20 Quotes from George Bernard Shaw

1. The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

2. The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

3. There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

4. He who can, does. He who can not, teaches.

5. A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.

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

7. When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

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

9. You see things as they are and ask, "Why?" I dream things as they never were and ask, "Why not?"

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

11. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

12. Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

13. Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

14. The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.

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

16. Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

17. People are always blaming 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.

18. Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare.

19. If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience!

20. This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 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 what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.