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A Man Is Like A Phonograph With Half-a-dozen Records. You Soon Get Tired Of Them All; And Yet You Have To Sit At Table Whilst He Reels Them Off To Every New Visitor.

-George Bernard Shaw

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A Man Is Like

George Bernard Shaw

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A Man Is Like A Phonograph With Half-a-dozen Records. You Soon Get Tired Of Them All; And Yet You Have To Sit At Table Whilst He Reels Them Off To Every New Visitor.

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More From George Bernard Shaw

Defeatism Is The Wretchedest Of Policies.

A Mind Of The Caliber Of Mine Cannot Derive Its Nutrient From Cows.

Vitality Is A Woman Is A Blind Fury Of Creation.

Liberty Is The Breath Of Life To Nations.

Happy Independence Day

I Am Sorry To Have To Introduce The Subject Of Christmas. It Is An Indecent Subject; A Cruel, Gluttonous Subject; A Drunken, Disorderly Subject; A Wasteful, Disastrous Subject; A Wicked, Cadging, Lying, Filthy, Blasphemous And Demoralizing Subject. Christmas Is Forced On A Reluctant And Disgusted Nation By The Shopkeepers And The Press: On Its Own Merits It Would Wither And Shrivel In The Fiery Breath Of Universal Hatred; And Anyone Who Looked Back To It Would Be Turned Into A Pillar Of Greasy Sausages.

As Long As I Have A Want, I Have A Reason For Living. Satisfaction Is Death.

Fashions Are Induced Epidemics.

I Lay My Eternal Curse On Whomsoever Shall Now Or At Any Time Hereafter Make Schoolbooks Of My Works And Make Me Hated As Shakespeare Is Hated. My Plays Were Not Designed As Instruments Of Torture. All The Schools That Lust After Them Get This Answer, And Will Never Get Any Other.

When We Know What God Is, We Shall Be Gods Ourselves.

There Is In Man A Specific Lust For Cruelty Which Infects Even His Passion Of Pity And Makes It Savage.

Greatness Is One Of The Sensations Of Littleness

Stop Being Jews And Start Being Human Beings.

You Cannot Be A Hero Without Being A Coward.

I Knew If I Waited Around Long Enough Something Like This Would Happen.

I Am A Brigand: I Live By Robbing The Rich.' 'i Am A Gentleman: I Live By Robbing The Poor.

A Man Has No Business To Marry A Woman Who Can't Make Him Miserable. It Means She Can't Make Him Happy.

A Family Is A Tyranny Ruled Over By It's Weakest Member.

Remember That You Are A Human Being With A Soul And The Divine Gift Of Articulate Speech: That Your Native Language Is The Language Of Shakespeare And Milton And The Bible; And Don't Sit There Crooning Like A Bilious Pigeon.

Native Language

I Find That The Moment I Let A Woman Make Friends With Me, She Becomes Jealous, Exacting, Suspicious, And A Damned Nuisance. I Find That The Moment I Let Myself Make Friends With A Woman, I Become Selfish And Tyrannical.

The Notion That The Colonel Need Be A Better Man Than The Private Is As Confused As The Notion That The Keystone Need Be Stronger Than The Coping Stone.

The Notion That Disarmament Can Put A Stop To War Is Contradicted By The Nearest Dogfight.

It Is Not True That Men Can Be Divided Into Absolutely Honest Persons And Absolutely Dishonest Ones. Our Honesty Varies With The Strain Put On It.

I'm Not A Teacher: Only A Fellow Traveler Of Whom You Asked The Way. I Pointed Ahead - Ahead Of Myself As Well As You.

The Schoolmaster Is The Person Who Takes The Children Off The Parents' Hands For A Consideration. That Is To Say, He Establishes A Child Prison, Engages A Number Of Employee Schoolmasters As Turnkeys, And Covers Up The Essential Cruelty And Unnaturalness Of The Situation By Torturing The Children If They Do Not Learn, And Calling This Process, Which Is Within The Capacity Of Any Fool Or Blackguard, By The Sacred Name Of Teaching.

Of The Two Lots, The Woman's Lot Of Perpetual Motherhood, And The Man's Of Perpetual Babyhood, I Prefer The Man's.

