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!
Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
There is nothing more dangerous than the conscience of a bigot.
Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it.
Always contradict an authoritative statement.
[Shaw was a vegetarian]
My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry, and a small travelling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor to the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures.
The function of comedy is nothing less than the destruction of old-established morals.
When you prevent me from doing anything I want to do, that is persecution; but when I prevent you from doing anything you want to do, that is law, order, and morals.
The artist’s work is to show us ourselves as we really are.
Consider whether we can weed out from the great mass of desirable films those which are detrimental to public morals. The censorship method is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.
My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.
No child would ever dream of a statue being indecent if it had not been taught so.
No doubt it is natural to a snail to think that any evolution which threatens to do away with shells will result in general death from exposure.
I do not, like the Fundamentalists, believe that creation stopped six thousand years ago after a week of hard work. Creation is going on all the time.
In the old Hebrew legend, God lost patience with the world as Nero did with Rome, and drowned everybody except a single family. But the result was that the progeny of that family reproduced all the vices of their predecessors so exactly that the misery caused by the flood might just as well have been spared.
Immorality does not necessarily imply mischievous conduct: it implies conduct, mischievous or not, which does not conform to current ideals.
There is only one true morality for every man; but every man has not the same true morality.
Whatever is contrary to established manners and customs is immoral. An immoral act or doctrine is not necessarily a sinful one: on the contrary, every advance in thought and conduct is by definition immoral until it has converted the majority.
[Shaw was for many years a music critic.]
The chorus did everything to perfection except sing.
This is the real secret of the terror inspired by an original thinker. In repudiating convention he is repudiating that on which his neighbors are relying for their sense of security.
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.
Instruction in sex is as important as instruction in food; yet not only are our adolescents not taught the physiology of sex, but never warned that the strongest sexual attraction may exist between persons so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they could not endure living together for a week much less a lifetime.
Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.
The truth is the one thing nobody will believe.