George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic and polemicist whose 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, Pygmalionand Saint Joan. 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...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth26 July 1856
CityDublin, Ireland
CountryIreland
If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.
A man's behaviour may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he ismorally behaving like a scoundrel. And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles.
If ever I utter an oath again may my soul be blasted to eternal damnation!
In truth , mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or may not be true : what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he will never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable to cure himself the next time it attacks him.
You may well ask me why...I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all.
If you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may as well not say it at all because people will not trouble themselves about anything that does not trouble them.
Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.
Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.
God's trustiest lieutenants often lack official credentials. They may be professed atheists who are also men of honour and high public spirit.
If I refuse to allow my leg to be amputated, its mortification and my death may prove that I was wrong; but if I let the leg go, nobody can ever prove that it would not have mortified had I been obstinate. Operation is therefore the safe side for the surgeon as well as the lucrative side.
The medical profession (is) a conspiracy to hide its own shortcomings. No doubt the same may be said of all professions. They are all conspiracies against the laity... (U)ntil there is a practicable alternative to blind trust in the doctor, the truth about the doctor is so terrible that we dare not face it.
Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.
The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.