Shaw Quotes

Uniqueness Leads To Great Success Some men see things as they are and say 'why?' I dream things that never were, and say, 'why not?' --George Bernard Shaw English Dramatist (1856-1950) ~ John Paul Carinci

I tilted my head up and asked, "What would you do if I kissed you right now?"
He pretended to think about it for an obnoxious amount of time before saying, "I would kiss you back. ~ Michelle Hodkin

I like the music. I love it & live it in fact. But for me the business part of music just plain stinks. ~ Artie Shaw

I'm a perfectionist, so doing a high quality, high caliber television show with great actors makes me feel like there's this whole world of television that I've never experienced. ~ Vinessa Shaw

I think, in terms of corporate philosophy, I've always believed that you've got to treat people in a very very egalitarian manner in the sense I like to treat people on a one-to-one basis. And I like people to take on a lot of responsibilities because I think with a sense of responsibility also comes a sense of purpose. ~ Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I never did heroin, because I thought that meant I was doing heavy drugs, which shows you the insanity of doing drugs. I probably should have done heroin, because I understand heroin actually makes you feel good. Cocaine just makes you stupid. ~ Tommy Shaw

The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery. ~ George Bernard Shaw

There are too many books I haven't read, too many places I haven't seen, too many memories I haven't kept long enough. ~ Irwin Shaw

In actual fact, however, the revolt of Ibsen and Shaw against the conventional nineteenth century drama could very well be described as a return to Shakespeare, as an attempt once again to present human beings in their historical and social setting and not, as playwrights since the Restoration had done, either as wholly private or as embodiments of the social manners of a tiny class. Shakespeare's plays, it is true, are not, in the Shavian sense, "dramas of thought," that is to say, not one of his characters is an intellectual: it is true, as Shaw says, that, when stripped of their wonderful diction, the philosophical and moral views expressed by his characters are commonplaces, but the number of people in any generation or society whose thoughts are not commonplace is very small indeed. On the other hand, there is hardly one of his plays which does not provide unending food for thought, if one cares to think about it. ~ W. H. Auden

The art of manipulating public opinion, which is a necessary art for the democratic politician, and, like other arts, is sometimespractised with greater virtuosity by knaves than by honest men (who are apt to disdain it), has a different technique in different countries. For instance, in England we excel in whitewashing: in America they excel in tarring and feathering. We strain our nerves and stretch our consciences to avoid a scandal: Americans do the same to make one. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn. ~ George Bernard Shaw

You have to build a culture of philanthropy. In a country like India, we need to be sensitive and caring about the poorer, more disadvantaged section of our country. ~ Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Noah's eyes held my face. I swallowed hard. The juxtaposition of him sitting in a room full of people while staring at no one but me was overwhelming. Something shifted inside of me at the intimacy of us, eyes locked amid the scraping of twenty graphite pencils on paper.
I shaded his face out of nothingness. I smudged the slope of his neck and darkened his delinquent mouth, while the lights accented the right angle of his jaw against the cloudy sky outside. I did not hear the bell. I did not hear the other students rise and leave the room. I did not even notice that Noah no longer sat at the stool. ~ Michelle Hodkin

Mr. Shaw came for a short time recently to be regarded less as an author than as an incident in the European War. In the opinion of many people it seemed as if the Allies were fighting against a combination composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Mr. Shaw. ~ Robert Wilson Lynd

My biggest problem in middle school was catty girls, cliques, and trying to figure out if I wanted to be a part of one of those, just figuring out who I was and all that. ~ Lindsey Shaw

He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Sometimes to escape the noise of haunting memories, you need your best friends hand in your own, to help erase the sound and fill you with a sense of peace, even if it's temporary. ~ Andrea Michelle

The British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, and to represent their various incapacities as points of good breeding. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The truth sticks in our throats with all the sauces it is served with: it will never go down until we take it without any sauce at all. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Consider this, music is a collection of sounds and silences, if music was just a constant sound, it would be horrible and difficult to listen to, if music was just silence there would be nothing to listen to. In fact, rests could be easily compared to punctuation, if we ignored commas and full stops then reading and indeed speaking would become chaotic. ~ Michael Shaw

It was sort of an experiment to try to leave the violin. Can I be a real person without this thing? It was a big part of my identity. ~ Caroline Shaw

He'd been an odd one, that boy with the camera. Such a distinctive physique: pale skin so taut on his skeleton, holding himself with a shy hunch, not ugly as such but certainly not handsome, with a demeanor eager to cause no trouble, to attract no attention. ~ Ali Shaw

Even a vortex is a vortex in something. You can't have a whirlpool without water; and you can't have a vortex without gas, or molecules or atoms or ions or electrons or something, not nothing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been blind as a bat not to have seen it long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader. George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course it was a pity that he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it. Chesterton has more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence had it too. Even among ancient authors the same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil) were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy ought to have been complete -- Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire -- all seemed a little thin; what as boys we called "tinny". It wasn't that I didn't like them. They were all (especially Gibbon) entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books. ~ C.S. Lewis

