Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment
is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
2. Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
3. I like talking to a brick wall, it's the only thing in the world that never
contradicts me.
4. To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like
carelessness.
5. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
10. A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
15. A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
20. All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates
art far more than art imitates life.
21. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man
does. That's his.
23. Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.
25. America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence
without civilization in between.
27. Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds
exactly the same opinion.
28. Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often
convincing.
29. Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has
known.
30. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own
daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.
31. As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
popular.
32. As yet, Bernard Shaw hasn't become prominent enough to have any
enemies, but none of his friends like him.
36. Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
40. Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them;
rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
41. Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is
the trade-name of the firm. That is all.
45. Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people
for the people.
46. Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you
that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength,
strength and courage to yield to.
47. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time
to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
48. Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist,
not of the sitter.
49. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
53. Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper
basis for family life.
55. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry
that they dare not realise.
56. He must have a truly romantic nature, for he weeps when there is
nothing at all to weep about.
57. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is
the thief of time.
58. How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on
treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.
60. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is
never of any use to oneself.
63. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their
good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be
too careful in the choice of his enemies.
66. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be
wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
67. I never travel without my diary. One should always have something
sensational to read in the train.
68. I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.
69. I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most
immediate way in which a human being can share with another the
sense of what it is to be a human being.
70. I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives.
But women when they love give everything.
73. If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no
use in reading it at all.
74. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to
listen, society here would be quite civilized.
75. If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad
music people don't talk.
76. If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble
in the world.
77. If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
78. If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you
pretend to be bad, it doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of
optimism.
81. In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism
governs forever and ever.
82. In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older
than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
84. In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.
87. It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either
charming or tedious.
88. It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears is said to be seen at
San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the
attractions of the next world.
91. It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all
schools of art.
93. It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our
perfection.
94. It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you
will be when you can't help it.
96. Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when
the flowers are dead.
97. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the
best ending for one.
98. Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
99. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.
100.Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it
is not.
103.Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a
mask, and he will tell you the truth.
109.Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's
opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
113.My great mistake, the fault for which I can't forgive myself, is that
one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.
114.No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would
cease to be an artist.
115.No man is rich enough to buy back his past.
117.No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so
calculating.
118.Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure
the senses but the soul.
123.Of course America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it
had always been hushed up.
125.One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down
everything except a good reputation.
126.One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are
what they are and will be what they will be.
127.One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never
marry.
128.One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.
129.One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should
be judged.
131.Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are
infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
132.Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each
one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do
more.
135.Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses
both.
141.She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes.
That is always a sign of despair in a woman.
143.Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.
145.The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the
world its own shame.
149.The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction
means.
152.The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead
for you.
155.The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist
everything but temptation.
159.The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
162.The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
165.The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily
married life.
166.The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the
incredible, and those who do the improbable.
167.There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating -
people who know absolutely everything, and people who know
absolutely nothing.
168.There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one
wants, and the other is getting it.
174.There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and
that is not being talked about.
182.What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive
the old art of Lying.
183.When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her
except continue to love her.
186.When I was young I thought that money was the most important
thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.
194.Yet each man kills the thing he loves, by each let this be heard, some
do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does
it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!