George Bernard Shaw citations

George Bernard Shaw est un critique musical, dramaturge, essayiste, auteur de pièces de théâtre et scénariste irlandais. Acerbe et provocateur, pacifiste et anticonformiste, il obtient le prix Nobel de littérature en 1925. Wikipedia  

✵ 26. juillet 1856 – 2. novembre 1950
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw: 428   citations 2   J'aime

George Bernard Shaw citations célèbres

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“La vie égalise tous les hommes; la mort en révèle les éminents.”

Life levels all men: death reveals the eminent.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“Celui qui donne de l'argent qu'il n'a pas gagné est généreux avec le travail d'autrui.”

He who gives money he has not earned is generous with other people's labor.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“Méfie-toi de l'homme dont le Dieu est dans les cieux.”

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

George Bernard Shaw Citations

“Celui qui peut, agit. Celui qui ne peut pas, donne des leçons.”

He who can, does. He who can't, teaches.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“Ne fais pas aux autres ce que tu voudrais qu'ils te fassent. Leurs goûts peuvent être différents.”

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“Ce que personne ne croit a besoin d'être démontré aussi souvent que possible.”

A thing nobody believes cannot be proven too often.
en
Plays Unpleasant, 1931

“L'art du gouvernement consiste à organiser l'idolâtrie.”

The art of government is the organization of idolatry.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“Il y a cinquante manières de dire Oui, et cinq cents de dire Non, mais il n'y a qu'une manière de les écrire.”

There are fifty ways of saying Yes, and five hundred of saying No, but only one way of writing them down.
en
Plays Unpleasant, 1931

“L'homme raisonnable s'adapte au monde; l'homme déraisonnable essaye d'adapter le monde à lui. Tout progrès dépend donc de l'homme déraisonnable.”

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

“La bureaucratie consiste en fonctionnaires; l'aristocratie, en idoles; la démocratie, en idolâtres.”

The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters.
en
Man And Superman, 1903

George Bernard Shaw: Citations en anglais

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Variante: Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variante: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Contexte: 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.

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.”

George Bernard Shaw John Bull's Other Island

Act II
Source: 1900s, John Bull's Other Island (1907)

“Everything is possible: everything.”

The Serpent, in Pt. I, Act I
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Contexte: Everything is possible: everything. Listen. I am old. I am the old serpent, older than Adam, older than Eve. I remember Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve. I was her darling as I am yours. She was alone: there was no man with her. She saw death as you saw it when the fawn fell; and she knew then that she must find out how to renew herself and cast the skin like me. She had a mighty will: she strove and strove and willed and willed for more moons than there are leaves on all the trees of the garden. Her pangs were terrible: her groans drove sleep from Eden. She said it must never be again: that the burden of renewing life was past bearing: that it was too much for one. And when she cast the skin, lo! there was not one new Lilith but two: one like herself, the other like Adam. You were the one: Adam was the other.

“The kingdom of God is striving to come. The empire that looks back in terror shall give way to the kingdom that looks forward with hope.”

Jesus, as portrayed in Preface, Difference Between Reader And Spectator
1930s, On the Rocks (1933)
Contexte: The kingdom of God is striving to come. The empire that looks back in terror shall give way to the kingdom that looks forward with hope. Terror drives men mad: hope and faith give them divine wisdom. The men whom you fill with fear will stick at no evil and perish in their sin: the men whom I fill with faith shall inherit the earth. I say to you Cast out fear. Speak no more vain things to me about the greatness of Rome. … You, standing for Rome, are the universal coward: I, standing for the kingdom of God, have braved everything, lost everything, and won an eternal crown.

“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman

#25
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Source: Man and Superman

“You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”

George Bernard Shaw Major Barbara

Act III
Source: 1900s, Major Barbara (1905)

“Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?”

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan

Saint Joan : A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (1923)
1920s

“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”

Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed

George Bernard Shaw citation: “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Everybody's Political What's What? (ebook, must be borrowed) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24979564M/Everybody's_political_what's_what (1944), Chapter XXXVII: Creed and Conduct, p. 330
1940s and later
Variante: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Contexte: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Creeds, articles, and institutes of religious faith ossify our brains and make change impossible. As such they are nuisances, and in practice have to be mostly ignored.

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”

Variante: If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
Source: Immaturity

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman

Source: 1900s, Man and Superman (1903), p. 23

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