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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.

-George Bernard Shaw

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I Am Sorry To

George Bernard Shaw

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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.

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What Really Flatters A Man Is That You Think Him Worth Flattering.

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If I Bind The Future I Bind My Will. If I Bind My Will I Strangle Creation.

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Words Are Only Postage Stamps Delivering The Object For You To Unwrap

Cruelty Must Be Whitewashed By A Moral Excuse, And Pretense Of Reluctance.

Nothing Soothes Me More After A Long And Maddening Course Of Pianoforte Recitals Than To Sit And Have My Teeth Drilled.

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This Is The True Joy In Life, The Being Used For A Purpose Recognized By Yourself As A Mighty One.

The Thought Of Two Thousand People Crunching Celery At The Same Time Horrified Me.

A Man Thinking Or Working Is Always Alone, Let Him Be Where He Will.

The Only Power A God Can Teach Is The Power Of Doing Without Happiness.

I Shall Always Be A Flower Girl To Professor Higgins, Because He Always Treats Me As A Flower Girl, And Always Will; But I Know I Can Be A Lady To You, Because You Always Treat Me As A Lady, And Always Will.

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Nobody Can Live In Society Without Conventions. The Reason Why Sensible People Are As Conventional As They Can Bear To Be Is That Conventionality Saves So Much Time And Thought And Trouble And Social Friction Of One Sort Or Another That It Leaves Them Much More Leisure Time For Freedom Than Unconventionality Does.

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.

Poverty Doesn't Bring Unhappiness; It Brings Degradation.

A Man's Interest In The World Is Only An Overflow From His Interest In Himself.

Imprisonment, As It Exists Today, Is A Worse Crime Than Any Of Those Committed By Its Victims.

Reformers Have The Idea That Change Can Be Achieved By Brute Sanity.

Even If Animal Experimentation Was Proved To Be Of Value, It Would Be Morally Wrong.

A Doctor's Reputation Is Made By The Number Of Eminent Men Who Die Under His Care.

Great Art Is Never Produced For Its Own Sake. It Is Too Difficult To Be Worth The Effort.

Though I Can Make My Extravaganzas Appear Credible, I Cannot Make The Truth Appear So.

An English Army Led By An Irish General: That Might Be A Match For A French Army Led By An Italian General.

Treat Persons Who Profess To Be Able To Cure Disease As You Treat Fortune Tellers.

Spend All You Have Before You Die, And Do Not Outlive Yourself.

Just As The Historian Can Teach No Real History Until He Has Cured His Readers Of The Romantic Delusion That The Greatness Of A Queen Consists In Her Being A Pretty Woman And Having Her Head Cut Off, So The Playwright Of The First Order Can Do Nothing With His Audience Until He Has Cured Them Of Looking At The Stage Through The Keyhole, And Sniffing Round The Theatre As Prurient People Sniff Round The Divorce Court.

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

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.

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.

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Woman's Happiness Begins With Her First Love And Ends About Then

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The Sound Body Is The Product Of The Sound Mind.

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Make It Compulsory For A Doctor Using A Brass Plate To Have Inscribed On It, In Addition To The Letters Indicating His Qualifications, The Words 'remember That I Too Am Mortal'.

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We Learn From History That We Learn Nothing From History.

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A Critic Is One Who Leaves No Turn Unstoned.

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Unless Comedy Touches Me As Well As Amuses Me, It Leaves Me With A Sense Of Having Wasted My Evening. I Go To The Theatre To Be Moved To Laughter, Not To Be Tickled Or Bustled Into It.

The Test Of Good Education Is Seeing How It Behaves In A Fight.

Democracy Substitutes Election By The Incompetent Many For Appointment By The Corrupt Few.

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A Vegetarian Is Not A Person Who Lives On Vegetables, Any More Than A Catholic Is A Person Who Lives On Cats.

All Progress Is Due To The Unreasonable Person.

Freedom, My Good Girl, Means Being Able To Count On How Other People Will Behave.

The Plain Working Truth Is That It Is Not Only Good For People To Be Shocked Occasionally, But Absolutely Necessary To The Progress Of Society That They Should Be Shocked Pretty Often.

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They Tell Me That So-and-so, Who Does Not Write Prefaces, Is No Charlatan. Well, I Am. I First Caught The Ear Of The British Public On A Cart In Hyde Park, To The Blaring Of Brass Bands,and This . . . Because . . . I Am A Natural-born Mountebank.

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

Fashions, After All, Are Only Induced Epidemics.

The 100% American Is 99% Idiot.

Find Enough Clever Things To Say, And You're A Prime Minister; Write Them Down And You're A Shakespeare.

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.

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I Hate The Poor And Look Forward Eagerly To Their Extermination.

God Help England If She Had No Scots To Think For Her.

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All Great Truths Begin As Blasphemies.

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Nothing Is More Dangerous Than A Poor Doctor: Not Even A Poor Employer Or A Poor Landlord.

I Never Expect A Soldier To Think.

A Perpetual Holiday Is A Good Working Definition Of Hell.

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The Vilest Abortionist Is He Who Attempts To Mould A Child's Character.

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.

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The Open Mind Never Acts: When We Have Done Our Utmost To Arrive At A Reasonable Conclusion, We Still Must Close Our Minds For The Moment With A Snap, And Act Dogmatically On Our Conclusions.

All Young Women Begin By Believing They Can Change And Reform The Men They Marry. They Can't.

A Learned Man Is An Idler Who Kills Time By Study.

Those Who Understand The Steam Engine And The Electric Telegraph Spend Their Lives In Trying To Replace Them With Something Better.

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

It Seems As Though Every Time You Learn Something New You Have To Give Up Something.

Political Necessities Sometime Turn Out To Be Political Mistakes.

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

Who Is This Baby Ruth? And What Does She Do?

Think Of The Fierce Energy Concentrated In An Acorn! You Bury It In The Ground, And It Explodes Into An Oak! Bury A Sheep, And Nothing Happens But Decay.

The Way To Deal With Worldly People Is To Frighten Them By Repeating Their Scandalous Whisperings Aloud.

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

It Is Clear That A Novel Cannot Be Too Bad To Be Worth Publishing. . . . It Certainly Is Possible For A Novel To Be Too Good To Be Worth Publishing.

I Can't Control What Life Did To Me, But I Can Control How I React. Therein Lies The Difference.

Hell Is Not All Paved With Bad Intentions.

Somemenare Bornkings; And Someare Bornstatesmen. The Two Are Seldom The Same.

The Average Age (longevity) Of A Meat Eater Is 63. I Am On The Verge Of 85 And Still Work As Hard As Ever. I Have Lived Quite Long Enough And Am Trying To Die; But I Simply Cannot Do It. A Single Beef-steak Would Finish Me; But I Cannot Bring Myself To Swallow It. I Am Oppressed With A Dread Of Living Forever. That Is The Only Disadvantage Of Vegetarianism.

Funny Inspirational

It Is Impossible For An Englishman To Open His Mouth Without Making Some Other Englishman Hate Or Despise Him.

A Native American Elder Once Described His Own Inner Struggles In This Manner: Inside Of Me There Are Two Dogs. One Of The Dogs Is Mean And Evil. The Other Dog Is Good. The Mean Dog Fights The Good Dog All The Time. When Asked Which Dog Wins, He Reflected For A Moment And Replied, The One I Feed The Most.

It Is Most Unwise For People In Love To Marry.

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