Though justice be Thy plea, consider this: That in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Every day, you have to make three hours of music, just randomly improvising, and that's a great way to weed stuff out. ~ Caroline Shaw

I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them You are supreme: exercise your power. They say, That's right: tell us what to do; and I tell them. I say Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me. And they do. That's democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Without music we shall surely perish of drink, morphia, and all sorts of artificial exaggerations of the cruder delights of the senses. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Though all society is founded on intolerance, all improvement is founded on tolerance. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It was the most exciting sentence I've ever heard," Lydia said. Reaching out, she stroked the back of Jean's hand. "In front of your friends, to call me your love. ~ Fiona Shaw

Literature is too full of 'acknowledgments' and squabbles about originality ... ~ George Bernard Shaw

Even to this day it is easier than it ought to be for me to get a rise out of an American by telling him something about himself which is equally true about every human being on the face of the globe. He at once resents this as a disparagement and an assertion on my part that people in other parts of the globe are not like that, and are loftily superior to such weaknesses. ~ George Bernard Shaw

A writer has to live with a sense of honor. ~ Irwin Shaw

Of the two lots, the woman's lot of perpetual motherhood, and the man's of perpetual babyhood, I prefer the man's. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Waking up, for many people, is apparently a positive experience. There are twittering birds and the smell of fresh coffee fills the air.

These people do not live at my house. ~ Amy Petrie Shaw

At least 600,000 men died in the Civil War. Major battles numbered the dead in the thousands; even minor skirmishes killed hundreds...Then why study the death of thirteen men?... Mass death numbs the mind and heart as it numbers its vast toll. Relief from the horror is less possible when we watch old Joe Woods and thirteen-year-old David Shelton plead for life - and then die. ~ Phillip Shaw Pauadan

When it comes to James Shaw, it seems, I will never learn. ~ Cristin Terrill

If a woman rebels against high-heeled shoes, she should take care to do it in a very smart hat ~ George Bernard Shaw

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It is doubtless wise, when a reform is introduced, to try to persuade the British public that it is not a reform at all; but appearances must be kept up to some extent at least. ~ George Bernard Shaw

People do not become great by doing great things. They do great things because they are great. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I say, if you hate cruelty, remember that nothing is so cruel in its consequences as the toleration of heresy! ~ George Bernard Shaw

To insist that the kingdom of God is only spiritual is to promote the status quo. ~ Mark Shaw

I know I'll miss her every single day, but the memories she left won't haunt me anymore. I'll remember the girl who never wore shoes, and our blood promise to always be friends. I'll remember girls who loved and trusted each other, protected each other, and sometimes even hurt each other.
I'll remember a friendship that will never go away. ~ Jennifer Shaw Wolf

Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the start the dual role of prophet and gadfly. To his contemporaries it appeared frivolous and contradictory to perform as both superman and socialist, sceptic and believer, legalist and heretic, high-brow and mob-orator. But feeling the duty to teach as well as to mirror mankind, Shaw did not accept himself as a contradictory being. ~ Jacques Barzun

It must be able to assist in devising the method of solution of problems and not merely solve them. ~ Cliff Shaw

'Partita' is a simple piece. Born of a love of surface and structure, of the human voice, of dancing and tired ligaments, of music, and of our basic desire to draw a line from one point to another. ~ Caroline Shaw

The abuse of alcohol," Mr. Parrish said in a solemn, preacher-like voice, as he reached for his glass, "is the one thing that puts Man above the animal. ~ Irwin Shaw

I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later; publishers would publish anything that had my name on it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

In the Middle Ages people believed that the earth was flat, for which they had at least the evidence of their senses: we believe it to be round, not because as many as 1 percent of us could give physical reasons for so quaint a belief, but because modern science has convinced us that nothing that is obvious is true, and that everything that is magical, improbable, extraordinary, gigantic, microscopic, heartless, or outrageous is scientific. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The fact is that the intrinsic worth of the book, play or whatever the author is trying to sell is the least, last factor in the the whole transaction. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?Making life means making
trouble. There's only one way of escaping trouble; and that's killing things. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The degree of tolerance attainable at any moment depends on the strain under which society is maintaining its cohesion. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I didn't know enough to hold myself back. Now I was too aware, hyperaware, and so the fear chained me. ~ Michelle Hodkin

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us. ~ George Bernard Shaw

With any modern relationship between a man and a woman, everyone - including their own friends - assume that they're going to hook up. ~ Kim Shaw

Just one more line, please. I'll do anything. And I mean anything."
"Good, we've got him hooked," said Ryan. "It won't be long now before he's on heroin."
Josie added, "Then it's just slavery, pedophilia, and murder."
"Don't forget incest," said Flora. ~ Aiden Shaw

