George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care and class privilege.

George Bernard Shaw Quotes and Sayings

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
- George Bernard Shaw

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
- George Bernard Shaw

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
- George Bernard Shaw

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
- George Bernard Shaw

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.
- George Bernard Shaw

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
- George Bernard Shaw

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
- George Bernard Shaw

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.
- George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
- George Bernard Shaw

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich–something for nothing.
- George Bernard Shaw

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.
- George Bernard Shaw

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.
- George Bernard Shaw

If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.
- George Bernard Shaw

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.
- George Bernard Shaw

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
- George Bernard Shaw

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
- George Bernard Shaw

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.
- George Bernard Shaw

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
- George Bernard Shaw

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
- George Bernard Shaw

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
- George Bernard Shaw

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.
- George Bernard Shaw

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.
- George Bernard Shaw

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.
- George Bernard Shaw

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
- George Bernard Shaw

If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you’d best teach it to dance.
- George Bernard Shaw

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.
- George Bernard Shaw

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.
- George Bernard Shaw