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
This is the true joy of life-the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown to the scrap-heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances.
When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.
I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.
Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity.