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George Bernard Shaw
Irish playwright and 1935 Nobel prize winner; b. 1856; d. 1950
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Aphorisms Attributed to This Aphorist
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# · Unrated · submitted 1997 (updated 1999)
You see things and you say, "Why?" But I see things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah, Part I, Act I (1921), in Success and Failure
# · Unrated · submitted 1997 (updated 1998)
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997 (updated 1998)
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
A reasonable man adapts himself to suit his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well dance with it.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
George Bernard Shaw, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
My father must have had some elementary education, for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately.
# · Good (one rating) · submitted 1997
Poverty doesn't bring unhappiness; it brings degradation.
George Bernard Shaw, in Happiness and Misery and Wealth and Poverty
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
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.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
Virtue is insufficient temptation.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
# · Unrated · submitted 1997
When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.
George Bernard Shaw, in Success and Failure and Work and Recreation
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