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
I don't want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady.
If 'Pygmalion' is not good enough for your friends with its own verbal music, their talent must be altogether extraordinary.
Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one. Telegram inviting Winston Churchill to opening night of Pygmalion. Churchill wired back: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second - if there is one.
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.
I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.
What is life but a series of inspired follies...
The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.
What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn’t come every day.
I have to live for others and not for myself: that's middle-class morality.
The great secret...is not having bad manners or good manners...but having the same manner for all human souls.