George Bernard Shaw

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod …

Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

Geniuses are horrid, intolerant, easily offended, sleeplessly self-conscious men, who expect their wives to be angels with no further business in life than to pet and worship their husbands. Even at the best they are not comfortable men to …

Composers are not human; They can live on diminished sevenths, and be contented with a pianoforte for a wife, and a string quartet for a family.

A man's own self is the last person to believe in him, and is harder to cheat than the rest of the world.

I hate singers, a miserable crew who think that music exists only in their own throats.

Perhaps woman's art is of woman's life a thing apart, 'tis man's whole existence; just as love is said to be the reverse — though it isn't.

If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling. Corrupt successes, disgraceful failures, or sheeplike vegetation are all it has to offer. I prefer Art, …

All very fine, Mary; but my old-fashioned common sense is better than your clever modern nonsense.

There are some men who are considered quite ugly, but who are more remarkable than pretty people. You often see that in artists.

The public want actresses, because they think all actresses bad. They don't want music or poetry because they know that both are good. So actors and actresses thrive and poets and composers starve.

The way to deal with worldly people is to frighten them by repeating their scandalous whisperings aloud.

This craving for bouquets by Jews is a symptom of racial degeneration. The Jews are worse than my own people. Those Jews who still want to be the chosen race (chosen by the late Lord Balfour) can go to Palestine and stew in their own …

This is the real enemy, the invader from the East, the Druze, the ruffian, the oriental parasite; in a word: the Jew.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship; and it seems hard to justify an incitement to it on anti-censorial principles.

To understand a saint, you must hear the devil's advocate; and the same is true of the artist.

[Chess] is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time.

You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.

I was a cannibal for twenty-five years. For the rest I have been a vegetarian. It was Shelley who first opened my eyes to the savagery of my diet.

: What will History say? : History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.

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