100+ Bernard Shaw Quotes That Inspire, Challenge & Amuse

Love is the most terrible thing in the world. After poverty, of course.

Love consists not in staring at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

Romance is what makes a relationship interesting; love is what keeps it alive.

To love is to risk being burned; to hope is to risk despair. But the pain of loss is better than the emptiness of never having tried.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.

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 it open.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing — especially in love.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

You cannot fall in love; you can only rise in love.

Marriage is a wonderful institution… but who wants to live in an institution?

The single man has many difficulties to face, but the married man has none.

All marriages are failures, but so is celibacy — I haven’t tried it, but I’m sure of it.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way — but Tolstoy forgot to mention that all happy families are imaginary.

The golden rule of marriage is this: when in doubt, give in.

To keep your marriage brimming with love in the early morning hours, go to bed late.

Marriage is not just spiritual communion; it is also a financial merger, a political alliance, and a public declaration of private intentions.

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times — always with the same person.

When people get married because they think it’s a long-time love affair, they’ll find out it’s a lifetime job.

The ideal wife would be eight years older than her husband — she’d know what he needs before he does.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people He gives it to — and then see how their marriages fare.

Marriage is nature’s way of making sure no one gets too comfortable.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

The intelligent man learns from his mistakes; the wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry.

You see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’

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

It is impossible for any thinking person to live in such a society as ours without feeling a responsibility to express publicly some criticism of it.

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.

The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind — though Gandhi said it, I wish I had.

The government calls it conscription; I call it kidnapping.

The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Under communism, it's just the other way around.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

The less government interferes with private business, the more private business interferes with government.

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

Every reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

The only truly effective weapon against injustice is laughter.

The common sense of the world is so rare that it amounts almost to genius.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

The worst crime you can commit is not to do your work well.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

If you can't get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

The greatest advantage of living in Ireland is that one does not have to work.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

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

Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.

The truth is unpopular, and the lie is popular. That’s human nature.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them.

The average man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

The chief defect of Henry VIII was that he only had six wives.

The Church has always been the grave of the young God.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, or by any church that I know of.

The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.

All religions are the same — they’re just different paths up the same mountain.

Religion is a solace to the weak and a tool for the powerful.

I am an atheist, thank God.

Miracles are performed in answer to prayer, but not necessarily to the prayer offered.

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Theologians may persuade themselves that they are ennobling God by denying that He exists.

Faith is the ability to believe in something you know isn’t true.

The Church’s mission is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

Youth is wasted on the young.

At my age, I’ve stopped trying to impress people. I either interest them or I frighten them.

Old age is an illness from which few recover.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Age is no guarantee of maturity.

When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is.

Growing old is not a disease; it's a privilege denied to many.

The body is a good servant but a bad master. As it ages, it becomes both worse at serving and better at mastering.

I am not young enough to know everything.

One’s real life is often the life that one does not lead.

Old men are dangerous; it doesn’t matter to them what happens to the world.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things; science is the effective way; business is the economic way.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

The worst sin against art is taking it seriously.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

The artist is the confidant of nature; flowers carry on dialogues with him through their colors and perfumes.

Dancing is the poetry of the foot.

Music is the wine that inspires the dance of life.

The function of the artist is to invent what is needed.

Creative power is the power to disturb the peace.

The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of.

Great art is made by those who can’t help it.

The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good artists.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

You see things as they are and say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Revolutions have never enriched the poor; they have only changed masters.

New truths start as heresies and end as superstitions.

The only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

People are always blaming their circumstances. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want.

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

The future depends on what you do today.