Sir Hans
dok@fwi.uva.nl
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are
doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than
we deserve.
@K: democracy
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with
the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Every man is a revolutionist concerning the thing he understands. For
example, every person who has mastered a profession is a sceptic concerning
it, and consequently a revolutionist.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: I want to sleep...
@R: Famous Last Words
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it
dance.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.
@K: patriotism
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all
others because you were born in it.
@K: patriotism
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made
him mad.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on
yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: She had lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power
of speech.
@K: conversation, speech
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
@Q: Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict without a single amiable trait.
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul.
@R: _Everybody's Political What's What?_ (1944) ch. 30
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell
on earth.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) act 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith. That is the
purpose and nature of miracles.yyyFrauds deceive. An event which creates
faith does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle.
@R: _Saint Joan_ (1924) sc. 2
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: A strange lady giving an address in Zurich wrote him [Shaw] a proposal,
thus: `You have the greatest brain in the world, and I have the most
beautiful body; so we ought to produce the most perfect child.' Shaw
asked: `What if the child inherits my body and your brains?'
@R: in Hesketh Pearson _Bernard Shaw_ (1942) p. 310
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Alcohol is a very necessary article. yyy It makes life bearable to
millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite
sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane
person would do at eleven in the morning.
@R: _Major Barbara_ (1907) act 2
@K: alcohol
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.
@R: _Misalliance_ (1914) p. 85
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their
tastes may not be the same.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule'
@K: Golden Rule
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the
Government and public opinion allow them to do.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Gin was mother's milk to her.
@R: _Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: HIGGINS: Doolittle, you're either an honest man or a rogue.
DOOLITTLE: A little of both, Guv'nor. Like the rest of us, a little
of both.
@R: _Pygmalion_ (1916)
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: Education'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: He who has never hoped can never despair.
@R: _Caesar and Cleopatra_ (1901) act 4
@K: hope
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: How can what an Englishman believes be heresy? It is a contradiction
in terms.
@R: _Saint Joan_ (1924) sc. 4
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
@R: _Major Barbara_ (1907) act 2
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: I don't believe in morality. I am a disciple of Bernard Shaw.
@R: _The Doctor's Dillema_ (1911) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: I never resist temptation because I have found things that are bad for
me do not tempt me.
@R: _The Apple Cart_ (1930) interlude
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: If parents would only realize how they bore their own children!
@R: _Misalliance_ (1914)
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: If you strike a child take care that you strike it in anger, even at
the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor
should be forgiven.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: How to Beat
Children'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: Greatness'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Is the devil to have all the passions as well as all the good tunes?
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) act 1
@%: Cf. Rowland Hill
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
@K: sincerity, stupidity
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: It's all the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up
to date.
@R: _Fanny's First Play_ (1914) `Induction'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Lack of money is the root of all evil.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists'
@%: Cf. Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: MENDOZA: I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.
TANNER: I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.
@R: _Man and Superman_ act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all the
sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact
for its basis.
@R: _The Irrational Knot_ (1905) preface, p. xiv
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that
have no imagination?
@R: _Saint Joan_ (1924) epilogue
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: My aunt died of influenza: so they said. But it's my belief they done
the old woman in.
@R: _Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: No eggs! No eggs!! Thousand thunders, man, what do you mean by no
eggs?
@R: _Saint Joan_ (1924) sc. 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an
educated gentleman.
@R: _Major Barbara_ (1907) act 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who havnt
and dont.
@R: _The Apple Cart_ (1930) act 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: PICKERING: Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE: Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was
as poor as me
@R: _Pygmalion_ (1916) act 2
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: SWINDON: What will history say?
BURGOYNE: History, sir, will tell lies as usual.
@R: _The Devil's Disciple_ (1901) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Sam wanted to make a Goldwyn writer of George Bernard Shaw. They
discussed it over tea one day in London. yyy A version of the conversation
was cabled over to Howard Dietz, Goldwyn's publicity chief; he compressed
Shaw's words into: `The trouble, mr Goldwyn, is that you are only
interested in art and I am only interested in money.' This was cabled back
to London and released there. It added considerably to Shaw's reputation
as a wit.
@R: Alva Johnson _The Great Goldwyn_ (1937) ch. 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you
get.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal
constancy of the women who love me.
@R: _The Philanderer_ (1898) act 2
@K: woman
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) `Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule'
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: The thought of two thousand people munching celery at the same time
horrified me.
@R: in G. Liebermann _The Greatest Laughs of All Time_
@%: Explaining why had turned down an invitation to a vegetarian gala
dinner.
@K: food
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down
her throat till she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl of the spoon.
@R: _Pygmalion_ (1916) act 3
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of creation. She sacrifices
herself to it.
@R: _Man and Superman_ (1903) act 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: Well, sir, you never can tell. Thats a principle in life with me, sir.
If youll excuse me having such a thing, sir.
@R: _You Never Can Tell_ (1898) act 2
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: What Englishmen will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford
to keep a motor car?
@R: _The Apple Cart_ (1930) act 1
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) *
@Q: When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always
declares that it is his duty.
@R: _Caesar and Cleopatra_ (1901) act 3
@K: duty
@A: Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) +
@Q: Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.
Hans,
--
Sir Hans dok@fwi.uva.nl
it wont be long now it wont be long
till earth is barren as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone --Don Marquis