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I Do Not Waste My Time Writing Pot-boilers: The Pot Must Be Boiled, And Even My Pot Au Feu Has Some Chunks Of Fresh Meat In It. ...i Have No Time To Boil Myself Down; And Anyhow I Could Not Do So And Preserve All The Necessary Nutriment And The Flavoring On Which The Digestibility Depends.

-George Bernard Shaw

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I Do Not Waste

George Bernard Shaw

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I Do Not Waste My Time Writing Pot-boilers: The Pot Must Be Boiled, And Even My Pot Au Feu Has Some Chunks Of Fresh Meat In It. ...i Have No Time To Boil Myself Down; And Anyhow I Could Not Do So And Preserve All The Necessary Nutriment And The Flavoring On Which The Digestibility Depends.

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A Man Never Tells You Anything Until You Contradict Him.

There Is Nothing So Bad Or So Good That You Will Not Find Englishmen Doing It; But You Will Never Find An Englishman In The Wrong. He Does Everything On Principle. He Fights You On Patriotic Principles; He Robs You On Business Principles; He Enslaves You On Imperial Principles; He Bullies You On Manly Principles; He Supports His King On Loyal Principles And Cuts Off His King's Head On Republican Principles.

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

Telling The Truth Is The Funniest Joke In The World.

Telling The Truth

There Are Only Two Classes In Good Society In England: The Equestrian Classes And The Neurotic Classes.

In Truth , Mankind Cannot Be Saved From Without, By Schoolmasters Or Any Other Sort Of Masters: It Can Only Be Lamed And Enslaved By Them. It Is Said That If You Wash A Cat It Will Never Again Wash Itself. This May Or May Not Be True : What Is Certain Is That If You Teach A Man Anything He Will Never Learn It; And If You Cure Him Of A Disease He Will Be Unable To Cure Himself The Next Time It Attacks Him.

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

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.

There Is No Accomplishment So Easy To Acquire As Politeness And None More Profitable.

We All Go About Longing For Love: It Is The First Need Of Our Natures, The Loudest Cry Of Our Hearts.

Liberty Means Responsibility. That Is Why Most Men Dread It.

No Diet Will Remove All The Fat From Your Body Because The Brain Is Entirely Fat. Without A Brain, You Might Look Good, But All You Could Do Is Run For Public Office.

It Would Positively Be A Relief To Me To Dig Shakespeare Up And Throw Stones At Him.

All Great Truths Begin As Blasphemies.

Nobody Can Say A Word Against Greek: It Stamps A Man At Once As An Educated Gentlemen.

The Most Anxious Man In A Prison Is The Governor.

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

Democracies Have

Most Of The Money Given By Rich People In "charity" Is Made Up Of Conscience Money, "ransom," Political Bribery, And Bids For Titles.... One Buys Moral Credit By Signing A Cheque, Which Is Easier Than Turning A Prayer Wheel.

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.

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.

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.

A Contract For Better For Worse Is A Contract That Should Not Be Tolerated.

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

Our First Duty, To Which Every Other Consideration Should Be Sacrificed, Is Not To Be Poor.

Few Of Us Have Vitality Enough To Make Any Of Our Instincts Imperious.

A Newspaper, Not Having To Act On Its Descriptions And Reports, But Only To Sell Them To Idly Curious People, Has Nothing But Honor To Lose By Inaccuracy And Non-veracity.

A Succession Of Eye-openers Each Involving The Repudiation Of Some Previously Held Belief.

The Capacity Of Any Conqueror Is More Likely Than Not To Be An Illusion Produced By The Incapacity Of His Adversary.

Besides, Do Any Of Us Understand What We Are Doing? If We Did, Would We Ever Do It?

Peace Is Not Only Better Than War, But Infinitely More Arduous.

The Ordinary Man Is An Anarchist. He Wants To Do As He Likes. He May Want His Neighbour To Be Governed, But He Himself Doesn't Want To Be Governed. He Is Mortally Afraid Of Government Officials And Policemen.

