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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.

-George Bernard Shaw

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You Must All Know

George Bernard Shaw

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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.

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The Epithet Beautiful Is Used By Surgeons To Describe Operations Which Their Patients Describe As Ghastly, By Physicists To Describe Methods Of Measurement Which Leave Sentimentalists Cold, By Lawyers To Describe Cases Which Ruin All The Parties To Them, And By Lovers To Describe The Objects Of Their Infatuation, However Unattractive They May Appear To The Unaffected Spectators.

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.

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.

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

The Problem With The Press Is That They Can't Tell The Difference Between A Bicycle Crash And The End Of Civilization.

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

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

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.

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.

Of All The Damnable Waste Of Human Life That Ever Was Invented, Clerking Is The Worst.

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

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.

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

Custom Will Reconcile People To Any Atrocity, And Fashion Will Drive Them To Acquire Any Custom.

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.

The Best Reformers The World Has Ever Seen Are Those Who Commence On Themselves.

Higgins. Have You No Morals, Man? Doolittle [unabashed] Cant Afford Them, Governor. Neither Could You If You Was As Poor As Me.

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.

Live In Contact With Dreams And You Will Get Something Of Their Charm: Live In Contact With Facts And You Will Get Something Of Their Brutality. I Wish I Could Find A Country To Live In Where The Facts Were Not Brutal And The Dreams Not Real.

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

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

You See Things; And You Say, ‘why?’ But I Dream Things That Never Were; And I Say, ‘why Not?

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

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.

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

The Medieval Doctors Of Divinity Who Did Not Pretend To Settle How Many Angels Could Dance On The Point Of A Needle Cut A Very Poor Figure As Far As Romantic Credulity Is Concerned Beside The Modern Physicists Who Have Settled To The Billionth Of A Millimetre Every Movement And Position In The Dance Of The Electrons. Not For Worlds Would I Question The Precise Accuracy Of These Calculations Or The Existence Of Electrons (whatever They May Be). The Fate Of Joan Is A Warning To Me Against Such Heresy.

We Know There Is Intention And Purpose In The Universe, Because There Is Intention And Purpose In Us.

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

Paradoxes Are The Only Truths.

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.

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

Bible Worship, Though At Its Best It May Achieve Sublimity By Keeping Its Head In The Skies, May Also Make Itself Both Ridiculousand Dangerous By Having Its Feet Off The Ground.

Beware Of The Man Who Does Not Return Your Blow: He Neither Forgives You Nor Allows You To Forgive Yourself.

Style Is Effectiveness Of Assertion.

We Don't Stop Playing Because We Grow Old; We Grow Old Because We Stop Playing.

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.

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

Defeatism Is The Wretchedest Of Policies.

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.

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

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.

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

Money Is Indeed The Most Important Thing In The World; And All Sound And Successful Personal And National Morality Should Have This Fact For Its Basis.

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'.

It Is A Monstrous Thing To Force A Child To Learn Latin Or Greek Or Mathematics On The Ground That They Are An Indispensable Gymnastic For The Mental Powers. It Would Be Monstrous Even If It Were True.

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.

The British Soldier Can Stand Up To Anything Except The British War Office.

British Soldiers

I Learned More From The First Stupid Woman Who Fell In Love With Me Than Ever My Brains Taught Me.

The Possibilities Are Numerous Once We Decide To Act And Not React.

Decision Making

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.

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

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

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.

There Have Been Summits Of Civilization At Which Heretics Like Socrates , Who Was Killed Because He Was Wiser Than His Neighbors, Have Not Been Tortured, But Ordered To Kill Themselves In The Most Painless Manner Known To Their Judges. But From That Summit There Was A Speedy Relapse Into Our Present Savagery.

People Become Attached To Their Burdens Sometimes More Than The Burdens Are Attached To Them.

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.

Our Lives Are Shaped Not As Much By Our Experiences As By Our Expectations.

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

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

With The Single Exception Of Homer, There Is No Eminent Writer, Not Even Sir Walter Scott, Whom I Can Despise So Entirely As I Despise Shakespeare When I Measure My Mind Against His. . . . It Would Positively Be A Relief To Me To Dig Him Up And Throw Stones At Him.

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.

Youth, What A Pity To Waste It On The Young.

I Often Quote Myself. It Adds Spice To My Conversation.

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.

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.

A Man Who Loses His Money Gains, At The Least, Experience, And Sometimes, Something Better.

We Are Compelled By The Theory Of God's Already Achieved Perfection To Make Him A Devil As Well As A God, Because Of The Existenceof Evil. The God Of Love, If Omnipotent And Omniscient, Must Be The God Of Cancer And Epilepsy As Well.... Whoever Admits That Anything Living Is Evil Must Either Believe That God Is Malignantly Capable Of Creating Evil, Or Else Believe That God Has Made Many Mistakes In His Attempts To Make A Perfect Being.

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

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.

The Whole World Is Strewn With Snares, Traps, Gins And Pitfalls For The Capture Of Men By Women.

