"I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them."

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More quotes from: George Bernard Shaw

• "A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he ..."
• "A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. "
• "A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence ..."
• "A genius can't be forced; nor can you make an ape an alderman. "
• "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of ..."
• "A happy family is but an earlier heaven. "
• "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a ..."
• "A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a ..."
• "A man never tells you anything until you contradict him. "
• "A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without ..."
• "A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows. "
• "A Native American Elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of ..."
• "A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell. "
• "Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. "
• "All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All ..."
• "All great truths begin as blasphemies. "
• "All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have ..."
• "Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - ..."
• "Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about ..."
• "An asylum for the sane would be empty in America. "
• "An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; ..."
• "An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable. "
• "An index is a great leveller. "
• "Animals are my friends... and I don't eat my friends. "
• "Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. "
• "Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended. "
• "Beauty is a short-lived tyranny. "
• "Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when ..."
• "Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see ..."
• "Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. "
• "Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor ..."
• "Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed ..."
• "Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the ..."
• "Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men's imperfections, and conceal ..."
• "Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men ..."
• "Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life. "
• "Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't ..."
• "Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. "
• "Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. "
• "Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment ..."
• "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. "
• "Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes ..."
• "Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed. "
• "Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor ..."
• "England and America are two countries separated by the same language. "
• "Every man over forty is a scoundrel. "
• "Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it. "
• "Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. "
• "Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his ..."
• "Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen. "
• "Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics. "
• "Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious. "
• "Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an ..."
• "Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and ..."
• "First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. "
• "Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of ..."
• "General consultant to mankind. "
• "Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble ..."
• "Go anywhere in England where there are natural wholesome, contented and really nice English people; ..."
• "Go on writing plays, my boy, One of these days one of these London producers ..."
• "Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. "
• "He didn't dare to, because his father had a weak heart and habitually threatened to ..."
• "He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. "
• "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. "
• "He's a man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man ..."
• "Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never ..."
• "Hell is full of musical amateurs. "
• "Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained ..."
• "Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a ..."
• "How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms. "
• "I absolutely forbid any such outrage. "
• "I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as ..."
• "I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad. "
• "I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like ..."
• "I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while. "
• "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, ..."

• "I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me ..."
• "I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he ..."
• "I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. "
• "I want to be all used up when I die. "
• "I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work ..."
• "I'm an atheist and I thank God for it. "
• "I'm only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller. "
• "If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion. "
• "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of ..."
• "If parents would only realize how they bore their children! "
• "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it ..."
• "If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it ..."
• "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples ..."
• "If you injure your neighbour, better not do it by halves. "
• "If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself ..."
• "If you strike a child take care that you strike it in anger, even at ..."
• "Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you ..."
• "In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood ..."
• "In heaven an angel is nobody in particular. "
• "In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it. "
• "Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of ..."
• "It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers ..."
• "It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid. "
• "It is fortunate to come of distinguished ancestry. - It is not less so to ..."
• "It is most unwise for people in love to marry. "
• "It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics. "
• "It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion. "
• "It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right. "
• "Lack of money is the root of all evil. "
• "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. "
• "Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other ..."
• "Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases ..."
• "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. "
• "Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent. "
• "Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else. "
• "Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long. "
• "Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save ..."
• "Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window ..."
• "Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability. "
• "Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience. "
• "Men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. "
• "Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life ..."
• "Most people do not pray; they only beg. "
• "My reputation grows with every failure. "
• "Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him. "
• "Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us ..."
• "New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then ..."
• "No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely ..."
• "No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced ..."
• "No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very ..."
• "No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious. "
• "Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another ..."
• "Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious. "
• "Oh, the tiger will love you. There is no sincerer love than the love of ..."
• "Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love. "
• "Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever ..."
• "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you ..."
• "Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous. "
• "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. ..."
• "People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. "
• "People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. "
• "Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and ..."
• "Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes. "
• "Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, ..."
• "Property is organized robbery. "
• "Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad. "
• "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to ..."
• "Science never solves a problem without creating ten more. "
• "Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. "
• "She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech. "
• "Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. "
• "Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English. "
• "Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never ..."
• "Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive. "
• "Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one ..."

• "Syllables govern the world. "
• "Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what ..."
• "The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. "
• "The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him ..."
• "The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office. "
• "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the ..."
• "The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier. "
• "The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of ..."
• "The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship. "
• "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules. "
• "The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life. "
• "The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that ..."
• "The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, ..."
• "The love of economy is the root of all virtue. "
• "The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who ..."
• "The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man ..."
• "The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong. "
• "The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, ..."
• "The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six ..."
• "The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves. "
• "The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by ..."
• "The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder ..."
• "The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and ..."
• "The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post. "
• "The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react. "
• "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got ..."
• "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to ..."
• "The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are ..."
• "The seven deadly sins... food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,respectability and children. Nothing can lift those ..."
• "The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. "
• "The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business. "
• "The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the ..."
• "The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge ..."
• "The true joy of life is being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as ..."
• "The truth is, hardly any of us have ethical energy enough for more than one ..."
• "The utmost I can bear for myself in my best days is that I was ..."
• "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be ..."
• "There are only two classes in good society in England: the equestrian classes and the ..."
• "There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other ..."
• "There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. "
• "There is no sincerer love than the love of food. "
• "There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. "
• "Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it ..."
• "Very few people can afford to be poor. "
• "Virtue is insufficient temptation. "
• "Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at ..."
• "We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. "
• "We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility ..."
• "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. "
• "We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth ..."
• "We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. "
• "We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, ..."
• "What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to ..."
• "What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married? "
• "What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution ..."
• "What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge ..."
• "When a man says money can do anything, that settles it: he hasn't got any. "
• "When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport; when the tiger ..."
• "When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that ..."
• "When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were ..."
• "When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points ..."
• "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, ..."
• "Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The ..."
• "Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about ..."
• "Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the ..."
• "Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. "
• "You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward ..."
• "You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge ..."
• "You cannot be a hero without being a coward. "
• "You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and ..."
• "You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human ..."
• "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. "
• "Youth is wasted on the young. "