Marx's Kapital Is Not A Treatise On Socialism; It Is A Gerrymand Against The Bourgeoisie. It Was Supposed To Be Written For The Working Class, But The Working Man Respects The Bourgeoisie And Wants To Be A Bourgeoisie. Marx Never Got A Hold Of Him For A Moment. It Was The Revolting Sons Of The Bourgeoisie Itself, Like Myself, That Painted The Flag Red. The Middle And Upper Classes Are The Revolutionary Element In Society. The Proletariat Is The Conservative Element.

The Whole Strength Of England Lies In The Fact That The Enormous Majority Of The English People Are Snobs.

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.

You Can Easily Find People Who Are Ten Times As Rich At Sixty As They Were At Twenty But Not One Of Them Will Tell You That They Are Ten Times As Happy

All Great Art And Literature Is Propaganda.

Most Of My Recent Plays Were Written In The Railway Train Between Hatfield And Kings Cross. I Write Anywhere, On The Top Of Omnibuses Or Wherever I May Be; It Is All The Same To Me.

When A Man Of Normal Habits Is Ill, Everyone Hastens To Assure Him That He Is Going To Recover. When A Vegetarian Is Ill (which Fortunately Very Seldom Happens), Everyone Assures Him That He Is Going To Die, And That They Told Him So, And That It Serves Him Right. They Implore Him To Take At Least A Little Gravy, So As To Give Himself A Chance Of Lasting Out The Night

Better See Rightly On A Pound A Week Than Squint On A Million.

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

If We Women Were Particular About Men's Characters, We Should Never Get Married At All.

The Domestic Career Is No More Natural To All Women Than The Military Career Is Natural To All Men.

The Great Advantage Of A Hotel Is That It Is A Refuge From Home Life.

Don't Waste Time Collecting Other People's Autographs; Rather Devote It To Making Your Own Autograph Worth Collecting.

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

Man Gives Every Reason For His Conduct Save One, Every Excuse For His Crimes Save One, Every Plea For His Safety Save One; And That One Is His Cowardice

Love Is A Gross Exaggeration Of The Difference Between One Person And Everybody Else.

What Englishman Will Give His Mind To Politics As Long As He Can Afford To Keep A Motor Car?

I Have Never Thought Much Of The Courage Of A Lion Tamer. Inside The Cage He Is At Least Safe From Other Men. There Is Not Much Harm In A Lion. He Has No Ideals, No Religion, No Politics, No Chivalry, No Gentility; In Short, No Reason For Destroying Anything That He Does Not Want To Eat

If You Don't Begin To Be A Revolutionist At The Age Of Twenty, Then At Fifty You Will Be A Most Impossible Old Fossil. If You Area Red Revolutionary At The Age Of Twenty, You Have Some Chance Of Being Up-to-date When You Are Forty!

Property Is Organized Robbery.

Now Of All The Idealist Abominations That Make Society Pestiferous I Doubt If There Be Any So Mean As That Of Forcing Self-sacrifice On A Woman Under The Pretense That She Likes It.

You Are My Inspiration And My Folly. You Are My Light Across The Sea, My Million Nameless Joys, And My Day's Wage. You Are My Divinity, My Madness, My Selfishness, My Transfiguration And Purification. You Are My Rapscallionly Fellow Vagabond, My Tempter And Star. I Want You.

Patriotism Is A Word Which Always Commemorates A Robbery.

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

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

I Hope You Have Lost Your Good Looks, For While They Last Any Fool Can Adore You, And The Adoration Of Fools Is Bad For The Soul. No, Give Me A Ruined Complexion And A Lost Figure And Sixteen Chins On A Farmyard Of Crow's Feet And An Obvious Wig. Then You Shall See Me Coming Out Strong.

The Harder I Work The More I Live.

Political Necessities Sometime Turn Out To Be Political Mistakes.

