George Bernard Shaw citations

Page 5

“The greatest doer must also be the greatest dreamer”

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

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

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

“Il y a deux sortes de savants : les spécialistes, qui connaissent tout sur rien, et les philosophes, qui ne connaissent rien sur tout.”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Dans la vie, il y a deux catégories d’individus :
Ceux qui regardent le monde tel qu’il est et se demandent pourquoi.
Ceux qui imaginent le monde tel qu’il devrait être et qui se disent : pourquoi pas?”

“Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”

“Pasteboard pies and paper flowers are being banished from the stage by the growth of that power of accurate observation which is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it…”

“I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.”

“First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.”

“I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.”

“I have defined the 100 per cent American as 99 per cent an idiot.”

“We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”

“A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.”

“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.”

“The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.”

“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”

“If any religion had a chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam.”

“My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.”

“[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.”

“Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.”

“It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.”

“It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”

“The longer I live, the more I realize that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time!”

“There is always danger for those who are afraid.”

“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.”

“I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen.”

“To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.”

“What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.”

“The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation”

“The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination”

“The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.”

“The plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress of society that they should be shocked pretty often.”

“I do not know what I think until I write it.”

“A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.”