“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.”

—  George Bernard Shaw

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time." by George Bernard Shaw?
George Bernard Shaw photo
George Bernard Shaw 413
Irish playwright 1856–1950

Related quotes

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Ch. 4, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=Ma3RAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+a+sort+of+man+who+pays+no+attention+to+his+good+actions+but+is+tormented+by+his+bad+ones+this+is+the+type+that+most+often+writes+about+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage
The Summing Up (1938)

E. B. White photo

“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist — nothing shields him from the world's gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix things up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Letter to Corona Machemer (11 June 1975)

“The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it--would.”

John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977) English Mathematician

Note quotation marks: Littlewood is repeating a joke without attribution. "Cross-purposes, Unconscious Assumptions, Howlers, Misprints, etc.", p. 59.
Littlewood's Miscellany (1986)

Samuel Johnson photo

“A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

August 16, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Edward Bond photo

“I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future. People who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about us and our time. It would be immoral not to write about violence.”

Edward Bond (1934) English writer best known as a dramatist

Preface to Lear (1972; London: Methuen, 1983) p. lvii

Ray Bradbury photo

“There is no reason to write pornography when your own sex life is good. Why waste time writing about it?”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Playboy interview (1996)

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 233

“I'm really serious about this writing thing. What time I haven't been writing, I've been reading: Thomas Wolfe, if you know who he is. His writing is mostly built about the central character of a writer, himself. Altho it's fiction, it deals with his life and experiences. In my opinion, little as it's worth, he is the greatest writer that has lived, Shakespeare included. He is a genius.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter to his brother Jeff, from Hawaii (7 April 1941); p. 11
To Reach Eternity (1989)

Samuel Butler photo

“When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Writing for a Hundred Years Hence
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

James McBride (writer) photo

“Writing is the act of failing at something all the time. Do it with a sense of humor, and it ain’t no big deal. Life is just about falling on stage and getting up, and that’s what writing is all about, too.”

James McBride (writer) (1957) American journalist

On the potential failure of writing in “James McBride: How I Write” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/james-mcbride-write/ in The Writer (2013 Dec 30)

Related topics