I Wish People Would Stop Talking About My Birthday.

Brains Are Not Everything.

All This Struggling And Striving To Make The World Better Is A Great Mistake. Not That It's Wrong To Try To Improve The World If You Know How But Simply Because Struggling And Striving Are The Worst Possible Ways To Go About Doing Anything!

Until The Men Of Action Clear Out The Talkers We Who Have Social Consciences Are At The Mercy Of Those Who Have None.

We Are Sick Of War, We Don't Want To Fight, And Yet We Gorge Ourselves Upon The Dead.

Vegetarian Diet

We Are All Victims Of The Violence That Animals Suffer... Their Liberation Is Also Our Liberation.

God Made The World As An Artist And That Is Why The World Must Learn From Its Artists.

Fashions Are The Only Induced Epidemics, Proving That Epidemics Can Be Induced By Tradesmen.

No Englishman Is Ever Fairly Beaten

The Play Was A Great Success, But Audience Was A Dismal Failure.

I Believe In Michelangelo, Velasquez, And Rembrandt; In The Might Of Design, The Mystery Of Color, The Redemption Of All Things By Beauty Everlasting, And The Message Of Art That Has Made These Hands Blessed. Amen. Amen.

Principles Without Programs Are Platitudes.

Socialism Is The Same As Communism, Only Better English.

I Myself Have Been Particularly Careful Never To Say A Civil Word To The United States. I Have Scoffed At Their Inhabitants As A Nation Of Villagers. I Have Defined The 100 % American As 99 % An Idiot. And They Adore Me.

If You Do Things Merely Because You Think Some Other Fool Expects You To Do Them, And He Expects You To Do Them Because He Thinks You Expect Him To Expect You To Do Them, It Will End In Everybody Doing What Nobody Wants To Do, Which Is In My Opinion A Silly State Of Things.

All Classes In Proportion To Their Lack Of Travel And Familiarity With Foreign Literature Are Bellicose, Prejudiced Against Foreigners, Fond Of Fighting As A Cruel Sport - In Short, Dog-like In Their Notions Of Foreign Policy.

Wicked People Means People Who Have No Love: Therefore, They Have No Shame. They Have The Power To Ask Love Because The Don't Need It: They Have The Power To Offer It Because They Have None To Give.

If The English Can Survive Their Food, They Can Survive Anything.

Capitalism Drives The Employers To Do Their Worst To The Employed, And The Employed To Do The Least For Them. And It Boasts All The Time Of The Incentive It Provides To Both To Do Their Best! . . . The Reason The Capitalist System Has Worked So Far Without Jamming For More Than A Few Months At A Time, And Then Only In Places, Is That It Has Not Yet Succeeded In Making A Conquest Of Human Nature So Complete That Everybody Acts On Strictly Business Principles.

I Tell You That As Long As I Can Conceive Something Better Than Myself I Cannot Be Easy Unless I Am Striving To Bring It Into Existence Or Clearing The Way For It.

A Man Ought To Be Able To Be Fond Of His Wife Without Making A Fool Of Himself About Her.

Some Persons, By Hating Vice Too Much, Come To Love Men Too Little. Hatred Is Self-punishment. Hatred Is The Cowards Revenge For Being Intimidated.

War Can So Easily Be Gilt With Romance And Heroism And Solemn National Duty And Patriotism And The Like By Persons Whose Superficial Literary And Oratorical Talent Covers An Abyss Of Godforsaken Folly.

The Joy In Life Is To Be Used For A Purpose. I Want To Be Used Up When I Die.

Vivisection Is A Social Evil Because If It Advances Human Knowledge, It Does So At The Expense Of Human Character.

Money Is The Most Important Thing In The World. It Represents Health, Strength, Honor, Generosity, And Beauty As Conspicuously As The Want Of It Represents Illness, Weakness, Disgrace, Meanness, And Ugliness.

Decency Cannot Be Discussed Without Indecency!

Idiots Are Always In Favour Of Inequality Of Income (their Only Chance Of Eminence), And The Really Great In Favour Of Equality.

Laws, Religions, Creeds, And Systems Of Ethics, Instead Of Making Society Better Than Its Best Unit, Make It Worse Than Its Average Unit, Because They Are Never Up To Date.