When Jennie, mother of Winston Churchill invited playwright George Bernard Shaw to lunch, he telegraphed: "Certainly not. What have I done to provoke such an attack on my well-known habits?" She replied, "Know nothing of your habits; hope they are better than your manners." ~ Anne Sebba

His father looked wistful. 'And you don't feel anticlimatic?'
What's that?'
Somewhat the opposite of elated.'
What's elated again?'
Good feelings. That is to say, very good. You can feel, can't you? That's what I'm driving at. You don't ever wonder ... where feeling went? ~ Ali Shaw

The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises. ~ Irwin Shaw

Faith in reason as a prime motor is no longer the criterion of the sound mind, any more than faith in the Bible is the criterion of righteous intention. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various. ~ Irwin Shaw

Over the course of human history, many items have briefly flourished as means of exchange, only to be demonetarized. Now, we have demonetarized money. ~ Markham Shaw Pyle

I don't know a damn thing. I don't know what it's about. The longer I live, the more mysterious life is. ~ Artie Shaw

There is only one universal passion fear. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I am absolutely convinced of the lack of true scientific evidence in favour of Darwinian dogma. Nobody in the biological sciences, medicine included, needs Darwinism at all. Darwinism is certainly needed, however, in order to pose as a philosopher, since it is primarily a worldview. And an awful one, as George Bernard Shaw used to say. ~ Raul O. Leguizamon

It was a chance encounter with a biotech entrepreneur from Ireland that got me started as an entrepreneur in India, because I partnered this Irish company in setting up India's first biotech company. ~ Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Nordenson describes wrestling with work as with a large force that wants to have its way with you, even as you want to have your way with it. This wrestling, sinewy and particular as its wrestler, enlarges us as we read our way into her life with its incisive insights and explorations. Can one wrestle meditatively? This author has learned the art and we are the benefactors. ~ Luci Shaw

When a lion meets another with a louder roar the first lion thinks the last a bore. ~ George Bernard Shaw

The sunset like a blacksmith, was beating the sky into glowing red blades. ~ Ali Shaw

The prototypic Don Juan, invented early in the XVI century by a Spanish monk, was ~ George Bernard Shaw

Well, sir, you never can tell. That's a principle in life with me, sir, if you'll excuse my having such a thing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It would positively be a relief to me to dig Shakespeare up and throw stones at him. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I don't believe in morality . I'm a disciple of Bernard Shaw. ~ George Bernard Shaw

My wife thinks I think I'm such hot stuff. She's wrong. I don't think I'm such hot stuff.

My hero George Bernard Shaw, socialist, and shrewd and funny playwright, said in his eighties that if he was considered smart, he sure pitied people who were considered dumb. He said that, having lived as long as he had, he was at last sufficiently wise to serve as a reasonably competent office boy.

That's how I feel. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid. ~ George Bernard Shaw

At 83 Shaw's mind was perhaps not quite as good as it used to be, but it was still better than anyone else's. ~ Alexander Woollcott

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Why not give Christianity a trial? ~ George Bernard Shaw

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel? ~ Irwin Shaw

No community has ever yet passed beyond the initial phases in which its pugnacity and fanaticism enabled it to found a nation, and its cupidity to establish and develop a commercial civilization. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Your uncle Howard is one of the most harmless of men - much nicer than most professional people. Of course he does dreadful things as a judge; but then if you take a man and pay him 5,000 pounds a year to be wicked, and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and laws and juries to drive him into it so that he can't help doing it, what can you expect? ~ George Bernard Shaw

We educate one another; and we cannot do this if half of us consider the other half not good enough to talk to. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Popular Christianity has for its emblem a gibbet, for its chief sensation a sanginary execution after torture, for its central mystery is an insane vengeance bought off by a trumpery expiation. But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the sacred mystery of equality and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Artie Shaw was way ahead of most clarinetists and most jazz players. ~ Buddy DeFranco

Don't wait for the right opportunity: create it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes. ~ George Bernard Shaw

What's the use of money if you have to earn it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the loudest cry of our hearts. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Error processing is turning out to be one of the thorniest problems of modern computer science, and you can't afford to deal with it haphazardly. Some people have estimated that as much as 90 percent of a program's code is written for exceptional, error-processing cases or housekeeping, implying that only 10 percent is written for nominal cases (Shaw in Bentley 1982). With so much code dedicated to handling errors, a strategy for handling them consistently should be spelled out in the architecture. ~ Steve McConnell

I was one of those whose school report would always say, 'Could pay more attention.' I spent my time trying to be the centre of attention or the class joker instead of knuckling down. Far from the perfect student. ~ Suzanne Shaw

Nobody could stand an eternity of Heaven. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Having him hold me like that was the only good thing out of it all, having him hold me and being right there with me. I just wished he could have held me harder and tighter and made the bad feelings, the dirty feelings, go away. But I don't think you can hold a person that tight, so tight that she's in your heart, way inside your skin, being cleaned and warmed by your blood. (11) ~ Susan Shaw