George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Quotes

I've posed nude for a photographer in the manner of Rodin's Thinker, but I merely looked constipated.
All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
The chief objection of playing wind instruments is that it prolongs the life of the player.
There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.
In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
What God hath joined together no man shall put asunder: God will take care of that.
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.
He who has never hoped can never despair.

Hope
Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
The liar's punishment ... is that he cannot believe anyone else.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

Respect
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

Desire
Nobel prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.
The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted.
We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.

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