I Fought Linotype And Montype For Some Time Because It Would Not Justify As Well As Handset Could Be Made To Do; But At Last, As Always Happens, The Machine Outdid The Hand, And Got All The Best Types On It.

If A Man Is Indolent, Let Him Be Poor. If He Is Drunken, Let Him Be Poor.... Also--somewhat Inconsistently--blessed Are The Poor!

Being Hurt By Someone You Truly Care About Leaves A Hole In You Heart That Only Love Can Fill.

Modern Poverty Is Not The Poverty That Was Blest In The Sermon On The Mount.

Sermon On The Mount

The Sound Body Is The Product Of The Sound Mind.

When An Apparent Miracle Happened.it Proved Divine Mission To The Credulous, And Proved A Contract With The Devil To The Skeptical.

England And America Are Two Countries Separated By The Same Language.

Nothing Is Worth Doing Unless The Consequences May Be Serious.

Put An Irishman On The Spit And You Can Always Get Another Irishman To Turn Him.

Ireland And The Irish

Men Are Wise In Proportion, Not To Their Experience, But To Their Capacity For Experience.

Although I Cannot Lay An Egg, I Am A Very Good Judge Of Omelettes

Science Can Never Solve One Problem Without Raising Ten More Problems.

My Own Education Has Been Entirely Controversial: That Is Why I Know What I Am Writing About; And Appear Eccentric To Dogmatically Educated Old School Ties Whose Heads Are Stuffed With Obsolete Shibboleths.

To Make Democracy Work, You Need An Aristocratic Democracy. To Make Aristocracy Work, You Need A Democratic Aristocracy.

Ireland, Sir, For Good Or Evil, Is Like No Other Place Under Heaven, And No Man Can Touch Its Sod Or Breathe Its Air Without Becoming Better Or Worse.

Becoming Better

The Worst Cliques Are Those Which Consist Of One Man.

What God Hath Joined Together No Man Shall Put Asunder: God Will Take Care Of That.

Money Is A Most Important Thing In The World.

Important Things

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.

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.

I Never Expect A Soldier To Think.

An Irishman's Imagination Never Lets Him Alone, Never Convinces Him, Never Satisfies Him; But It Makes Him That He Can't Face Reality Nor Deal With It Nor Handle It Nor Conquer It: He Can Only Sneer At Them That Do, And Be 'agreeable To Strangers', Like A Good-for-nothing Woman On The Streets.

All Government Is Cruel; For Nothing Is So Cruel As Impunity.

Like Fingerprints, All Marriages Are Different.

We Want A Few Mad People Now. See Where The Sane Ones Have Landed Us!

No Use Slaving For Me And Then Saying You Want To Be Cared For: Who Cares For A Slave? If You Come Back, Come Back For The Sake Of Good Fellowship; For You’ll Get Nothing Else.

The Savage Bows Down To Idols Of Wood And Stone, The Civilized Man To Idols Of Flesh And Blood

Nobel Prize Money Is A Life-belt Thrown To A Swimmer Who Has Already Reached The Shore In Safety.

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.

You See Things And You Say, 'why?'. But I Dream Things And I Say, 'why Not?'.

Famous Inspirational

But To Admire A Strong Person And To Live Under That Strong Person’s Thumb Are Two Different Things.

People Always Get Tired Of One Another. I Grow Tired Of Myself Whenever I Am Left Alone For Ten Minutes, And I Am Certain That I Am Fonder Of Myself Than Anyone Can Be Of Another Person.

Power Does Not Corrupt Men; Fools, However, If They Get Into A Position Of Power, Corrupt Power.

If You Demand My Authorities For This And That, I Must Reply That Only Those Who Have Never Hunted Up The Authorities As I Have Believe That There Is Any Authority Who Is Not Contradicted Flatly By Some Other Authority.

What Is The Matter With Universities Is That The Students Are School Children, Whereas It Is Of The Very Essence Of University Education That They Should Be Adults.

I Have Studied Him - The Wonderful Man - And In My Opinion Far From Being An Anti-christ He Must Be Called The Saviour Of Humanity.

