“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
Variant: Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw: Quotes about life
George Bernard Shaw was Irish playwright. Explore interesting quotes on life.
George Bernard Shaw:
826
quotes
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Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variant: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Context: Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Lilith, in Pt. V
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: I had patience with them for many ages: they tried me very sorely. They did terrible things: they embraced death, and said that eternal life was a fable. I stood amazed at the malice and destructiveness of the things I had made...
Lilith, in Pt. V
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: I say, let them dread, of all things, stagnation; for from the moment I, Lilith, lose hope and faith in them, they are doomed. In that hope and faith I have let them live for a moment; and in that moment I have spared them many times. But mightier creatures than they have killed hope and faith, and perished from the earth; and I may not spare them for ever. I am Lilith: I brought life into the whirlpool of force, and compelled my enemy, Matter, to obey a living soul. But in enslaving Life's enemy I made him Life's master; for that is the end of all slavery; and now I shall see the slave set free and the enemy reconciled, the whirlpool become all life and no matter. And because these infants that call themselves ancients are reaching out towards that, I will have patience with them still; though I know well that when they attain it they shall become one with me and supersede me, and Lilith will be only a legend and a lay that has lost its meaning. Of Life only is there no end; and though of its million starry mansions many are empty and many still unbuilt, and though its vast domain is as yet unbearably desert, my seed shall one day fill it and master its matter to its uttermost confines. And for what may be beyond, the eyesight of Lilith is too short. It is enough that there is a beyond.
The She-Ancient, in Pt. V
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: Art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls.
Act V
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Source: The Doctor's Dilemma: A Tragedy
Act II
Source: 1910s, Pygmalion (1912)
“Life is not meant to be easy, my child but take courage: it can be delightful.”
Pt. V; see also the later phrasing of Malcolm Fraser, "life wasn't meant to be easy"
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
“Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.”
Preface
1900s, Getting Married (1908)
“George Bernard Shaw reopens capital punishment controversy”, Paramount British Pictures (March 5, 1931)
1930s
1900s, Love Among the Artists (1900)
Lilith, in Pt. V
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)