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

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Joy
Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning.
A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

Temptation
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.
Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.
I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

Food
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

Music
An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Morality
Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

Youth
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

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