The Shot Irishmen Will Now Take Their Places Beside Emmet And The Manchester Martyrs In Ireland, And Beside The Heroes Of Poland And Sérbia And Belgium In Europe; And Nothing In Heaven Or Earth Can Prevent It.

I Really Don't Think I Could Consent To Go To Heaven If I Thought There Were No Animals There.

Start With The Belief That Your Life Can Indeed Be Changed, And That You Have The Power To Change It.

A Tranquil Woman Can Go On Sewing Longer Than An Angry Man Can Go On Fuming.

Music Is The Brandy Of The Damned.

Nothing Is Ever Accomplished By A Reasonable Man.

A Married Man Is A Man With A Past, While A Bachelor Is A Man With A Future.

In A Hospital They Throw You Out Into The Street Before You Are Half Cured, But In A Nursing Home They Don't Let You Out Till You Are Dead.

As Long As More People Will Pay Admission To A Theater To See A Naked Body Than To See A Naked Brain, The Drama Will Languish.

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.

I Am Oppressed With A Dread Of Living Forever. That Is The Only Disadvantage Of Vegetarianism.

You Know, Tolstoy, Like Myself, Wasn't Taken In By Superstitions Like Science And Medicine.

The Man Who Has Never Made A Mistake Will Never Make Anything Else.

The Apparent Multiplication Of Gods Is Bewildering At The First Glance, But You Soon Discover That They Are The Same God. There Is Always One Uttermost God Who Defies Personification. This Makes Hinduism The Most Tolerant Religion In The World, Because Its One Transcendent God Includes All Possible Gods. In Fact Hinduism Is So Elastic And So Subtle That The Most Profound Methodist, And Crudest Idolater, Are Equally At Home With It.

There Is Only One Religion, Though There Are A Hundred Versions Of It.

If You Begin By Sacrificing Yourself To Those You Love, You Will End By Hating Those To Whom You Have Sacrificed Yourself.

The British Churchgoer Prefers A Severe Preacher Because He Thinks A Few Home Truths Will Do His Neighbors No Harm.

Imitation Is Not Just The Sincerest Form Of Flattery - It's The Sincerest Form Of Learning.

Christianity Might Be A Good Thing If Anyone Ever Tried It.

As I Write, There Is A Craze For What Is Called Psychoanalysis, Or The Cure Of Diseases By Explaining To The Patient What Is The Matter With Him: An Excellent Plan If You Happen To Know What Is The Matter With Him, Especially When The Explanation Is That There Is Nothing The Matter With Him.

Patriotism Is A Pernicious, Psychopathic Form Of Idiocy.

This Is My Father. Try What You Can With Him! He Won't Listen To Me, Because He Remembers What A Fool I Was When I Was A Baby.

While Browsing In A Second-hand Bookshop One Day, George Bernard Shaw Was Amused To Find A Copy Of One Of His Own Works Which He Himself Had Inscribed For A Friend: "to ----, With Esteem, George Bernard Shaw." He Immediately Purchased The Book And Returned It To The Friend With A Second Inscription: "with Renewed Esteem, George Bernard Shaw.

Every Man To Whom Salvation Is Offered Has An Inalienable Natural Right To Say 'no, Thank You: I Prefer To Retain My Full Moral Responsibility: It Is Not Good For Me To Be Able To Load A Scapegoat With My Sins: I Should Be Less Careful How I Committed Them If I Knew They Would Cost Me Nothing.

My Method Is To Take The Utmost Trouble To Find The Right Thing To Say, And Then To Say It With The Utmost Levity.

Public Speaking

We Are The Living Graves Of Murdered Beasts.

Vegetarian Diet

What Man Really Wishes To Do He Will Find A Means Of Doing.

Clever And Attractive Women Do Not Want To Vote; They Are Willing To Let Men Govern As Long As They Govern Men.

Our Prejudices Are So Deeply Rooted That We Never Think Of Them As Prejudices But Call Them Common Sense.

The Ability To Make Witty Observations Is Commonly Refered To As "cynism" By People Who Lack It.

In The Arts Of Life Main Invents Nothing; But In The Arts Of Death He Outdoes Nature Herself, And Produces By Chemistry And Machinery All The Slaughter Of Plague, Pestilence And Famine. ... There Is Nothing In Man's Industrial Machinery But His Greed And Sloth: His Heart Is In His Weapons.

