"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does."

"Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children."

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it."

"You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."

"Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive."

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

"The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there."

"Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough."

"I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad."

"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."

"Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men."

"If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all."

"If women were particular about men's characters, they would never get married at all."

"Between persons of equal income there is no social distinction except the distinction of merit. Money is nothing: character, conduct, and capacity are everything. There would be great people and ordinary people and little people, but the great would always be those who had done great things, and never the idiots whose mothers had spoiled them and whose fathers had left them a hundred thousand a year; and the little would be persons of small minds and mean characters, and not poor persons who had never had a chance. That is why idiots are always in favor of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favor of equality."

"Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like; it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability"

"I am very sorry, but I cannot learn languages. I have tried hard, only to find that men of ordinary capacity can learn Sanskrit in less time that it takes me to buy a German Dictionary"

"Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love."

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

"Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes"

"You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'"

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

"My reputation grows with every failure."

"I write plays because I like it and because I cannot remember any period in my life when I could have been inventing people and scenes. I am not primarily a story teller : things occur to me first as seems with action and dialogue as moments, develop"

"The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a great refuge from home life"

"Orchestras only need to be sworn at, and a German is consequently at an advantage with them, as English profanity, except in America, has not gone beyond a limited technology of perdition."

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. 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"

"A genius can't be forced; nor can you make an ape an alderman."

"Always let your flattery be seen through for what really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering"

"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."

"If you are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life, your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live."

"Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful."

"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect"

"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."

"I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead -- ahead of myself as well as you."

"The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years."

"If you value a man's regard, strive with him. As to liking, you like your newspaper -- and despise it."

"A child hasn't a grown-up person's appetite for affection. A little of it goes a long way with them; and they like a good imitation of it better than the real thing, as every nurse knows."

"You can easily find people who are ten times as rich at sixty as they were at twenty; but not one of them will tell you that they are ten times as happy"

"When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices."

"If you injure your neighbour, better not do it by halves."

"Get married, but never to a man who is home all day"

"The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people"

"Better never than late."

"Go on writing plays, my boy, One of these days one of these London producers will go into his office and say to his secretary, "Is there a play from Shaw this morning?" and when she says, "No," he will say, "Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish." And that's your chance, my boy."

"You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the government. And, with due respect to these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold."

"The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some."

"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history."

"Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes, they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception."

"Perversion is the erotic form of hatred."