Background Image

...

The Only Way In Which A Nation Can Make Itself Wealthy And Prosperous Is By Good Housekeeping: That Is, By Providing For Its Wants In The Order Of Their Importance, And Allowing No Money To Be Wasted On Whims And Luxuries Until Necessities Have Been Thoroughly Served.

-George Bernard Shaw

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Only Way In

George Bernard Shaw

...

The Only Way In Which A Nation Can Make Itself Wealthy And Prosperous Is By Good Housekeeping: That Is, By Providing For Its Wants In The Order Of Their Importance, And Allowing No Money To Be Wasted On Whims And Luxuries Until Necessities Have Been Thoroughly Served.

Views: 4

Topic

More From George Bernard Shaw

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

Every Fool Believes What His Teachers Tell Him, And Calls His Credulity Science Or Morality As Confidently As His Father Called It Divine Revelation.

A Miracle, My Friend, Is An Event Which Creates Faith.

Property, Said Proudhon, Is Theft. This Is The Only Perfect Truism That Has Been Uttered On The Subject.

I Sing, Not Arms And The Hero, But The Philosophic Man: He Who Seeks In Contemplation To Discover The Inner Will Of The World, Ininvention To Discover The Means Of Fulfilling That Will, And In Action To Do That Will By The So-discovered Means.

The Test Of A Man Or Woman's Breeding Is How They Behave In A Quarrel.

The Great Dramatist Has Something Better To Do Than To Amuse Either Himself Or His Audience. He Has To Interpret Life.

Something Better

We Cut The Throat Of A Calf And Hang It Up By The Heels To Bleed To Death So That Our Veal Cutlet May Be White; We Nail Geese To A Board And Cram Them With Food Because We Like The Taste Of Liver Disease; We Tear Birds To Pieces To Decorate Our Women's Hats; We Mutilate Domestic Animals For No Reason At All Except To Follow An Instinctively Cruel Fashion; And We Connive At The Most Abominable Tortures In The Hope Of Discovering Some Magical Cure For Our Own Diseases By Them.

An American Has No Sense Of Privacy. He Does Not Know What It Means.there Is No Such Thing In The Country.

Never Waste Jealousy On A Real Man: It Is The Imaginary Man That Supplants Us All In The Long Run.

My Opportunities Were Still There, Nay, They Multiplied Tenfold; But The Strength And Youth To Cope With Them Began To Fail, And To Need Eking Out With The Shifty Cunning Of Experience.

It Is More Dangerous To Be A Great Prophet Or Poet Than To Promote Twenty Companies For Swindling Simple Folk Out Of Their Savings.

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

The Love Of Economy Is The Root Of All Virtue.

Which Painting In The National Gallery Would I Save If There Was A Fire? The One Nearest The Door Of Course.

It Is Assumed That The Woman Must Wait, Motionless, Until She Is Wooed. That Is How The Spider Waits For The Fly.

You Can Be A Thorough-going Neo-darwinian Without Imagination, Metaphysics, Poetry, Conscience, Or Decency. For 'natural Selection' Has No Moral Significance: It Deals With That Part Of Evolution Which Has No Purpose, No Intelligence, And Might More Appropriately Be Called Accidental Selection, Or Better Still, Unnatural Selection, Since Nothing Is More Unnatural Than An Accident. If It Could Be Proved That The Whole Universe Had Been Produced By Such Selection, Only Fools And Rascals Could Bear To Live.

Nothing Is Worth Doing Unless The Consequences May Be Serious.

I Wish People Would Stop Talking About My Birthday.

All Professions Are Conspiracies Against The Laity.

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

How You Ought Properly To Spell 'fish' In English: 'goti' .

Revelations: A Curious Record Of The Visions Of A Drug Addict.

In A Stupid Nation The Man Of Genius Becomes A God : Everybody Worships Him And Nobody Does His Will.

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.

Marriage Is To Me Apostasy, Profanation Of The Sanctuary Of My Soul, Violation Of My Manhood, Sale Of My Birthright, Shameful Surrender, Ignominious Capitulation, Acceptance Of Defeat.

