Quotes by George Bernard Shaw

The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car.

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

Nothing but the natural ignorance of the public, countenanced by the inoculated erroneousness of the ordinary general medical practitioners, makes such a barbarism as vaccination possible.......Recent developments have shown that an inoculation made in the usual general practitioners light-hearted way, without previous highly skilled examination of the state of the patients blood, is just as likely to be a simple manslaughter as a cure or preventive. But vaccination is nothing short of attempted murder. A skilled bacteriologist would just as soon think of cutting his childs arm and rubbing the contents of the dustpan into the wound, as vaccinating it in the same.

The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me.

If we women were particular about mens characters, we should never get married at all.

At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.

The primitive idea of justice is partly legalized revenge and partly expiation by sacrifice. It works out from both sides in the notion that two blacks make a white, and that when a wrong has been done, it should be paid for by an equivalent suffering. It seems to the Philistine majority a matter of course that this compensating suffering should be inflicted on the wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent effect on other would-be wrongdoers; but a moments reflection will shew that this utilitarian application corrupts the whole transaction. For example, the shedding of blood cannot be balanced by the shedding of guilty blood. Sacrificing a criminal to propitiate God for the murder of one of his righteous servants is like sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with the rinderpest: it calls down divine wrath instead of appeasing it. In doing it we offer God as a sacrifice the gratification of our own revenge and the protection of our own lives without cost to ourselves; and cost to ourselves is the essence of sacrifice and expiation.

HIGGINS [sitting down beside her] Rubbish! you shall marry an ambassador. You shall marry the Governor-General of India or the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputy-queen. Im not going to have my masterpiece thrown away on Freddy.LIZA. You think I like you to say that. But I havent forgot what you said a minute ago; and I wont be coaxed round as if I was a baby or a puppy. If I cant have kindness, Ill have independence.HIGGINS. Independence? Thats middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.LIZA [rising determinedly] Ill let you see whether Im dependent on you. If you can preach, I can teach. Ill go and be a teacher.HIGGINS. Whatll you teach, in heavens name?LIZA. What you taught me. Ill teach phonetics.HIGGINS. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven.

Heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation

Youth is wasted on the young.

I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

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

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

In your dread of dictators you established a state of society in which every ward boss is a dictator, every financier a dictator, every private employer a dictator, all with the livelihood of the workers at their mercy, and no public responsibility. And to symbolize this state of things, this defeat of all government, you have set up in New York Harbour a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete this monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of Hell ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Im not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you.

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

Written over the gate here are the words Leave every hope behind, ye who enter. Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.