He Who Has Never Hoped Can Never Despair

You Are All Alike, You Respectable People. You Can't Tell Me The Bursting Strain Of A Ten-inch Gun, Which Is A Very Simple Matter;but You All Think You Can Tell Me The Bursting Strain Of A Man Under Temptation. You Daren't Handle High Explosives; But You're All Ready To Handle Honesty And Truth And Justice And The Whole Duty Of Man, And Kill One Another At That Game. What A Country! What A World!

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.

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

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

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

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

When A Thing Is Funny, Search It Carefully For A Hidden Truth.

The Art Of Manipulating Public Opinion, Which Is A Necessary Art For The Democratic Politician, And, Like Other Arts, Is Sometimespractised With Greater Virtuosity By Knaves Than By Honest Men (who Are Apt To Disdain It), Has A Different Technique In Different Countries. For Instance, In England We Excel In Whitewashing: In America They Excel In Tarring And Feathering. We Strain Our Nerves And Stretch Our Consciences To Avoid A Scandal: Americans Do The Same To Make One.

The Sex Relation Is Not A Personal Relation. It Can Be Irresistibly Desired And Rapturously Consummated Between Persons Who Could Not Endure One Another For A Day In Any Other Relation.

The Churches Must Learn Humility As Well As Teach It.

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

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

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.

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

We Are More Gullible And Superstitious Today Than We Were In The Middle Ages, And An Example Of Modern Credulity Is The Widespread Belief That The Earth Is Round. The Average Man Can Advance Not A Single Reason For Thinking That The Earth Is Round. He Merely Swallows This Theory Because There Is Something About It That Appeals To The Twentieth Century Mentality.

[chess] Is A Foolish Expedient For Making Idle People Believe They Are Doing Something Very Clever, When They Are Only Wasting Their Time.

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.

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.

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

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

Importance Of Being Earnest

It Is Well To Be Off With The Old Woman Before You're On With The New.

If The Wicked Flourish And The Fittest Survive, Nature Must Be The God Of Rascals.

No Englishman Is Ever Fairly Beaten

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

Every Person Who Has Mastered A Profession Is A Skeptic Concerning It.

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.

There Is At Bottom Only One Genuinely Scientific Treatment For All Diseases, And That Is To Stimulate The Phagocytes.

The Seven Deadly Sins... Food, Clothing, Firing, Rent, Taxes, Respectability And Children. Nothing Can Lift Those Seven Millstones From Man's Neck But Money; And The Spirit Cannot Soar Until The Millstones Are Lifted.

Activity Is The Only Road To Knowledge.

If Only For A Half Hour A Day, A Child Should Do Something Serviceable To The Community

The Love Of Economy Is The Root Of All Virtue.

A Pornographic Novelist Is One Who Exploits The Sexual Instinct As A Prostitute Does. A Legitimate Sex Novel Elucidates It Or Brings Out Its Poetry, Tragedy, Or Comedy.

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

Very Few People Can Afford To Be Poor.

You Cannot Have Power For Good Without Having Power For Evil Too. Even Mother's Milk Nourishes Murderers As Well As Heroes.

Remember That I Too Am Mortal.

The Practical Question, Then, Is What To Do With The Children. Tolerate Them At Home We Will Not. Let Them Run Loose In The Streets We Dare Not Until Our Streets Become Safe Places For Children, Which, To Our Utter Shame, They Are Not At Present, Though They Can Hardly Be Worse Than Some Homes And Some Schools.

Murder And Capital Punishment Are Not Opposites That Cancel One Another, But Similars That Breed Their Kind. It Is The Deed That Teaches Not The Name We Give It.

It Is Very Doubtful Whether Man Is Enough Of A Political Animal To Produce A Good, Sensible, Serious And Efficient Constitution. All The Evidence Is Against It.

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

People Who Are Hard, Grasping And Always Ready To Take Advantage Of Their Neighbors Become Very Rich.

Assassination On The Scaffold Is The Worst Form Of Assassination.

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

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.

The Sound Body Is The Product Of The Sound Mind.

No Man Who Is Occupied In Doing A Very Difficult Thing, And Doing It Very Well, Ever Loses His Self-respect.

Give A Man Health And A Course To Steer, And He'll Never Stop To Trouble About Whether He's Happy Or Not.

And So, To The End Of History, Murder Shall Breed Murder, Always In The Name Of Right And Honor And Peace, Until The Gods Are Tired Of Blood And Create A Race That Can Understand.

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

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

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.

Martyrdom Is The Only Path To Immortality That Requires No Talent Whatsoever.

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

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

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.

Power Is The Faculty Or Capacity To Act, The Strength And Potency To Accomplish Something.

The Great Secret...is Not Having Bad Manners Or Good Manners...but Having The Same Manner For All Human Souls.