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

To Endure The Pain Of Living, We All Drug Ourselves More Or Less With Gin, With Literature, With Superstitions, With Romance, With Idealism, Political, Sentimental, And Moral, With Every Possible Preparation Of That Universal Hashish: Imagination.

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

That Older And Greater Church To Which I Belong: The Church Where The Oftener You Laugh The Better, Because By Laughter Only Can You Destroy Evil Without Malice

The Greatest Evils And The Worst Of Crimes Is Poverty; Our First Duty, A Duty To Which Every Other Consideration Should Be Sacrificed, Is Not To Be Poor.

I Do Not Want To Make My Stomach A Graveyard Of Dead Animals.

Baseball Has The Great Advantage Over Cricket Of Being Sooner Ended.

Better Never Than Late.

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

For Nearly Twenty Years I Have Been A Published Author... But I Have Never Yet Seen A Book Of Mine Offered For Sale In A Shop Window.

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

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

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.

You Are All Fundamentalists With A Top Dressing Of Science. That Is Why You Are The Stupidest Of Conservatives And Reactionists In Politics And The Most Bigoted Of Obstructionists In Science Itself. When It Comes To Getting A Move On You Are All Of The Same Opinion: Stop It, Flog It, Hang It, Dynamite It, Stamp It Out.

Everyone Can See That The People Who Hunt Are The Right People And The People Who Don't Are The Wrong Ones.

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

Time Enough To Think Of The Future When You Haven't Any Future To Think Of.

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

Assassination Is The Extreme Form Of Censorship; And It Seems Hard To Justify An Incitement To It On Anti-censorial Principles.

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.

What Is The Matter With The Rich Is Uselessness.

Riches And Poors

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

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.

God Has Given Us A World That Nothing But Our Own Folly Keeps From Being A Paradise.

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.

All Autobiographies Are Lies. I Do Not Mean Unconscious, Unintentional Lies: I Mean Deliberate Lies.

Why, Except As A Means Of Livelihood, A Man Should Desire To Act On The Stage When He Has The Whole World To Act In, Is Not Clear To Me.

A Broken Heart Is A Very Pleasant Complaint For A Man In London If He Has A Comfortable Income.

I Find It Easy To Forgive The Man Who Invented A Devilish Instrument Like Dynamite, But How Can One Ever Forgive The Diabolical Mind That Invented The Nobel Prize In Literature?

Political Necessities Sometime Turn Out To Be Political Mistakes.

She Is Immensely Interested In Him. She Has Even Secret Mischievous Moments In Which She Wishes She Could Get Him Alone, On A Desert Island, Away From All Ties And With Nobody Else In The World To Consider, And Just Drag Him Off His Pedestal And See Him Making Love Like Any Common Man.

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

I Don't Want To Talk Grammar. I Want To Talk Like A Lady.

We Should Find Ourselves Committed To Killing A Great Many People Whom We Now Leave Living, And To Leave Living A Great Many People Whom We At Present Kill. We Should Have To Get Rid Of All Ideas About Capital Punishment.

Parentage Is A Very Important Profession, But No Test Of Fitness For It Is Ever Imposed In The Interest Of The Children.

Once There Was A Time When All People Believed In God And The Church Ruled. This Time Is Called The Dark Ages. He Who Can, Does. He Who Cannot Teaches.

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.

It Is Monstrous That Custom Should Force Us To Display Our Faces Ostentatiously, However Worn And Wrinkled And Mean They May Be, Whilst Carefully Concealing All Our Other Parts, However Shapely And Well Preserved.

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

Whenever An Obviously Well Founded Statement Is Made In England By A Person Specially Well Acquainted With The Facts, That Unlucky Person Is Instantly And Frantically Contradicted By All The People Who Obviously Know Nothing About It.

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

Vegetarian Diet

Girls, Like Men, Want To Be Petted, Pitied, And Made Much Of, When They Are Diffident, In Low Spirits, Or In Unrequited Love. These Are Services Which The Weak Cannot Render To The Strong And Which The Strong Will Not Render To The Weak, Except When There Is Also A Difference Of Sex.

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.

