The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (81 page)

Major Barbara (1907) act 3

The sixth Undershaft wrote up these words: Nothing is ever done in this

world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.

Major Barbara (1907) act 3

Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one

young woman and another.

Major Barbara (1907) act 3

But a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell

on earth.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves,

of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our

experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

Vitality in a woman is a blind fury of creation. She sacrifices herself

to it.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his

mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but

his art.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

Of all human struggles there is none so treacherous and remorseless as the

struggle between the artist man and the mother woman.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

Man and Superman (1903) act 1

Very nice sort of place, Oxford, I should think, for people that like that

sort of place. They teach you to be a gentleman there. In the Polytechnic

they teach you to be an engineer or such like.

Man and Superman (1903) act 2

You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the

pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to

overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the

destined prey.

Man and Superman (1903) act 2

It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's

to keep unmarried as long as he can.

Man and Superman (1903) act 2

Mendoza: I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.

Tanner: I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the

Government and public opinion allow them to do.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

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.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

In the arts of peace Man is a bungler.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

As an old soldier I admit the cowardice: it's as universal as sea

sickness, and matters just as little.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

When the military man approaches, the world locks up its spoons and packs

off its womankind.

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of

its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and

the prisoners were left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly

asunder. You can't have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy,

why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?

Man and Superman (1903) act 3

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it

has been in the house three days?

Man and Superman (1903) act 4

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your hearts desire. The

other is to get it.

Man and Superman (1903) act 4

Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only

shifted it to another shoulder.

Man and Superman (1903) "The Revolutionist's Handbook," foreword

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their

tastes may not be the same.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule"

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: The Golden Rule"

The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy

consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of

idolators. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only

worship the national idols.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Idolatry"

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by

the corrupt few.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Democracy"

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Liberty and Equality"

The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a child's character.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Education"

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Education"

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the

maximum of opportunity.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Marriage"

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced

by the inferior.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Titles"

When domestic servants are treated as human beings it is not worth while

to keep them.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Servants"

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.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: How to Beat Children"

Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Religion"

Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on

rascality.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Virtues and Vice"

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Greatness"

A moderately honest man with a moderately faithful wife, moderate drinkers

both, in a moderately healthy house: that is the true middle class unit.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Moderation"

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.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Reason"

The man who listens to Reason is lost: Reason enslaves all whose minds are

not strong enough to master her.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Reason"

Decency is Indecency's conspiracy of silence.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Decency"

Life levels all men: death reveals the eminent.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Fame"

Home is the girl's prison and the woman's workhouse.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Women in the Home"

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings"

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which

forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings"

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings"

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings"

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you

nor allows you to forgive yourself.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Stray Sayings"

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists: Self-Sacrifice"

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing

it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does

everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs

you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he

bullies you on manly principles; he supports his king on loyal principles

and cuts off his king's head on republican principles.

Man of Destiny (1898) p. 201

Anybody on for a game of tennis?

Misalliance (1914) p. 25 (perhaps the origin of the phrase "Anyone for

tennis?," said to be typical of drawing-room comedies; cf. Humphrey

Bogart)

Anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you.

Misalliance (1914) p. 85

The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be

good to some man that can afford to be good to her.

Mrs Warren's Profession (1898) act 2

A great devotee of the Gospel of Getting On.

Mrs Warren's Profession (1898) act 4 (said of Miss Warren)

[Dancing is] a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

In New Statesman 23 Mar. 1962

Youll never have a quiet world til you knock the patriotism out of the

human race.

O'Flaherty V.C. (1919) p. 178

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is

death.

Overruled (1916) p. 72

There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so

horrible as a school. To begin with, it is a prison. But it is in some

respects more cruel than a prison. In a prison, for instance, you are not

forced to read books written by the warders and the governor...and beaten

or otherwise tormented if you cannot remember their utterly unmemorable

contents.

Parents and Children (1914) "School"

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether

you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

Parents and Children (1914) "Children's Happiness"

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

Parents and Children (1914) "Children's Happiness"

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal

constancy of the women who love me.

The Philanderer (1898) act 2

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898) vol. 2, preface

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their

children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach

himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open

his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

Pygmalion (1916) preface

Hes a gentleman: look at his boots.

Pygmalion (1916) act 1

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of

articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespear

and Milton and The Bible; and don't sit there crooning like a bilious

pigeon.

Pygmalion (1916) act 1

I don't want to talk grammar, I want to talk like a lady.

Pygmalion (1916) act 2

Pickering: Have you no morals, man?

Doolittle: Can't afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as

poor as me.

Pygmalion (1916) act 2

I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that

means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle-class morality all the

time.

Pygmalion (1916) act 2

My aunt died of influenza: so they said. But it's my belief they done the

old woman in.

Pygmalion (1916) act 3

Gin was mother's milk to her.

Pygmalion (1916) act 3

Freddy: Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so--

Liza: Walk! Not bloody likely. I am going in a taxi.

Pygmalion (1916) act 3

I have to live for others and not for myself: thats middle-class morality.

Pygmalion (1916) act 5

The Churches must learn humility as well as teach it.

Saint Joan (1924) preface

If ever I utter an oath again may my soul be blasted to eternal damnation!

Saint Joan (1924) sc. 2

A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose

and nature of miracles.... Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith

does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle.

Saint Joan (1924) sc. 2

We were not fairly beaten, my lord. No Englishman is ever fairly beaten.

Saint Joan (1924) sc. 4

How can what an Englishman believes be heresy? It is a contradiction in

terms.

Saint Joan (1924) sc. 4

Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have

no imagination?

Saint Joan (1924) epilogue

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even

Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare

when I measure my mind against his. The intensity of my impatience with