George Bernard Shaw Quotes - Page 44

• The medieval doctors of divinity who did not pretend to settle how many angels could dance on the point of a needle cut a very poor figure as far as romantic credulity is concerned beside the modern physicists who have settled to the billionth of a millimetre every movement and position in the dance of the electrons. Not for worlds would I question the precise accuracy of these calculations or the existence of electrons (whatever they may be). The fate of Joan is a warning to me against such heresy.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Angel, Fate, Cutting

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• Imprisonment, as it exists today, is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Society, Today, Crime

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

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• When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, "The one I feed the most."

  George Bernard Shaw

  Dog, Native American, Winning

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• If you demand my authorities for this and that, I must reply that only those who have never hunted up the authorities as I have believe that there is any authority who is not contradicted flatly by some other authority.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Believe, Demand, Authority

  Androcles and the Lion preface (1913)

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• You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Use, Symptoms, Camps

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• Hate is the revenge of a coward intimidated.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Revenge, Hate, Coward

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• An idea that no one believes can not be proved too often.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Believe, Ideas, Can Not

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• Deep knowledge is not knowledge of the thing itself, but knowledge of a thing like the thing. Then, you gain not one knowledge, but two knowledges. Of the thing. And of the original thing with is like the thing. Which is the barbarism of the privileged class.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Class, Two, Gains

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• A serious illness or a death advertises the doctor exactly as a hanging advertises the barrister who defended the person hanged.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Doctors, Serious Illness, Barristers

  From his Preface on Doctors published with The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)

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• When your eyes are fixed in the stare of unconsciousness, and your throat coughs the last gasping breath - as one dragged in the dark to a great precipice - what assistance are a wife and child?

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Eye, Dark

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• God's trustiest lieutenants often lack official credentials. They may be professed atheists who are also men of honour and high public spirit.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Atheist, Men, May

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• Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Family, Children, Parenting

  Everybody's Political What's What? (1944) ch. 9

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• You know well I couldn't bear to live with a low common man after you two; and it's wicked and cruel of you to insult me by pretending I could.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Two, Wicked

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.3417, e-artnow

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• Greatness is one of the sensations of littleness

  George Bernard Shaw

  Greatness, Sensations

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.311, e-artnow

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• Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Time, May, Youth

  George Bernard Shaw (2016). “The Critical Shaw: On Literature”, p.25, RosettaBooks

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• If all the Churches of Europe closed their doors until the drums ceased rolling they would act as a most powerful reminder that though the glory of war is a famous and ancient glory, it is not the final glory of God.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Peace, Powerful, War

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.772, e-artnow

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• Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind. It is the deed that teaches not the name we give it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Death, Peace, Ubuntu

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.308, e-artnow

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• When people shake their heads because we are living in a restless age, ask them how they would like to life in a stationary one, and do without change

  George Bernard Shaw

  Change, People, Age

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• A day's work is a day's work, neither more nor less, and the man or woman who does it needs a day's sustenance, a night's repose and due leisure, whether they be painter or ploughman.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Hard Work, Night, Men

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• Men trifle with their business and their politics but never trifle with their games. It brings truth home to them. They cannot pretend they have won when they have lost nor that they had a magnificent drive when they foozled it. The Englishman is at his best on the links and at his worst in the Cabinet.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Home, Golf, Men

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “George Bernard Shaw: The Collected Plays (Illustrated): 60 plays including Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, The Apple Cart, Cymbeline, Androcles And The Lion, The Man Of Destiny, The Inca Of Perusalem and Macbeth Skit”, p.3702, e-artnow

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• Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Success, Nature

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• When we want to read of the deeds that are done for love, whither do we turn? To the murder column.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Love, Done, Deeds

  George Bernard Shaw (1977). “The Portable Bernard Shaw”, Viking Adult

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• If you lived in London, where the whole system is one of false good-fellowship, and you may know a man for twenty years without finding out that he hates you like poison, you would soon have your eyes opened. There we do unkind things in a kind way: we say bitter things in a sweet voice: we always give our friends chloroform when we tear them to pieces.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Sweet, Hate, Eye

  George Bernard Shaw (2011). “You Never Can Tell”, p.115, The Floating Press

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• Security, the chief pretense of civilization, cannot exist where the worst of dangers, the danger of poverty, hangs over everyone's head.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Civilization, Poverty, Danger

  George Bernard Shaw (2012). “Major Barbara”, p.12, Courier Corporation

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• If parents would only realize how they bore their children.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Kids, Parent

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated): Including Renowned Titles like Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, The Inca Of Perusalem, Macbeth Skit, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion”, p.2075, e-artnow

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