Go On Writing Plays, My Boy, One Of These Days One Of These London Producers Will Go Into His Office And Say To His Secretary, "is There A Play From Shaw This Morning?" And When She Says, "no," He Will Say, "well, Then We'll Have To Start On The Rubbish." And That's Your Chance, My Boy.

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.

Every Girl Has A Right To Be Loved.

As 99 Per Cent Of English Authors And 100 Per Cent Of American Ones [authors] Are Just Such Imbeciles, Managers And Publishers Make A Practice Of Asking For Every Right The Author Possesses.

Justice Is Impartiality. Only Strangers Are Impartial.

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

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.

German And Spanish Are Accessible To Foreigners: English Is Not Accessible Even To Englishmen.

No Question Is So Difficult To Answer As That To Which The Answer Is Obvious.

Questions And Answers

Problem Solving

No Sooner Had Jesus Knocked Over The Dragon Of Superstition Than Paul Boldly Set It On Its Legs Again In The Name Of Jesus.

We Must Reform Society Before We Can Reform Ourselves.

Unless The People Can Choose Their Leaders And Rulers, And Can Revoke Their Choice At Intervals Long Enough To Test Their Measuresby Results, The Government Will Be A Tyranny Exercised In The Interests Of Whatever Classes Or Castes Or Mobs Or Cliques Have This Choice.

All Progress Depends Upon The Unreasonable Person.

You Must All Know Half A Dozen People At Least Who Are No Use In This World, Who Are More Trouble Than They Are Worth. Just Put Them There And Say Sir, Or Madam, Now Will You Be Kind Enough To Justify Your Existence? If You Can't Justify Your Existence, If You're Not Pulling Your Weight In The Social Boat, If You're Not Producing As Much As You Consume Or Perhaps A Little More, Then, Clearly, We Cannot Use The Organizations Of Our Society For The Purpose Of Keeping You Alive, Because Your Life Does Not Benefit Us And It Can't Be Of Very Much Use To Yourself.

Man Is Unique In That He Has Plans, Purpose And Goals Which Require The Need For Criteria Of Choice. The Need For Ethical Value Is Within Man Whose Future May Largely Be Determined By The Choice He Make

The Body Was The Slave Of The Vortex; But The Slave Has Become The Master; And We Must Free Ourselves From That Tyranny. It Is This Stuff [ Indicating Her Body ], This Flesh And Blood And Bone And All The Rest Of It, That Is Intolerable. Even Prehistoric Man Dreamed Of What He Called An Astral Body, And Asked Who Would Deliver Him From The Body Of This Death.

Ye Poor Posterity, Think Not That Ye Are The First. Other Fools Before Ye Have Seen The Sun Rise And Set, And The Moon Change Her Shape And Her Hour. As They Were So Ye Are; And Yet Not So Great; For The Pyramids My People Built Stand To This Day; Whilst The Dustheaps On Which Ye Slave, And Which Ye Call Empires, Scatter In The Wind Even As Ye Pile Your Dead Sons' Bodies On Them To Make Yet More Dust.

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.

Life Levels All Men. Death Reveals The Eminent.

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

An Englishman Thinks He Is Moral When He Is Only Uncomfortable.

Success Does Not Consist In Never Making Mistakes But In Never Making The Same One A Second Time.

The Faults Of The Burglar Are The Qualities Of The Financier.

Nietzche . . . He Was A Confirmed Life Force Worshipper. It Was He Who Raked Up The Superman, Who Is As Old As Prometheus; And The 20th Century Will Run After This Newest Of The Old Crazes When It Gets Tired Of The World, The Flesh, And Your Humble Servant.

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.

The Business Man - The Man To Whom Age Brings Golf Instead Of Wisdom.

The Most Intolerable Pain Is Produced By Prolonging The Keenest Pleasure.

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.

I Don't. I Look My Age; And I Am My Age. It Is The Other People Who Look Older Than They Are. What Can You Expect From People Who Eat Corpses And Drink Spirits?

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

There Is Not One Single Established Religion That An Intelligent, Educated Man Can Believe.

Beware Of The Man Whose God Is In The Skies.

