George Bernard Shaw Pro Quotations

Grain by grain, a loaf. Stone upon stone, a palace.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.

Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.

Social progress takes effect through the replacement of all institutions by new ones; and since every institution involves the recognition of the duty of conforming to it, progress must involve the repudiation of an established duty at every step.

[Man] progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

All great art and literature is propaganda.

Science is always simple and always profound. It is only the half-truths that are dangerous.

Trade unionism is not socialism. It is the capitalism of the proletariat.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich-something for nothing.

The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentleman, he may pronounce as he pleases.

Every step of progress means a duty repudiated, and a scripture torn up.

All progress is due to the unreasonable person.

Don't ask me for promises until I know what I am promising.

Happiness and Beauty are by-products.

Remember that the progress of the world depends on your knowing better than your elders.

Never resist temptation: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.

Assasination on the scaffold is the worst form of assasination, because there it is invested with the approval of society.

The most intolerable pain is produced by prolonging the keenest pleasure.

All problems are finally scientific problems.

Though all society is founded on intolerance, all improvement is founded on tolerance.

All progress depends upon the unreasonable person.

Principles without programs are platitudes.

In an article on Bunyan lately published in the "Contemporary Review" - the only article on the subject worth reading on the subject I ever saw (yes, thank you, I am familiar with Macaulay's patronizing prattle about "The Pilgrim's Progress") etc.

Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.

A man learns to skate by staggering about and making a fool of himself. Indeed he progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself.

The plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress of society that they should be shocked pretty often.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich, something for nothing.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich: something for nothing

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.

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.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

All progress means war with society.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.

Don't lose faith. Promise yourself that you will be a success story, and I promise you that all the forces of the universe will unite to come to your aid; you might not feel today or for a while, but the longer you wait the bigger the prize.

In socialism, private property is anathema, and equal distribution of income the first consideration. In capitalism, private property is cardinal, and distribution left to ensue from the play of free contract and selfish interest on that basis, no matter what anomalies it may present.

It does not follow . . . that the right to criticize Shakespeare involves the power of writing better plays. And in fact . . . I do not profess to write better plays.

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine

All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.

Artists do not prove things. They do not need to. They know them.

If the announcer can produce the impression that he is a gentlemen, he may pronounce as he pleases.

As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.

In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject. I hope it may prove successful.

Even the fact that doctors themselves die of the very diseases they profess to cure passes unnoticed. We do not shoot out our lips and shake our heads, saying, 'They save others: themselves they cannot save':

Property is organized robbery.

Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.

The reasonable man will adjust to the demands of his environment. The unreasonable man expects his environment to adjust to his own needs. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.

Seemingly unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. Much progress, therefore, depends on such people.

The problem with the press is that they can't tell the difference between a bicycle crash and the end of civilization.

Science is always wrong, it never solves a problem without creating ten more.

When an apparent miracle happened.it proved divine mission to the credulous, and proved a contract with the devil to the skeptical.

Socialism, reduced to its simplest legal and practical expression, means the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it into public property, and the division of the resultant public income equally and indiscriminately among the entire population.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

If you're not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization 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.