There Is Only One Belief That Can Rob Death Of Its Sting And The Grave Of Its Victory. For Without That You Cannot Be Born Again.

What Right Has Any Human Being To Talk Of Bringing Up A Child? You Do Not Bring Up A Tree Or A Plant. It Brings Itself Up. You Have To Give It A Fair Chance By Tilling The Soil.

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

A Fool-proof Method For Sculpting An Elephant: First, Get A Huge Block Of Marble; Then You Chip Away Everything That Doesn't Look Like An Elephant.

I Don't Know What To Say About This Book. The Experience On Which It Is Founded Is So Extraordinary, That An Honest Record Of It Should Be Preserved . . . But It Would Have Driven Me Mad; And I Am Not Sure That The Author Came Out Of It Without A Slight Derangement.

Don't Order Any Black Things. Rejoice In His Memory; And Be Radiant: Leave Grief To The Children. Wear Violet And Purple. Be Patient With The Poor People Who Will Snivel: They Don't Know; And They Think They Will Live For Ever, Which Makes Death A Division Instead Of A Bond.

Never Forget That If You Leave Your Law To Judges And Your Religion To Bishops, You Will Presently Find Yourself Without Either Law Or Religion.

Finding Yourself

Martyrdom, Sir, Is What These People Like: It Is The Only Way In Which A Man Can Become Famous Without Ability.

Nothing Is More Dreadful Than A Husband Who Keeps Telling You Everything He Thinks, And Always Wants To Know What You Think.

Rich Men Without Convictions Are More Dangerous In Modern Society Than Poor Women Without Chastity.

Life On Board A Pleasure Steamer Violates Every Moral And Physical Condition Of Healthy Life Except Fresh Air. . . . It Is A Guzzling, Lounging, Gambling, Dog's Life. The Only Alternative To Excitement Is Irritability.

It Is Nearly 50 Years Since I Was Assured By A Conclave Of Doctors That If I Did Not Eat Meat I Should Die Of Starvation.

An Author Who Gives A Manager Or Publisher Any Rights In His Work Except Those Immediately And Specifically Required For Its Publication Or Performance Is For Business Purposes An Imbecile.

Treat A Friend As A Person Who May Someday Become Your Enemy; An Enemy As A Person Who May Someday Become Your Friend.

Make Me A Beautiful Word For Doing Things Tomorrow; For That Surely Is A Great And Blessed Invention.

Old Men Are Dangerous: It Doesn't Matter To Them What Is Going To Happen To The World.

No Severity Of Punishment Deters When Detection Is Uncertain, As It Always Must Be.

Never Resist Temptation: Prove All Things: Hold Fast That Which Is Good.

Any Sort Of Plain Speaking Is Better Than The Nauseous Sham Good Fellowship Our Democratic Public Men Get Up For Shop Use.

He Who Can, Does. He Who Cannot, Teaches.

All My Life Affection Has Been Showered Upon Me, And Every Forward Step I Have Made Has Been Taken In Spite Of It.

I Like Flowers, I Also Like Children, But I Do Not Chop Their Heads Off And Keep Them In Bowls Of Water Around The House.

Morality Consists Of Suspecting Other People Of Not Being Legally Married.

The American Constitution, One Of The Few Modern Political Documents Drawn Up By Men Who Were Forced By The Sternest Circumstances To Think Out What They Really Had To Face, Instead Of Chopping Logic In A University Classroom.

The Theory That Music Has A Depraving Effect On Morals Has Now Been Abandoned To The Old Women Of Both Sexes.

Reading Made Don Quixote A Gentleman, But Believing What He Read Made Him Mad.

Every Profession Is A Conspiracy Against The Laity.

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.

I Learned Long Ago, Never To Wrestle With A Pig. You Get Dirty, And Besides, The Pig Likes It.

Trade Unionism Is Not Socialism. It Is The Capitalism Of The Proletariat.

Marriage Is The Most Licentious Of Human Institutions.

Those Who Do Not Know How To Live Must Make A Merit Of Dying.

