WIST

It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion. If you can say a thing with one stroke unanswerably, you have style; if not, you are at best a marchand de plasir, a decorative litterateur, or a musical confectioner, or a painter of fans with cupids and cocottes. Handel has this power. When he sets the words “Fixed in his everlasting seat,” the atheist is struck dumb; God is there, fixed in his everlasting seat by Handel, even if you live in an Avenue Paul Bert and despise such superstitions. You may despise what you like, but you cannot contradict Handel.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
“Causerie on Handel in England,” Ainslee’s Magazine (May 1913)
Originally a music society lecture given in France. Longer discussion.

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
“Killing for Sport,” Nash’s Magazine (Sep 1914)

Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

If you take too long in deciding what to do with your life, you’ll find you’ve done it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)
Unsourced. Also attributed to Pam Shaw.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)
Sometimes cited with the Americanized "insures." Also given as "Democracy is a system ensuring that the people are governed no better than they deserve." Frequently quoted, but never sourced.

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

A nation’s morals are like its teeth; when they’re rotten it hurts to touch them.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

Poverty does not produce unhappiness: It produces degradation.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

When I was young, I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)
Unverified in Shaw's writings.

LORD NORTHCLIFFE: The trouble with you, Shaw, is that you look as if there were famine in the land.

SHAW: The trouble with you, Northcliffe, is that you look as if you were the cause of it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

Exchange with Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe. Likely apocryphal.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Androcles and the Lion, Preface

We are members one of another; so that you cannot injure or help your neighbor without injuring or helping yourself.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Androcles and the Lion, Preface (”The Alternative to Barabbas”) (1912)

The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still … must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Androcles nd the Lion, Preface, “Christianity and the Empire” (1912)

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Annajanska (1919)

A man differs from a microbe only in being further on the path.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, ch. 2 (1921)

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, Part V “As Far as Thought Can Reach” [The He-Ancient] (1921)

Full text.

THE SERPENT: You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Back to Methuselah, 1.1 (1921)
The Serpent speaking to Eve. President John Kennedy quoted this addressing the Irish Parliament, Dublin (28 Jun. 1963). Sen. Robert Kennedy modified it for his campaign, as used by Sen. Edward Kennedy in his eulogy (1968): "Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.”

A world without conscience: that is the horror of our condition.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Back to Methuselah, ch. 2 (1921)

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage — it can be delightful.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Back to Methuselah, Part V (1921)

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Caesar and Cleopatra, Act III [Apollodorus] (1898)

He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II [Caesar] (1899)

It is no use my liking or disliking; I do what must be done, and have no time to attend myself. That is not happiness, but it is greatness.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Caesar and Cleopatra, Act IV [Cleopatra] (1898)
Full text. An variation on this is frequently quoted, but I haven't been able to find a source: "Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness."

It’s always your moralist who makes assassination a duty.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Caesar and Cleopatra, Notes (”Julius Caesar”) (1899)

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Candida, Act I (1898)

I’m a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler. I don’t like beer.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Candida, ch. 3 (1893)

My own education operated by a succession of eye-openers, each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Everybody’s Political What’s What, ch. 19 (1944)

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Everybody’s Political What’s What?, ch. 30 (1944)

FANNY: It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Fanny’s First Play (1911)
Full text.

When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition until death do them part.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Getting Married, Preface (1908)
Full text.

I did not let the fear of death govern my life, and my reward was, I had my life. You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life; and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Heartbreak House, Act 2 [Capt. Shotover] (1919)
In context.

Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Major Barbara, Act III [Undershaft] (1905)
Full text.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman (1903)

This is the true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Epistle Dedicatory” (1903)
Full text.

The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man,

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Beauty and Happiness, Art and Riches” (1903)

Full text.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Crime and Punishment” (1903)
Full text.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Democracy” (1903)
Full text.

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Education” (1903)
Full text.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Education” (1903)

Full text.

The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Idolatry” (1903)
Full text.

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. 

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Reason” (1903)

Full text.