During The Suffragette Revolt Of 1913 I[urged] That What Was Needed Was Not The Vote, But A Constitutional Amendment Enactingthat All Representative Bodies Shall Consist Of Women And Men In Equal Numbers, Whether Elected Or Nominated Or Coopted Or Registered Or Picked Up In The Street Like A Coroner's Jury. In The Case Of Elected Bodies The Only Way Of Effecting This Is By The Coupled Vote. The Representative Unit Must Not Be A Man Or A Woman But A Man And A Woman.

No King On Earth Is As Safe In His Job As A Trade Union Official. There Is Only One Thing That Can Get Him Sacked; And That Is Drink. Not Even That, As Long As He Doesn't Actually Fall Down.

When Commenting On The Turmoil And Disorder Of The World, If The Other Planets Are Inhabited, They Must Be Using This Earth As Their Insane Asylum.

You Can Always Tell An Old Soldier By The Inside Of His Holsters And Cartridge Boxes. The Young Ones Carry Pistols And Cartridges; The Old Ones, Grub.

Home Is The Girl's Prison And The Woman's Workhouse.

I Become More Convinced That Beings From Other Planets Are Using The Earth As A Lunatic Asylum

Lunatic Asylums

Where There Is No Knowledge Ignorance Calls Itself Science.

We Have In England A Curious Belief In First-rate People, Meaning All The People We Do Not Know; And This Consoles Us For The Undeniable Second-rateness Of The People We Do Know.

The World Was To Shakespeare A Great Stage Of Fools On Which He Was Utterly Bewildered. His Pregnant Observations Of Life Are Not Coordinated Into Any Philosophy.

Audacious Ribald: Your Laughter Will Finish In Hideous Boredom Before Morning.

A Child Hasn't A Grown-up Person's Appetite For Affection. A Little Of It Goes A Long Way With Them; And They Like A Good Imitation Of It Better Than The Real Thing, As Every Nurse Knows.

We Educate One Another; And We Cannot Do This If Half Of Us Consider The Other Half Not Good Enough To Talk To.

Not Good Enough

Just As I Cannot Remember Any Time When I Could Not Read And Write, I Cannot Remember Any Time When I Did Not Exercise My Imagination In Daydreams About Women.

Heaven, As Conventionally Conceived, Is A Place So Inane, So Dull, So Useless, So Miserable That Nobody Has Ever Ventured To Describe A Whole Day In Heaven, Though Plenty Of People Have Described A Day At The Seaside.

What A Man Is Depends On His Character; But What He Does, And What We Think Of What He Does, Depends On His Circumstances.

It's Just As Unpleasant To Get More Than You Bargain For As To Get Less.

I Don't Know If There Are Men On The Moon, But If There Are They Must Be Using The Earth As Their Lunatic Asylum

Lunatic Asylums

You Are Going To Let The Fear Of Poverty Govern You Life And Your Reward Will Be That You Will Eat, But You Will Not Live.

If All The Economists Were Laid End To End, They'd Never Reach A Conclusion.

Optimistic Lies Have Such Immense Therapeutic Value That A Doctor Who Cannot Tell Them Convincingly Has Mistaken His Profession.

The More Things A Man Is Ashamed Of, The More Respectable He Is.

The Secret To Success Is To Offend The Greatest Number Of People.

Congratulations

What Is Really Important In Man Is The Part Of Him That We Do Not Understand. Of Much Of It We Are Not Even Conscious, Just As We Are Not Normally Conscious Of Keeping Up Our Circulation By Our Heart-pump, Though If We Neglect It We Die.

I Find That Socialism Is Often Misunderstood By Its Least Intelligent Supporters And Opponents To Mean Simply Unrestrained Indulgence Of Our Natural Propensity To Heave Bricks At Respectable Persons.

Orchestras Only Need To Be Sworn At, And A German Is Consequently At An Advantage With Them, As English Profanity, Except In America, Has Not Gone Beyond A Limited Technology Of Perdition.

We Don't Bother Much About Dress And Manners In England, Because As A Nation We Don't Dress Well And We've No Manners.

