Top 500 George Bernard Shaw Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.”

— George Bernard Shaw

52. “Some people look at the world and say ‘why?’ Some people look at the world and say ‘why not?’”

— George Bernard Shaw

53. “As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.”

— George Bernard Shaw

54. “To be a champion you must live like one.”

— George Bernard Shaw

55. “Imagination is the beginning of creation.”

— George Bernard Shaw

56. “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”

— George Bernard Shaw

57. “A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.”

— George Bernard Shaw

58. “Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing – to learn to live on earth as human beings.”

— George Bernard Shaw

59. “He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”

— George Bernard Shaw

60. “Life is too short for men to take it seriously.”

— George Bernard Shaw

61. “The man who has never made a mistake will never make anything else.”

— George Bernard Shaw

62. “The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”

— George Bernard Shaw

63. “Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.”

— George Bernard Shaw

64. “Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery – it’s the sincerest form of learning.”

— George Bernard Shaw

65. “When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”

— George Bernard Shaw

66. “Man’s inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals.”

— George Bernard Shaw

67. “My specialty is being right when other people are wrong.”

— George Bernard Shaw

68. “If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains.”

— George Bernard Shaw

69. “Better never than late.”

— George Bernard Shaw

70. “Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”

— George Bernard Shaw

71. “Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”

— George Bernard Shaw

72. “Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.”

— George Bernard Shaw

73. “A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.”

— George Bernard Shaw

74. “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

— George Bernard Shaw

75. “Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open.”

— George Bernard Shaw

76. “All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.”

— George Bernard Shaw

77. “The only sensible person is my tailor. He measures me anew each time he sees me.”

— George Bernard Shaw

78. “The function of the actor is to make the audience imagine for the moment that real things are happening to real people.”

— George Bernard Shaw

79. “I want to be all used up when I die.”

— George Bernard Shaw

80. “Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.”

— George Bernard Shaw

81. “Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.”

— George Bernard Shaw

82. “The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.”

— George Bernard Shaw

83. “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.”

— George Bernard Shaw

84. “Indifference is the essence of inhumanity.”

— George Bernard Shaw

85. “There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.”

— George Bernard Shaw

86. “Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity.”

— George Bernard Shaw

87. “If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.”

— George Bernard Shaw

88. “I am the most spontaneous speaker in the world because every word, every gesture, and every retort has been carefully rehearsed.”

— George Bernard Shaw

89. “The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.”

— George Bernard Shaw

90. “I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.”

— George Bernard Shaw

91. “Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.”

— George Bernard Shaw

92. “Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.”

— George Bernard Shaw

93. “We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.”

— George Bernard Shaw

94. “The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe.”

— George Bernard Shaw

95. “You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.”

— George Bernard Shaw

96. “What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.”

— George Bernard Shaw

97. “Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.”

— George Bernard Shaw

98. “Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict without a single amiable trait.”

— George Bernard Shaw

99. “I don’t know if there are men on the moon, but if there are they must be using the earth as their lunatic asylum.”

— George Bernard Shaw

100. “All great art and literature is propaganda.”

— George Bernard Shaw