My Situation Is A Solemn One: Life Is Offered To Me On The Condition Of Eating Beefsteaks. But Death Is Better Than Cannibalism. My Will Contains Directions For My Funeral, Which Will Be Followed, Not By Mourning Coaches, But By Oxen, Sheep, Flocks Of Poultry, And A Small Traveling Aquarium Of Live Fish, All Wearing White Scarves In Honor Of The Man Who Perished Rather Than Eat His Fellow Creatures. It Will Be, Without The Exception Of Noah's Ark, The Most Remarkable Thing Of Its Kind Ever Seen.

Do Not Waste Your Time On Social Questions. What Is The Matter With The Poor Is Poverty; What Is The Matter With The Rich Is Uselessness.

When You Want To Put Something Into Your Part That Is Not In The Play, You Must Ask The Author-or Some Other Author-to Lead Up To The Interpolation For You. Never Forget That The Effect Of A Line May Depend Not On Its Delivery, But On Something Said Earlier In The Play, Either By Somebody Else Or By Yourself, And That If You Change It, It May Be Necessary To Change The Whole First Act As Well.

Let No One Suppose That The Words Doctor And Patient Can Disguise From The Parties The Fact That They Are Employer And Employee.

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.

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

He Who Confuses Political Liberty With Freedom And Political Equality With Similarity Has Never Thought For Five Minutes About Either.

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

He Who Bears The Brand Of Cain Shall Rule The Earth.

Life Is A Disease; And The Only Difference Between On Man And Another Is The Stage Of The Disease At Which He Lives.

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

Life Is A Flame That Is Always Burning Itself Out; But It Catches Fire Again Every Time A Child Is Born. Life Is Greater Than Death, And Hope Than Despair.

Miracles, In The Sense Of Phenomena We Cannot Explain, Surround Us On Every Hand: Life Itself Is The Miracle Of Miracles.

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

If You Do Not Say A Thing In An Irritating Way, You May As Well Not Say It At All Because People Will Not Trouble Themselves About Anything That Does Not Trouble Them.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Reason Enslaves All Whose Minds Are Not Strong Enough To Master Her.

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

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

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

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

You Must Not Suppose, Because I Am A Man Of Letters, That I Never Tried To Earn An Honest Living.

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!

Religion Is A Great Force - The Only Real Motive Force In The World; But What You Fellows Don't Understand Is That You Must Get At A Man Through His Own Religion And Not Through Yours.

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

We Are The Living Graves Of Murdered Beasts, Slaughtered To Satisfy Our Appetites. How Can We Hope In This World To Attain The Peace We Say We Are So Anxious For?

Vegetarian Diet

I Hate Performers Who Debase Great Works Of Art; I Long For Their Annihilation.

Make It A Rule Never To Give A Child A Book You Would Not Read Yourself.

It's All That The Young Can Do For The Old, To Shock Them And Keep Them Up To Date.

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.

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

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

When The World Goes Mad, One Must Accept Madness As Sanity; Since Sanity Is, In The Last Analysis, Nothing But The Madness On Which The Whole World Happens To Agree.

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.

Where Equality Is Undisputed, So Also Is Subordination.

Religion Is A Good Invention In Times Of Stress.

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

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

Lunatic Asylums

Music Is The Brandy Of The Damned.

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

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

When Your Eyes Are Fixed In The Stare Of Unconsciousness, And Your Throat Coughs The Last Gasping Breath - As One Dragged In The Dark To A Great Precipice - What Assistance Are A Wife And Child?

Reviewing Has One Advantage Over Suicide: In Suicide You Take It Out On Yourself; In Reviewing You Take It Out On Other People.

Man Is The Only Animals Of Which I Am Thoroughly And Cravenly Afraid.

Alcohol Is A Very Necessary Article. It Enables Parliament To Do Things At Eleven At Night That No Sane Person Would Do At Eleven In The Morning.

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.

Stimulate The Phagocytes.

Fashions Are Induced Epidemics.

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

I Can't Talk Religion To A Man With Bodily Hunger In His Eyes.

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

A Married Man Forms Married Habits And Becomes Dependent On Marriage Just As A Sailor Becomes Dependent On The Sea.

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

My Way Of Joking Is To Tell The Truth

I Am Giving You Examples Of The Fact That This Creature Man, Who In His Own Selfish Affairs Is A Coward To The Backbone, Will Fight For An Idea Like A Hero. . . . I Tell You, Gentlemen, If You Can Shew A Man A Piece Of What He Now Calls God's Work To Do, And What He Will Later Call By Many New Names, You Can Make Him Entirely Reckless Of The Consequences To Himself Personally.

All Sorts Of Bodily Diseases Are Produced By Half-used Minds.

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.

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

How Can You Dare Teach A Man To Read Until You've Taught Him Everything Else First?

My Schooling Did Me A Great Deal Of Harm And No Good Whatever; It Was Simply Dragging A Child's Soul Through The Dirt.

When A Prisoner Sees The Door Of His Dungeon Open, He Dashes For It Without Stopping To Think Where He Shall Get His Dinner Outside.

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

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