Effectiveness Of Assertion Is The Alpha And Omega Of Style.

Alpha And Omega

A Man's Interest In The World Is Only The Overflow From His Interest In Himself. When You Are A Child Your Vessel Is Not Yet Full;so You Care For Nothing But Your Own Affairs. When You Grow Up, Your Vessel Overflows; And You Are A Politician, A Philosopher, Or An Explorer And Adventurer. In Old Age The Vessel Dries Up: There Is No Overflow: You Are A Child Again.

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

The Fickleness Of The Women I Love Is Only Equalled By The Infernal Constancy Of The Women Who Love Me.

If All The Churches Of Europe Closed Their Doors Until The Drums Ceased Rolling They Would Act As A Most Powerful Reminder That Though The Glory Of War Is A Famous And Ancient Glory, It Is Not The Final Glory Of God.

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.

Give Women The Vote, And In Five Years There Will Be A Crushing Tax On Bachelors.

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

If The Governments Devalue The Currency In Order To Betray All Creditors, You Politely Call This Procedure 'inflation'.

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

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

It's Not That I'm So Clever, It Is That Others Are So Stupid.

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

Lunatic Asylums

Captain Shotover: How Much Does Your Soul Eat? Ellie: Oh, A Lot. It Eats Music And Pictures And Books And Mountains And Lakes And Beautiful Things To Wear And Nice People To Be With.

Has Fear Ever Held A Man Back From Anything He Really Wanted?

I Am Justified. For I Chose Wisdom And The Knowledge Of Good And Evil ; And Now There Is No Evil; And Wisdom And Good Are One. It Is Enough.

My Father Must Have Had Some Elementary Education For He Could Read And Write And Keep Accounts Inaccurately

Even Under The Most Perfect Social Democracy We Should, Without Communism, Still Be Living Like Hogs, Except That Each Hog Would Get His Fair Share Of Grub.... Whilst We Are Hogs, Let Us At Least Be Well-fed, Healthy, Reciprocally Useful Hogs, Instead Of--well, Instead Of The Sort We Are At Present.

The Educated Man Is A Greater Nuisance Than The Uneducated One.

You Can Lose A Man Like That By Your Own Death, But Not By His.

Death And Dying

A Thing That Nobody Believes Cannot Be Proved Too Often.

There Is No Subject On Which More Dangerous Nonsense Is Talked And Thought Than Marriage.

The English Are Not A Very Spiritual People, So They Invented Cricket To Give Them Some Idea Of Eternity.

Liberty Is The Breath Of Life To Nations.

Happy Independence Day

I Like A State Of Continual Becoming, With A Goal In Front And Not Behind.

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

Sermon On The Mount

We're Human Beings We Are - All Of Us - And That's What People Are Liable To Forget. Human Beings Don't Like Peace And Goodwill And Everybody Loving Everybody Else. However Much They May Think They Do, They Don't Really Because They're Not Made Like That. Human Beings Love Eating And Drinking And Loving And Hating. They Also Like Showing Off, Grabbing All They Can, Fighting For Their Rights And Bossing Anybody Who'll Give Them Half A Chance.

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

God's Trustiest Lieutenants Often Lack Official Credentials. They May Be Professed Atheists Who Are Also Men Of Honour And High Public Spirit.

It's Usually Pointed Out That Women Are Not Fit For Political Power, And Ought Not To Be Trusted With A Vote Because They Are Politically Ignorant, Socially Prejudiced, Narrow-minded, And Selfish. True Enough, But Precisely The Same Is True Of Men!

The Moment We Want To Believe Something, We Suddenly See All The Arguments For It, And Become Blind To The Arguments Against It.

Vulgarity In A King Flatters The Majority Of The Nation.

It Is In The Hour Of Trial That A Man Finds His True Profession.

I Must ... Warn My Readers That My Attacks Are Directed Against Themselves, Not Against My Stage Figures.

