George Bernard Shaw

Reason

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

Brains

“One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.”

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

Circumstances

“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.”

Patriotism

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”

Imagination

“You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 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. “

Mistakes

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

Desire

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

Cynicism

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

Happiness

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

Doing unto others

"Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."

Thinking

"Most people would rather die sooner than think. In fact, they do so."

“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

Family Skeleton

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

Youth

"Youth is wasted on the young."

Democracy

"Democracy is a system ensuring that the people are governed no better than they deserve."

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many, for appointment by the corrupt few."

Nobel Prize

"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

Believing

"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 happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."

“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.”

Fighting with unequals

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

Hell/Music

"Hell is full of musical amateurs."

Fashion

“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”

Fate

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

Learning from History

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

Economists

“If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”

Fun

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

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”

Saying Things

“Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity. “

Poverty

"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live. "

Religions

"The main difference between the opposition of Islam to Hinduism and the opposition between Protestant and Catholic is that the Catholic persecutes as fiercely as the Protestant when he has the power; but Hinduism cannot persecute, because all the Gods---and what goes deeper, the no Gods---are to be found in its Temples."

Prisons

"Whilst we have prisons, it matters little which of us occupy the cells."

Teaching

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

Sincerity

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

Liberty

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

Martyrdom

“Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.”