The Man Who Writes About Himself And His Own Time Is The Only Man Who Writes About All People And About All Time.

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 Worst Sin... Is... To Be Indifferent.

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.

Education Can And Should Do Much Influence Social, Moral And Intellectual Discovery By Stimulating Critical Attitudes Of Thought In The Young

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.

As An Old Soldier, I Admit The Cowardice: It's As Universal As Seasickness, And Matters Just As Little.

The Only Person Who Acts Sensibly Is My Tailor. He Takes My Measure Anew Every Time He Sees Me. Everyone Else Goes By Their Old Measurements.

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

If The Lesser Mind Could Measure The Greater As A Foot-rule Can Measure A Pyramid, There Would Be Finality In Universal Suffrage. As It Is, The Political Problem Remains Unsolved.

War Does Not Decide Who Is Right But Who Is Left.

Go Anywhere In England Where There Are Natural Wholesome, Contented And Really Nice English People; And What Do You Find? That The Stables Are The Real Centre Of The Household.

Every Man Deserves To Be Judged In The Context Of His Times.

The Most Tragic Thing In The World Is A Man Of Genius Who Is Not A Man Of Honor.

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

The Most Sincere Form Of Love Is Love For Food

You Don't Get Tired Of Muffins, But You Don't Find Inspiration In Them.

I Have Not Wasted My Life Trifling With Literary Fools In Taverns, As Johnson Did, When He Should Have Been Shaking England With The Thunder Of His Spirit

An Election Is A Moral Horror, As Bad As A Battle Except For The Blood; A Mud Bath For Every Soul Concerned In It.

Men Have To Do Some Awfully Mean Things To Keep Up Their Respectability.

Brigham Young Lived To Become Immortal In History As An American Moses By Leading His People Through The Wilderness Into An Unpromised Land.

The Longer I Live, The More Convinced Am I That This Planet Is Used By Other Planets As A Lunatic Asylum.

Lunatic Asylums

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.

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.

It Is Long And Hard And Painful To Create Life: It Is Short And Easy To Steal The Life Others Have Made.

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

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

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

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.

A Man Of Great Common Sense And Good Taste - Meaning Thereby A Man Without Originality Or Moral Courage.

If You Leave The Smallest Corner Of Your Head Vacant For A Moment, Other People's Opinions Will Rush In From All Quarters.

I Enjoy Convalescence. It Is The Part That Makes The Illness Worth While.

Hell Is Full Of Musical Amateurs.

I Am A Christian. That Obliges Me To Be A Communist.

My Way Of Joking Is To Tell The Truth

At Present There Is Not A Single Credible Established Religion In The World.

Seemingly Unreasonable People Attempt To Adapt The World To Themselves. Much Progress, Therefore, Depends On Such People.

Do Not Try To Live Forever. You Will Not Succeed.

The Only Time My Education Was Interrupted Was When I Was In School.

Nothing Is Ever Done In This World Until Men Are Prepared To Kill One Another If It Is Not Done.

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.

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.

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

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

You Cannot Learn To Skate Without Making Yourself Ridiculous - The Ice Of Life Is Slippery.

Unbounded Hopes Were Placed On Each Successive Extension Of The Electoral Franchise, Culminating In The Enfranchisement Of Women.these Hopes Have Been Disappointed, Because The Voters, Male And Female, Being Politically Untrained And Uneducated, Have (a) No Grasp Of Constructive Measures; (b) Loathe Taxation As Such; (c) Dislike Being Governed At All; And (d) Dread And Resent Any Extension Of Official Interference As An Encroachment On Their Personal Liberty.

Well, Sir, You Never Can Tell. That's A Principle In Life With Me, Sir, If You'll Excuse My Having Such A Thing.

The Technical History Of Modern Harmony Is A History Of Growth Of Toleration By The Human Ear Of Chords That At First Sounded Discordant And Senseless To The Main Body Of Contemporary Professional Musicians.

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

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

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.

You Have Nothing To Do But Mention The Quantum Theory, And People Will Take Your Voice For The Voice Of Science, And Belive Anything.

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

Rebecca [west] Can Handle A Pen As Brilliantly As Ever I Could And Much More Savagely.

Stimulate The Phagocytes.

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

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.

The Confusing Of Marriage With Morality Has Done More To Destroy The Conscience Of The Human Race Than Any Other Single Error.

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.

The Criminal Law Is No Use To Decent People.

It's Easier To Replace A Dead Man Than A Good Picture.

When Domestic Servants Are Treated As Human Beings It Is Not Worth While To Keep Them.

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

The Great Secret, Eliza, Is Not Having Bad Manners Or Good Manners Or Any Other Particular Sort Of Manners, But Having The Same Manner For All Human Souls: In Short, Behaving As If You Were In Heaven, Where There Are No Thirdclass Carriages, And One Soul Is As Good As Another.

A Socialist Is Somebody Who Doesn't Have Anything, And Is Ready To Divide It Up Equally Among Everybody.

A Man Without An Address Is A Vagabond; A Man With Two Addresses Is A Libertine.

Decency Is Indecency's Conspiracy Of Silence

From Mozart I Learnt To Say Important Things In A Conversational Way.

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.

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

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

Be As Romantic As You Please About Love ... But You Mustn't Be Romantic About Money.

An Index Is A Great Leveller.

All Artists Are Anarchists.

The Moment We Face It Frankly We Are Driven To The Conclusion That The Community Has A Right To Put A Price On The Right To Live In It

Not Until He Acquires European Manners Does The American Anarchist Become The Gentleman Who Assures You That People Cannot Be Mademoral By Act Of Parliament (the Truth Being That It Is Only By Acts Of Parliament That Men In Large Communities Can Be Made Moral, Even When They Want To).

I Have My Own Soul. My Own Spark Of Divine Fire.

Marriage Is Popular Because It Combines The Maximum Of Temptation With The Maximum Of Opportunity.

The Person I Miss Most Is The One I Could Have Been.

Could Have Been

Science Becomes Dangerous Only When It Imagines That It Has Reached Its Goal.

Taxes Are The Chief Business Of A Conqueror Of The World.

Nothing Can Save Us From A Perpetual Headlong Fall Into A Bottomless Abyss But A Solid Footing Of Dogma; And We No Sooner Agree To That Than We Find That The Only Trustworthy Dogma Is That There Is No Dogma.

I Am Very Sorry, But I Cannot Learn Languages. I Have Tried Hard, Only To Find That Men Of Ordinary Capacity Can Learn Sanskrit In Less Time That It Takes Me To Buy A German Dictionary

Instruction In Sex Is As Important As Instruction In Food; Yet Not Only Are Our Adolescents Not Taught The Physiology Of Sex, But Never Warned That The Strongest Sexual Attraction May Exist Between Persons So Incompatible In Tastes And Capacities That They Could Not Endure Living Together For A Week Much Less A Lifetime.

It Is Quite Useless To Declare That All Men Are Born Free If You Deny That They Are Born Good . Guarantee A Man's Goodness And His Liberty Will Take Care Of Itself. To Guarantee His Freedom On Condition That You Approve Of His Moral Character Is Formally To Abolish All Freedom Whatsoever, As Every Man's Liberty Is At The Mercy Of A Moral Indictment Which Any Fool Can Trump Up Against Everyone Who Violates Custom, Whether As A Prophet Or As A Rascal.

Criminals Do Not Die By The Hands Of The Law. They Die By The Hands Of Other Men.

Beauty Is All Very Well At First Sight; But Who Ever Looks At It When It Has Been In The House Three Days?

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

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

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.

When A Man Says Money Can Do Anything, That Settles It: He Hasn't Got Any.

I Can Think Of No Other Edifice Constructed By Man As Altruistic As A Lighthouse. They Were Built Only To Serve.

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

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

Democracies Have

Hatred Is The Coward's Revenge For Being Intimidated.

Don't Wait For The Right Opportunity: Create It.

The Only Sensible Person Is My Tailor. He Measures Me Anew Each Time He Sees Me.

We Must Always Think About Things, And We Must Think About Things As They Are, Not As They Are Said To Be.

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

Trending Author

Charles De Lint

Mika Brzezinski

Category