George Bernard Shaw
Traced to source
16 quotes we’ve traced to George Bernard Shaw
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing”
Verified“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself”
Verified“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity”
Verified“England and America are two countries separated by a common language”
Attributed“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week”
Attributed“The longer I live, the more I am inclined to the belief that this earth is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum”
Attributed“You Are Only Interested in Art and I Am Only Interested in Money”
Attributed“Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One”
Disputed“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you”
Disputed“My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world”
Disputed“The Play Was a Great Success, But the Audience Was a Total Failure”
Disputed“Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach”
Disputed“Though music be a universal language, it is spoken with all sorts of accents”
Disputed“Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything”
Disputed“When the End of the World Comes, I Want To Be in Cincinnati. It Is Always Ten Years Behind the Times”
Disputed“Youth is wasted on the young”
DisputedNot actually George Bernard Shaw
Often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw
Famous lines widely pinned on George Bernard Shaw that we’ve traced to someone else.
“America Is the Only Country That Went from Barbarism to Decadence Without Civilization In Between”
actually James Agate
“Here are Two Tickets for the Opening of My Play. Bring a Friend—If You Have One”
actually Unknown
“I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it”
actually Anonymous (popularized by Cyrus S. Ching)
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas”
actually Charles F. Brannan (apple version); origin traces to an anonymous 1917 magazine advertisement
“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you”
actually Unknown
“It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics”
actually Bertrand Russell
“People Who Like This Sort of Thing Will Find This the Sort of Thing They Like”
actually Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne)
“Quotation Is a Serviceable Substitute for Wit”
actually W. Somerset Maugham
“Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one a second time”
actually Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”
actually William H. Whyte
“Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything”
actually Unknown
“When the End of the World Comes, I Want To Be in Cincinnati. It Is Always Ten Years Behind the Times”
actually Unknown (an anonymous German saying)
“Youth is wasted on the young”
actually Unknown
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