Thursday, April 19, 2007

Humorous Quotes attributed to G. B. Shaw 1856-1950, Irish Dramatist

  • A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
  • A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
  • A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
  • A doctor’s reputation is made by the number of eminent men who die under his care.
  • Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.
  • All great truths begin as blasphemies.
  • Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
  • Dancing: The vertical expression of a horizontal desire legalized by music.
  • Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
  • Do not try to live for ever. You will not succeed.
  • England and America are two countries divided by a common language.
  • Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.
  • 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.
  • I was always unlawful; I broke the law when I was born because my parents weren't married.
  • I often quote myself, it adds spice to my conversation.
  • If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn’t reach any conclusion.
  • It is a woman’s business to get married as soon as possible, and a man’s to keep unmarried as long as he can.
  • Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
  • Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability.
  • My reputation grows with every failure.
  • One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.
  • Only Lawyers and mental defectives are automatically exempt for jury duty.
  • Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.
  • The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
  • The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.
  • The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.
  • The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
  • The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
  • The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.
  • There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
  • Those who can do, those who can't teach.
  • To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
  • We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
  • We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.
  • We don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing !
  • What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattery.
  • When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
  • When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
  • When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman.
  • Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.
  • You see things; and you say `Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say `Why not?
  • Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.