If In The Library Of Your House You Do Not Have The Works Of The Ancient Greek Writers, Then You Live In A House With No Light.

It Is Not Disbelief That Is Dangerous To Our Society; It Is Belief.

Decency Is Indecency's Conspiracy Of Silence

It Is Most Unwise For People In Love To Marry.

While We Have Prisons It Matters Little Which Of Us Occupy The Cells.

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 Mustn't Be Stiff And Stand-off, You Know. We Must Be Thoroughly Democratic, And Patronize Everybody Without Distinction Of Class.

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

Changeable Women Are More Endurable That Monotonous Ones; They Are Sometimes Murdered But Never Deserted.

You Can Rave About Stravinsky Without The Slightest Risk Of Being Classified As A Lunatic By The Next Generation .

A Man's Own Self Is The Last Person To Believe In Him, And Is Harder To Cheat Than The Rest Of The World.

You Accepted Allah Or You Had Your Throat Cut By Someone Who Did Accept Him, And Who Went To Paradise For Having Sent You To Hell.

Vulgarity Is A Necessary Part Of A Complete Author's Equipment; And The Clown Is Sometimes The Best Part Of The Circus.

If Women Were As Fastidious As Men, Morally Or Physically, There Would Be An End Of The Race.

The Most Sincere Form Of Love Is Love For Food

I Love Little Children Too But I Don't Cut Off Their Heads And Stick Them In Vases.

Every Drunken Skipper Trusts To Providence. But One Of The Ways Of Providence With Drunken Skippers Is To Run Them On The Rocks.

You Will Think Less Of The Art, When You Know The Artist

You Propound A Complicated Arithmetical Problem: Say Cubing A Number Containing Four Digits. Give Me A Slate And Half An Hour's Time, And I Can Produce A Wrong Answer.

Science Is Always Simple And Always Profound. It Is Only The Half-truths That Are Dangerous.

Better Never Than Late.

Happiness And Beauty Are By-products. Folly Is The Direct Pursuit Of Happiness And Beauty.

The Hand Of The Painter Is Incurably Mechanical: His Technique Is Incurably Artificial... The Camera... Is So Utterly Unmechanical.

Every Man Over Forty Is A Scoundrel.

When Satan Makes Impure Verses, Allah Sends A Divine Tune To Cleanse Them.

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.

The Jews Generally Give Value. They Make You Pay; But They Deliver The Goods. In My Experience The Men Who Want Something For Nothing Are Invariably Christians.

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.

Some People Look At The World And Say 'why?' Some People Look At The World And Say 'why Not?'

Positive Thinking

Civilization Is A Disease Produced By The Practice Of Building Societies With Rotten Material.

The Philosopher Is Nature's Pilot. And There You Have Our Difference: To Be In Hell Is To Drift: To Be In Heaven Is To Steer.

It Has Taken Me Nearly Twenty Years Of Studied Self-restraint, Aided By The Natural Decay Of My Faculties, To Make Myself Dull Enough To Be Accepted As A Serious Person By The British Public; And I Am Not Sure That I Am Not Still Regarded As A Suspicious Character In Some Quarters.

Life At Its Noblest Leaves Mere Happiness Far Behind; And Indeed Cannot Endure It. Happiness Is Not The Object Of Life: Life Has No Object: It Is An End In Itself; And Courage Consists In The Readiness To Sacrifice Happiness For An Intenser Quality Of Life.

If The Announcer Can Produce The Impression That He Is A Gentleman, He May Pronounce As He Pleases.

When A Stupid Man Is Doing Something He Is Ashamed Of, He Always Declares That It Is His Duty.

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

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

Though All Society Is Founded On Intolerance, All Improvement Is Founded On Tolerance.

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

The Law Is Equal Before All Of Us; But We Are Not All Equal Before The Law. Virtually There Is One Law For The Rich And Another For The Poor, One Law For The Cunning And Another For The Simple, One Law For The Forceful And Another For The Feeble, One Law For The Ignorant And Another For The Learned, One Law For The Brave And Another For The Timid, And Within Family Limits One Law For The Parent And No Law At All For The Child.