A Gentleman Is One Who Puts More Into The World Than He Takes Out.

Personal Growth

I Was Told That My Diet Was So Poor That I Could Not Repair The Bones That Were Broken And Operated On. So I Have Just Had An Xradiograph Taken; And Lo! Perfectly Mended Solid Bone So Beautifully White That I Have Left Instructions That, If I Die, A Glove Stretcher Is To Be Made Of Me And Sent To You As A Souvenir

You Have Set Up In New York Harbor A Monstrous Idol Which You Call Liberty. The Only Thing That Remains To Complete That Monument Is To Put On Its Pedestal The Inscription Written By Dante On The Gate Of Hell: All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here.

Such Poverty As We Have Today In All Our Great Cities Degrades The Poor, And Infects With Its Degradation The Whole Neighborhood In Which They Live. And Whatever Can Degrade A Neighborhood Can Degrade A Country And A Continent And Finally The Whole Civilized World, Which Is Only A Large Neighborhood.

First Really Like Is Just A Little Bit Foolishness As Well As A Lot Of Curiosity. No Actually Self-respecting Girl Would Reap The Benefits Of It.

A Genius Is A Person Who Is Seeing Further And Probing Deeper Than Other People Has A Different Set Of Ethical Valuations From Their And Has Energy Enough To Give Effect To This Extra Vision And Its Valuations In Whatever Manner Best Suits His Or Her

A Man Who Desires To Get Married Should Know Everything Or Nothing.

Importance Of Being Earnest

If There Was Nothing Wrong In The World There Wouldn't Be Anything For Us To Do.

I Have Prophesied About The Faith Of Muhammad That It Would Be Acceptable To The Europe Of Tomorrow As It Is Beginning To Be Acceptable To The Europe Of Today. ... I Believe That If A Man Like Him Were To Assume The Dictatorship Of The Modern World He Would Succeed In Solving Its Problems In A Way That Would Bring It The Much-needed Peace And Happiness.

If You Strike A Child, Take Care That You Strike It In Anger, Even At The Risk Of Maiming It For Life. A Blow In Cold Blood Neither Can Nor Should Be Forgiven.

Do You Think That The Things People Make Fools Of Themselves About Are Any Less Real And True Than The Things They Behave Sensibly About? They Are More True: They Are The Only Things That Are True.

It's So Hard To Know What To Do When One Wishes Earnestly To Do Right.

We Must Reform Society Before We Can Reform Ourselves.

The Universal Regard For Money Is The One Hopeful Fact In Our Civilization.

I Would Like To Take You Seriously, But To Do So Would Be An Affront To Your Intelligence.

When We Want To Read Of The Deeds That Are Done For Love, Whither Do We Turn? To The Murder Column.

When You Prevent Me From Doing Anything I Want To Do, That Is Persecution; When I Prevent You From Doing Anything You Want To Do, That Is Law, Order, And Morals.

The American White Relegates The Black To The Rank Of Shoeshine Boy; And He Concludes From This That The Black Is Good For Nothing But Shining Shoes.

Don't Think You Can Frighten Me By Telling Me That I Am Alone. France Is Alone. God Is Alone. And The Loneliness Of God Is His Strength.

Life Is A First Draft... With No Rewrite.

It Is Necessary For The Welfare Of Society That Genius Should Be Privileged To Utter Sedition, To Blaspheme, To Outrage Good Taste, To Corrupt The Youthful Mind, And Generally To Scandalize One's Uncles.

If You Go To Heaven Without Being Naturally Qualified For It You Will Not Enjoy Yourself There.

Lack Of Money Is The Root Of Of All Evil.

Greatest Wealth

Taking All The Round Of Professions And Occupations, You Will Find That Every Man Is The Worse For Being Poor; And The Doctor Is A Specially Dangerous Man When Poor.

It Is The Highest Creatures Who Take The Longest To Mature, And Are The Most Helpless During Their Immaturity.

I Sold Flowers. I Didn't Sell Myself. Now You've Made A Lady Of Me I'm Not Fit To Sell Anything Else.

We Are Not Taught To Think Decently On Sex Subjects, And Consequently We Have No Language For Them Except Indecent Language.

