had to devote themselves to life whilst men have had to devote themselves to death; and that makes a vital difference in male and female religion. Women have been forced to fear whilst men have been forced to dare: the heroism of a woman is to nurse and protect life, and of a man to destroy it and court death.”

George Bernard Shaw book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Chapter 82 http://books.google.com/books?id=ys13gZliXFAC (1928) <br class="br">1920s

“Hail, Sphinx: salutation from Julius Caesar! I have wandered in many lands, seeking the lost regions from which my birth into this world exiled me, and the company of creatures such as I myself. I have found flocks and pastures, men and cities, but no other Caesar, no air native to me, no man kindred to me, none who can do my day's deed, and think my night's thought.”

George Bernard Shaw

Act I
1890s, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)