No Doubt It Is Easy To Demostrate That Property Will Destroy Society Unless Society Destroys It.

Pothinus: "is It Possible That Caesar, The Conqueror Of The World, Has Time To Occupy Himself With Such A Trifle As Our Taxes?" Caesar: "my Friend, Taxes Are The Chief Business Of A Conqueror Of The World.

Except During The Nine Months Before He Draws His First Breath, No Man Manages His Affairs As Well As A Tree Does.

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

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

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

Kings Are Not Born: They Are Made By Artificial Hallucination.

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

In The Right Key One Can Say Anything. In The Wrong Key, Nothing: The Only Delicate Part Is The Establishment Of The Key.

I Aint Such A Mug As To Put Up My Children To All I Know Myself.

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

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.

No Child Should Be Brought Up To Suppose That Its Food And Clothes Come Down From Heaven Or Are Miraculously Conjured From Empty Space By Papa. Loathsome As We Have Made The Idea Of Duty (like The Idea Of Work) We Must Habituate Children To A Sense Of Repayable Obligation To The Community For What They Consume And Enjoy, And Inculcate The Repayment As A Point Of Honor.

To Be In Hell Is To Drift; To Be In Heaven Is To Steer.

I'm An Atheist And I Thank God For It.

The Camera Can Represent Flesh So Superbly That, If I Dared, I Would Never Photograph A Figure Without Asking That Figure To Take Its Clothes Off.

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

Importance Of Being Earnest

The Truth Is, Hardly Any Of Us Have Ethical Energy Enough For More Than One Really Inflexible Point Of Honor.

The First Prison I Ever Saw Had Inscribed On It Cease To Do Evil: Learn To Do Well; But As The Inscription Was On The Outside, The Prisoners Could Not Read It.

But Whether The Risks To Which Liberty Exposes Us Are Moral Or Physical Our Right To Liberty Involves The Right To Run Them. A Man Who Is Not Free To Risk His Neck As An Aviator Or His Soul As A Heretic Is Not Free At All; And The Right To Liberty Begins, Not At The Age Of 21 Years But 21 Seconds.

I Must Remind You That Our Credulity Is Not To Be Measured By The Truth Of The Things We Believe. When Men Believed That The Earthwas Flat, They Were Not Credulous: They Were Using Their Common Sense, And, If Asked To Prove That The Earth Was Flat, Would Have Said Simply, "look At It." Those Who Refuse To Believe That It Is Round Are Exercising A Wholesome Skepticism.

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.

Poverty Doesn't Bring Unhappiness; It Brings Degradation.

Physically There Is Nothing To Distinguish Human Society From The Farm-yard Except That Children Are More Troublesome And Costly Than Chickens And Calves And That Men And Women Are Not So Completely Enslaved As Farm Stock.

Beware Of The Man Whose God Is In The Skies.

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

The Secret Of Being Miserable Is To Have Leisure To Bother About Whether You Are Happy Or Not. The Cure For It Is Occupation, Because Occupation Means Pre-occupation; And The Pre-occupied Person Is Neither Happy Nor Unhappy, But Simply Alive And Active. That Is Why It Is Necessary To Happiness That One Should Be Tired.

Is The Devil To Have All The Passions As Well As All The Good Tunes?

This Souls'prison We Call England.

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.

My Mother Married A Very Good Man ... And She Is Not At All Keen On My Doing The Same.

There Is The Eternal War Between Those Who Are In The World For What They Can Get Out Of It And Those Who Are In The World To Make It A Better Place For Everybody To Live In.

The Person Who Is Ignorant Enough To Believe That His Nourishment Depends On Meat Is In A Horrible Dilemma.

All Progress Is Due To The Unreasonable Person.

I Have To Live For Others And Not For Myself: That's Middle-class Morality.

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