"Find enough clever things to say, and you're a Prime Minister; write them down and you're a Shakespeare"

"The camera can represent flesh so superbly that, if I dared, I would never photograph a figure without asking that figure to take its clothes off."

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul"

"No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office."

"I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could."

"Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty"

"Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness."

"Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who looks at it when it has been in the house three days?"

"Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born"

"Suppose the world were only one of God's jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one?"

"Bad theaters are as mischievous as bad schools."

"Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run."

"Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree."

"People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them."

"Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth."

"I have to live for others and not for myself; that's middle class morality"

"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

"Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it."

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations."

"The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another."

"If Pygmalion is not good enough for your friends with its own verbal music, their talent must be altogether extraordinary."

"Our necessities are few, but our wants are endless."

"He who has never hoped can never despair"

"The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

"I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them ''You are supreme: exercise your power.'' They say, ''That's right: tell us what to do;'' and I tell them. I say ''Exercise our vote intelligently by voting for me.'' And they do. That's democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place."

"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."

"When I was young I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures, so I did ten times more work"

"Ladies and gentleman are permitted to have friends in the kennel, but not in the kitchen."

"Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think."

"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech."

"Woman's dearest delight is to wound Man's self-conceit, though Man's dearest delight is to gratify hers"

"She has lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech."

"Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real center of the household."

"I want to be all used up when I die."

"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."

"Experience fails to teach where there is no desire to learn."

"Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it"

"The only service a friend can really render is to keep your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself"

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live."

"Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius."

"He's a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage"

"A man of great common sense and good taste is a man without originality or moral courage."

"A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income."

"The seven deadly sins... food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted."

"We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy"

"It's so hard to know what to do when one wishes earnestly to do right."

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."

"I began as a passion and ended as a habit, like all husbands."