What Is Both Surprising And Delightful Is That The Spectators Are Allowed, And Even Expected, To Join In The Vocal Part Of The Game...there Is No Reason Why The Field Should Not Try To Put The Batsman Off His Stroke At The Critical Moment By Neatly Timed Disparagements Of His Wife's Fidelity And His Mother's Respectability.

Democracy Is A Word All Public Men Use And None Understand.

I Am A Sort Of Collector Of Religions: And The Curious Thing Is That I Find I Can Believe In Them All.

The Lesson Intended By An Author Is Hardly Ever The Lesson The World Chooses To Learn From His Book.

You Use A Glass Mirror To See Your Face; You Use Works Of Art To See Your Soul.

Every Child Has A Right To Its Own Bent. . . . It Has A Right To Find Its Own Way And Go Its Own Way, Whether That Way Seems Wise Or Foolish To Others, Exactly As An Adult Has. It Has A Right To Privacy As To Its Own Doings And Its Own Affairs As Much As If It Were Its Own Father.

An Interesting Play Cannot In The Nature Of Things Mean Anything But A Play In Which Problems Of Conduct And Character Of Personalimportance To The Audience Are Raised And Suggestively Discussed.

I Am Highly Susceptible To The Force Of All Truly Religious Music, Especially To The Music Of My Own Church, The Church Of Shelley, Michelangelo, And Beethoven.

You Do Not Settle Whether An Argument Is Justified By Merely Showing That It Is Of Some Use. The Distinction Is Not Between Useful And Useless Experiments But Between Barbarous And Civilized Behaviour. Vivisection Is A Social Evil Because If It Advances Human Knowledge, It Does So At The Expense Of Human Character.

Absolute Honesty Is As Absurd An Abstraction As An Absolute Temperature Or An Absolute Value.

The Surest Way To Ruin A Man Who Doesn't Know How To Handle Money Is To Give Him Some.

The Conversion Of A Savage To Christianity Is The Conversion Of Christianity To Savagery.

My Friend, When A Man Has Anything To Tell In This World, The Difficulty Is Not To Make Him Tell It, But To Prevent Him From Telling It Too Often.

It Is Ridiculous To Say That Art Has Nothing To Do With Morality. What Is True Is That The Artist's Business Is Not That Of The Policeman.

All The Sweetness Of Religion Is Conveyed To The World By The Hands Of Storytellers And Image-makers. Without Their Fictions The Truths Of Religion Would For The Multitude Be Neither Intelligible Nor Even Apprehensible; And The Prophets Would Prophesy And The Teachers Teach In Vain.

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.

My Main Reason For Adopting Literature As A Profession Was That, As The Author Is Never Seen By His Clients, He Need Not Dress Respectably.

Leisure May Be Defined As Free Activity, Labor As Compulsory Activity. Leisure Does What It Likes, Labor Does What It Must, The Compulsion Being That Of Nature, Which In These Latitudes Leaves Men No Choice Between Labor And Starvation.

Those Who Admire Modern Civilization Usually Identify It With The Steam Engine And The Electric Telegraph.

Youth Is A Wonderful Thing. What A Crime To Waste It On Children.

If All You Are Going To Do In Life Are The Things That Are Convenient And Comfortable, The Great Things Never Get Done.

We Know Now That The Soul Is The Body, And The Body The Soul. They Tell Us They Are Different Because They Want To Persuade Us That We Can Keep Our Souls If We Let Them Make Slaves Of Our Bodies.

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 Whatever I Can.

Privilege And Responsibility

To Me The Sole Hope Of Human Salvation Lies In Teaching Man To Regard Himself As An Experiment In The Realization Of God, To Regard His Hands As God's Hand, His Brain As God's Brain, His Purpose As God's Purpose. He Must Regard God As A Helpless Longing, Which Longed Him Into Existence By Its Desperate Need For An Executive Organ.

We Are Told That When Jehovah Created The World He Saw That It Was Good What Would He Say Now

To Disbelieve In Marriage Is Easy: To Love A Married Woman Is Easy; But To Betray A Comrade, To Be Disloyal To A Host, To Break The Covenant Of Bread And Salt, Is Impossible.

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