Quotes By George Bernard Shaw

The sex illusion is not a fixed quantity: not what mathematicians call a constant. It varies from zero in my wife's case to madness in that of our stepsister.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich-something for nothing.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

English is the easiest language to speak badly.

Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

If Despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has Democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters.

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like the state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

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

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances.

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

The business man - a man to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom.