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The Policy Of Letting Things Alone, In The Practical Sense That The Government Should Never Interfere With Business Or Go Into Business Itself, Is Called Laisser-faire By Economists And Politicians. It Has Broken Down So Completely In Practice That It Is Now Discredited; But It Was All The Fashion In Politics A Hundred Years Ago, And Is Still Influentially Advocated By Men Of Business And Their Backers Who Naturally Would Like To Be Allowed To Make Money As They Please Without Regard To The Interest Of The Public.

-George Bernard Shaw

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The Policy Of Letting

George Bernard Shaw

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The Policy Of Letting Things Alone, In The Practical Sense That The Government Should Never Interfere With Business Or Go Into Business Itself, Is Called Laisser-faire By Economists And Politicians. It Has Broken Down So Completely In Practice That It Is Now Discredited; But It Was All The Fashion In Politics A Hundred Years Ago, And Is Still Influentially Advocated By Men Of Business And Their Backers Who Naturally Would Like To Be Allowed To Make Money As They Please Without Regard To The Interest Of The Public.

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Cruelty Would Be Delicious If One Could Only Find Some Sort Of Cruelty That Didn't Really Hurt.

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

The Truth Sticks In Our Throats With All The Sauces It Is Served With: It Will Never Go Down Until We Take It Without Any Sauce At All.

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Shall I Turn Up The Light For You? No, Give Me Deeper Darkness. Money Is Not Made In The Light.

The Things Most People Want To Know About Are Usually None Of Their Business.

A Happy Family Is But An Earlier Heaven.

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.

The Cinema Is Going To Form The Mind Of England. The National Conscience, The National Ideals And Tests Of Conduct, Will Be Those Of The Film.

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

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

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.

No Man Ever Believes That The Bible Means What It Says: He Is Always Convinced That It Says What He Means.

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

Communism, Being The Lay Form Of Catholicism, And Indeed Meaning The Same Thing, Has Never Had Any Lack Of Chaplains.

He Knows Nothing And Thinks He Knows Everything. That Points Clearly To A Political Career.

Capitalism Justified Itself And Was Adopted As An Economic Principle On The Express Ground That It Provides Selfish Motives For Doing Good, And That Human Beings Will Do Nothing Except For Selfish Motives

Oh, Come! That Boot Is On The Other Leg. Why Should You Call Me To Account For Eating Decently? If I Battened On The Scorched Corpses Of Animals, You Might Well Ask Me Why I Did That

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Write Your Sad Times In Sand, Write Your Good Times In Stone.

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

Never Believe Anything A Writer Tells You About Himself. A Man Comes To Believe In The End The Lies He Tells Himself About Himself.

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.

Hurrah For Revolution And More Cannon-shot! A Beggar Upon Horseback Lashes A Beggar On Foot. Hurrah For Revolution And Cannon Come Again! The Beggars Have Changed Places, But The Lash Goes On.

The Greatest Of Evils And The Worst Of Crimes Is Poverty.

People Exaggerate The Value Of Things They Haven't Got Everybody Worships Truth And Unselfishness Because They Have No Experience With Them

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

But A Mother Is Like A Broomstick Or Like The Sun In The Heavens, It Does Not Matter Which As Far As One's Knowledge Of Her Is Concerned: The Broomstick Is There And The Sun Is There; And Whether The Child Is Beaten By It Or Warmed And Enlightened By It, It Accepts It As A Fact In Nature, And Does Not Conceive It As Having Had Youth, Passions, And Weaknesses, Or As Still Growing, Yearning, Suffering, And Learning.

Human Misery Is So Appalling Nowadays That If We Allowed Ourselves To Dwell On It We Should Only Add Imaginary Miseries Of Our Own To The Real Miseries Of Others Without Doing Them Any Good.

Ladies And Gentlemen Are Permitted To Have Friends In The Kennel, But Not In The Kitchen.

God Is On The Side Of The Big Battalions.

The Heretic Is Always Better Dead. And Mortal Eyes Cannot Distinguish The Saint From The Heretic.

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With The Exception Of Capitalism, There Is Nothing So Revolting As Revolution.

I Was A Freethinker Before I Knew How To Think.

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

Even To This Day It Is Easier Than It Ought To Be For Me To Get A Rise Out Of An American By Telling Him Something About Himself Which Is Equally True About Every Human Being On The Face Of The Globe. He At Once Resents This As A Disparagement And An Assertion On My Part That People In Other Parts Of The Globe Are Not Like That, And Are Loftily Superior To Such Weaknesses.

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

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.

Very Nice Sort Of Place, Oxford, I Should Think, For People That Like That Sort Of Place.

The More Reasonable A Student Was In Mathematics, The More Unreasonable She Was In The Affairs Of Real Life, Concerning Which Fewtrustworthy Postulates Have Yet Been Ascertained.

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.

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

Defeatism Is The Wretchedest Of Policies.

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.

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

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

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

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History, Sir, Will Tell Lies As Usual.

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Obedience Simulates Subordination As Fear Of The Police Simulates Honesty.

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

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He Who Desires A Lifetime Of Happiness With A Beautiful Woman Desires To Enjoy The Taste Of Wine By Keeping His Mouth Always Full Of It.

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As To Spelling The Very Frequent Word Though With Six Letters Instead Of Two, It Is Impossible To Discuss It, As It Is Outside The Range Of Common Sanity. In Comparison Such A Monstrosity As Phlegm For Flem Is Merely Disgusting.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

To A Mathematician The Eleventh Means Only A Single Unit: To The Bushman Who Cannot Count Further Than His Ten Fingers It Is An Incalculable Myriad.

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What A Man Believes May Be Ascertained, Not From His Creed, But From The Assumptions On Which He Habitually Acts.

Reasonable Men Adapt Themselves To Their Environment; Unreasonable Men Try To Adapt Their Environment To Themselves. Thus All Progress Is The Result Of The Efforts Of Unreasonable Men.

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

The Natural Term Of The Affection Of The Human Animal For Its Offspring Is Six Years.

Patriotism Is A Pernicious, Psychopathic Form Of Idiocy.

The Early Christian Rules Of Life Were Not Made To Last, Because The Early Christians Did Not Believe That The World Itself Was Going To Last.

Oh, The Frontier Of Hell And Heaven Is Only The Difference Between Two Ways Of Looking At Things.

Poverty Blights Whole Cities; Spreads Horrible Pestilences; Strikes Dead The Very Souls Of All Who Come Within Sight, Sound, Or Smell Of It

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

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

The Road To Ignorance Is Paved With Good Editions. Only The Illiterate Can Afford To Buy Good Books Now.

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Serious Illness

Crime Is Only The Retail Department Of What, In Wholesale, We Call Penal Law.

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

A Man Of My Spiritual Intensity Does Not Eat Corpses.

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

If Pity Is Akin To Love, Gratitude Is Akin To The Other Thing.

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

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Even A Vortex Is A Vortex In Something. You Can't Have A Whirlpool Without Water; And You Can't Have A Vortex Without Gas, Or Molecules Or Atoms Or Ions Or Electrons Or Something, Not Nothing.

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

What Is The Matter With The Rich Is Uselessness.

Riches And Poors

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

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

It's A Pity Youth Is Wasted On The Young.

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If You Leave Your Art, The World Will Beat You Back To It. The World Has Not An Ambition Worth Sharing, Or A Prize Worth Handling.

It Is Not Pleasure That Makes Life Worth Living. It Is Life That Makes Pleasure Worth Having.

Life Worth Living

It's A Dangerous Thing To Be Married Right Up To The Hilt, Like My Daughter's Husband. The Man Is At Home All Day, Like A Damned Soul In Hell.

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.

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I Do Not Know What I Think Until I Write It.

It Is Always Necessary To Overstate A Cast Startlingly To Make People Sit Up And Listen To It, And To Frighten Them Into Acting On It.

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

It Is Doubtless Wise, When A Reform Is Introduced, To Try To Persuade The British Public That It Is Not A Reform At All; But Appearances Must Be Kept Up To Some Extent At Least.

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

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

The Most Sincere Form Of Love Is Love For Food

If 'pygmalion' Is Not Good Enough For Your Friends With Its Own Verbal Music, Their Talent Must Be Altogether Extraordinary.

Not Good Enough

Few People Think More Than Two Or Three Times A Year; I Have Made An International Reputation For Myself By Thinking Once Or Twice A Week.

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.

Man's Inhumanity To Man Is Only Surpassed By His Cruelty To Animals

Inhumanity To Man

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

A Life Spent Making Mistakes Is Not Only More Honorable, But More Useful Than A Life Spent Doing Nothing.

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.

When I Was Young, I Observed That Nine Out Of Ten Things I Did Were Failures. So I Did Ten Times More Work.

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

In This World There Is Always Danger For Those Who Are Afraid Of It.

Nobody Supposes That Doctors Are Less Virtuous Than Judges; But A Judge Whose Salary And Reputation Depended On Whether The Verdict Was For Plaintiff Or Defendant, Prosecutor Or Prisoner, Would Be As Little Trusted As A General In The Pay Of The Enemy.

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

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.

The Buried Truth Germinates And Breaks Through To The Light.

The Only Way For A Woman To Provide For Herself Decently Is For Her To Be Good To Some Man That Can Afford To Be Good To Her.

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

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

Lunatic Asylums

A Dinner! How Horrible! I Am To Be Made The Pretext For Killing All Those Wretched Animals And Birds, And Fish! Thank You For Nothing. Now If It Were To Be A Fast Instead Of A Feast; Say A Solemn Three Days' Abstention From Corpses In My Honour, I Could At Least Pretend To Believe That It Was Disinterested. Blood Sacrifices Are Not In My Line

The People Who Get On In This World Are The People Who Get Up And Look For The Circumstances They Want And If They Can't Find Them, Make Them.

I Never Expect A Soldier To Think.

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

That Is The Whole Secret Of Successful Fighting. Get Your Enemy At A Disadvantage; And Never, On Any Account, Fight Him On Equal Terms.

The Real Pleasure Of One's Life Is The Devotion To A Great Objective Of One's Consideration.

It Is The Mark Of A Truly Intelligent Person To Be Moved By Statistics.

Grain By Grain, A Loaf. Stone Upon Stone, A Palace.

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

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.

If All The Statisticians In The World Were Laid Head To Toe, They Wouldn't Be Able To Reach A Conclusion

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

A Conquered Nation Is Like A Man With Cancer: He Can Think Of Nothing Else.

The Art Of Government Is The Organisation Of Idolatry.

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.

To Be A Champion You Must Live Like One.

Man Is The Only Animal Of Which I Am Thoroughly And Cravenly Afraid...there Is No Harm In A Well-fed Lion. It Has No Ideals, No Sect, No Party.

Women Upset Everything. When You Let Them Into Your Life, You Find That The Woman Is Driving At One Thing And You're Driving At Another.

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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